The Holy Spirit Today

"Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16) 

The Lord Jesus, before His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, told His disciples: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper [Paraclete – comforter, advocate, Someone to always stand with you], that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17)

Many Christians often think of the Holy Spirit only in relationship to the Day of Pentecost when He filled the 120 disciples in that upper room, and they began glorifying God with other tongues. We find that event in Acts chapter two. But God the Holy Spirit is much more than we see in Acts 2. Here are only a few examples of His role on earth and in the life of the child of God:

The Holy Spirit participated in the creation days of Genesis chapters one and two. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3).

Look back to the clause where Moses described the Holy Spirit as ‘hovering’ over the surface of the waters. The Hebrew word Moses used for hovering – ‘moving,’ in some translations – can also be translated as “brooding,” as an eagle broods over, protects, and cherishes her young in the nest.

Do you feel loved? Do you feel protected? Do you feel cherished by God? I hope so. But please also remember, we do not live by our feelings. We live by faith in what God says to us in His holy word – words such as these in Jeremiah 31:3, “I have loved you with an everlasting love” Or this beautiful text from Psalm 139: 

O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand! I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence!

If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night— but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you. You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. (Psalm 139:1-16, NLT)

Please listen: When God tells us He cherishes us, that He loves us, that He is always protecting us, believe it because God cannot lie. Cannot. Lie. God has given to each of His children the inexpressibly wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit to be our comforter, Someone to always stand with us.

And don’t think for a nanosecond the Holy Spirit is not right now brooding over you, wherever you might be reading this. God the Holy Spirit hovers over us to protect, to nurture us, to love us, and to gather us under His wings.

Another role of the Holy Spirit is, in the words of Jesus, to “convince the world of its sin, and of the availability of God’s goodness, and of deliverance from judgment.” (John 16:7-8, TLB)

If you are a child of God through the blood of Jesus, you are His child because of the Holy Spirit’s work in your heart years and years ago to convince you of your sins – and at the same time to reveal to you God’s willingness to forgive every one of those sins – regardless of how egregious they were. It was the Holy Spirit who taught you how you could be completely and forever delivered from God’s wrathful judgment against us for those sins.

And the Holy Spirit also empowers us to co-labor with Him, to reach out to those who still live away from His nurturing and comfort. Jesus gives us the inexplicable privilege to go with Him in His Name into all the world and make disciples of all peoples, races, languages, cultures, and backgrounds. That’s the message of Isaiah 61: 

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and freedom to prisoners . . . To comfort all who mourn . . .

This passage of Scripture does not only apply to the Lord Jesus, or His apostles, or the pastors and shepherds and teachers. It applies to every Christian because every Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit who has commanded us – and has empowered us – to go into all the world.

The Holy Spirit gives you and me the authority to bring good news to sin-sickened souls, the good news that God loves them – regardless of their sins. We bring them the good news that He wants to forgive them and give them a new heart and a new spirit and a new soul. A clean slate. He wants to write their names in His book of life.

Think for a moment what that means. We can bind the wounds of the brokenhearted, give them good news that can free the prisoners from sin’s chains through the blood of Jesus. We can comfort those who mourn – those who mourn their losses – their lost years, lost opportunities, lost loved ones, lost chances.

And there is still more. The Holy Spirit leads us into truth. God’s truth. The only truth which can free us from the subtle and deadly chains of satanic deception vomited hourly from sources of news, entertainment, politics, and education. The Holy Spirit tells us of God’s inerrant and eternal truth.

You may remember Pilate’s question of Jesus as the Lord stood before him at the trial. Here is how John records it: “Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, “I find no guilt in Him” (John 18:37-38).

We’ve all heard the proverb, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.” Likewise, the Holy Spirit leads us to His eternal truth preserved for us in the Holy Scriptures, but we have a responsibility to receive AND obey that truth.

God help us to not do as Pilate did – ask God a question and not wait for His answer. God help us to not be as those of whom St. Paul wrote, “[W]anting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4.)

And finally, for today’s message, just as Death’s grip could not hold the Lord Jesus in the grave, Death will not hold you, either. It is the Holy Spirit who will resurrect from death all those who have, in this life, loved and served Jesus. Here is what God tells us through the apostle Paul: “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:11)

This song written by Jeremy Camp, speaks to that glorious truth. Here are some of the lyrics (The Same Power):

The same power that rose Jesus from the grave,
The same power that commands the dead to wake
Lives in us, lives in us.
The same power that moves mountains when He speaks,
The same power that can calm a raging sea,
Lives in us, lives in us.

Greater is He that is living in me
He's conquered our enemy
No power of darkness
No weapon prevails
We stand here in victory

Christian, listen: God the Holy Spirit is not done with us yet. He still has a mission for us to accomplish. Whatever our age, whatever our health, whatever our limitations – the Holy Spirit still specializes in meeting the needs of multitudes with a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread.

Let’s stay with Him in His holy work.