Understanding The Spirit
Who is the Holy Spirit? What does he actually do? Why does it matter?
Are you a bit confused about who the Holy Spirit is? Do you wonder what His role is?
If you are, this is the fundamental verse in the Bible that will help you understand the Holy Spirit (it’s Jesus speaking):
He will glorify me. (John 16:14)
Let me explain...
The Holy Spirit is all about Jesus
TIME magazine had a front cover about teenagers today. They titled them, ‘The me, me, me generation: Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists’. You can decide for yourself how fair it is, but you could never give that title to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is all about Jesus. His purpose is a person; his identity is in someone else.
The Son of God has the Spirit of God powerfully working in him to achieve the plan of God the Father. The Father’s plan is to give his only Son to die, so that we might be cleansed by the Spirit. It’s beautiful to see such selfless actions and love within the Trinity. They all work for the good and glory of the other, never for themselves.
As we focus on the Spirit, he is all about Jesus all of the time in all he does. The Spirit will glorify Jesus.
This is why the Holy Spirit is known as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ in the same verse. The Holy Spirit is about Jesus with intensity.
The shy member of the Trinity
The Spirit is often known as the ‘shy member of the Trinity’, and he does not see that as a bad thing, because he wants no attention of his own.
He’s like the floodlights at a large sporting event or the theatre. The point of the lights is so we can see the action in front of us. We aren’t to look around and watch the lights and say ‘Oh my, what a bright light’. If we do that, the lights have failed in their mission, and we failed in our understanding. The lights mean we can see the action, so keep looking at the action. Every time we look at Jesus, the Holy Spirit is doing his work. If we talk about Jesus, we’re doing a Holy Spirit thing.
Understanding the Spirit matters!
So connected are the Spirit and Jesus that to reject one is to reject the other. The teachers of the law ran into this problem when they accused Jesus of being from Satan. Jesus then warned them that someone who thinks like this ‘blasphemes against the Holy Spirit’. To reject Jesus as being from Satan is to abuse the work of the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit is all about Christ.
I think understanding the Spirit is so important, I wrote a book about it called The Spirit.
What’s the point of the book?
It's to see how the Spirit points us to Jesus and shows us Jesus. When we look at the Spirit speaking today, we’ll hear the words of Jesus. As we discuss telling others in the boldness of the Spirit, it’ll be about Jesus. Praying in the Spirit is praying in the name of Jesus. Keeping in step with the Spirit is growing to be like Jesus. Because the Holy Spirit is about Jesus with intensity.
In The Spirit, Edward Surrey uses stories, humour, and loads of the Bible to teach us about the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is at the centre of the Christian life, and he is critical for following Jesus.
Buy it now from the fervr store!
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