Sweet Sisters,
This is one of those lessons where you are going to want to grab a cup of coffee and take a little bit of time.
A few weeks ago, our preacher at Palm Desert, Steve McCall, preached a wonderful sermon about how the Holy Spirit works in our lives. I don’t think we talk enough about who the Holy Spirit is and what role He plays in our lives.
The Holy Spirit is part of what we call “The Trinity”: God the Father, Jesus, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are one but yet they are three separate personalities. It is a very difficult concept to grasp. The best way for me to visualize it is a thick rope made of three cords that are different colors but woven together as one. Together they are God (Remember if we understand everything about God, He wouldn’t be God).
The Holy Spirit appears very early in the Bible. Genesis 1:1-2 tells us “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty,
darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Genesis 1:26 is a very interesting verse:
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image,
in our likeness,
so that they may rule over the fish in the sea
and the birds in the sky,
over the livestock and all the wild animals,
and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
“Let us make man in our image”, let him be like us. WOW!
We tend to think that the Holy Spirit wasn’t involved in the lives of men until the New Testament. I don’t find this to be true. In Psalms 51:10-12 we find these words:
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
The Psalmist believed that the Holy Spirit was with him and helped him.
In Ezekiel 36:27, Ezekiel says:
27 And I will put my Spirit in you
and move you to follow my decrees
and be careful to keep my laws.
We see here that the Holy Spirit is in us and helps us follow God’s decrees.
The Holy Spirit also appears very early in the New Testament. In Matthew 3:11, John the Baptizer tells the people coming out to listen to him:
11 “I baptize you with water for repentance.
But after me comes one who is more powerful than I,
whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
The book of John talks about the Holy Spirit in several places. In John 3:5-8, Jesus talks to Nicodemus about the role of the Holy Spirit.
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you,
no one can enter the kingdom of God
unless they are born of water and the Spirit.
6 Flesh gives birth to flesh,
but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
7 You should not be surprised at my saying,
‘You must be born again.’
8 The wind blows wherever it pleases.
You hear its sound,
but you cannot tell where it comes from
or where it is going.
So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
In John 14:15-17, Jesus tells us that the Father will send an Advocate to help us. He will live with us and within us.
15 “If you love me, keep my commands.
16 And I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another advocate
to help you and be with you forever—
17 the Spirit of truth.
The world cannot accept him,
because it neither sees him
nor knows him.
But you know him,
for he lives with you and will be in you.
Jesus goes on to say in verse 26, that the Advocate, Holy Spirit, will teach us and remind us of everything He has said.
26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all things
and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
Jesus continues teaching in chapters 15 – 17 of John. In John 15:26, Jesus says the Holy Spirit will testify about Him.
26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.
In John 16:12-15, Jesus tells His disciples that He understands that they cannot “bear” (Debbie’s paraphrase – “get”) everything He is telling them but that when the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide them. He will also glorify Jesus because he will only be able to teach what Jesus taught.
12 “I have much more to say to you,
more than you can now bear.
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes,
he will guide you into all the truth.
He will not speak on his own;
he will speak only what he hears,
and he will tell you what is yet to come.
14 He will glorify me because
it is from me that he will receive
what he will make known to you.
15 All that belongs to the Father is mine.
That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me
what he will make known to you.”
The book of Acts explodes with the power of the Holy Spirit. One 18th Century Bible scholar, J. A. Bengal, is quoted as saying, “We call Acts, ‘Acts of the Apostles’. We really should call it ‘Acts of the Holy Spirit’.”
I read that the Holy Spirit is mentioned 56 times in the Book of Acts. The book of Acts starts off in chapter 1:1-2 with Luke saying that Jesus had gone back to heaven after giving instructions to His apostles through the Holy Spirit.
In my former book, Theophilus,
I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach
2 until the day he was taken up to heaven,
after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit
to the apostles he had chosen.
In verse 8, Jesus tells them they will receive power from the Holy Spirit.
8 But you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit comes on you;
and you will be my witnesses
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.”
In Acts 2:4 we see the Holy Spirit continuing to work:
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in other tongues
as the Spirit enabled them.
In chapter 4 of Acts, Peter and John prayed. After they prayed, in verse 31 it says:
31 After they prayed,
the place where they were meeting was shaken.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and spoke the word of God boldly.
I encourage you to continue to read the book of Acts and look for all times that the Holy Spirit “moves”.
Let me comment here that I will not be mentioning every verse concerning the Holy Spirit as we continue our study through the New Testament. As tour guide, I will show you the ones that I found particularly interesting.
As we continue to follow the Holy Spirit, we come to the book of Romans. Romans 5:5:
5 And hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit,
who has been given to us.
God’s love is poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Romans 8 has an editorial comment next to it in my bible that says, “Life through the Spirit”. This chapter goes into a lot of detail about living with the Holy Spirit. I really like verses 1 and 2:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus,
2 because through Christ Jesus
the law of the Spirit
who gives life has set you free
from the law of sin and death.
The Spirit gives life. Verse 11:
11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead
is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead
will also give life to your mortal bodies
because of his Spirit who lives in you.
The Holy Spirit lives in us and gives us life. And verse 26:
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
We do not know what we ought to pray for,
but the Spirit himself intercedes for us
through wordless groans.
The Spirit helps us and intercedes for us.
In Romans 15:13, Paul prays that our hearts will overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace
as you trust in him,
so that you may overflow with hope
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I Corinthians 6:11 tells us that we are washed, sanctified and justified in the name of Jesus and by the Spirit of God.
11 And that is what some of you were.
But you were washed,
you were sanctified,
you were justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and by the Spirit of our God.
II Corinthians 5:5:
5 Now the one who has fashioned us
for this very purpose is God,
who has given us the Spirit as a deposit,
guaranteeing what is to come.
The Holy Spirit is our deposit from God.
Galatians 5:22-23 describes the fruit of the Spirit.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace,
forbearance, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:25 describes what it looks like when we keep in step with the Spirit.
25 Since we live by the Spirit,
let us keep in step with the Spirit.
26 Let us not become conceited,
provoking and envying each other.
Ephesians 1:13 – 14:
13 And you also were included in Christ
when you heard the message of truth,
the gospel of your salvation.
When you believed,
you were marked in him with a seal,
the promised Holy Spirit,
14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance
until the redemption of those who are God’s possession
—to the praise of his glory.
Again we see that when we believe we are marked with a seal – the Holy Spirit.
I Thessalonians 5:19 is a verse that should make us pause and think.
19 Do not quench the Spirit.
We’ve looked at a lot of verses today that describe how the Holy Spirit can work in our lives. The Holy Spirit will not force us to accept His help. We can refuse it or ignore it. One of the greatest gifts God gives us is the gift of choice.
As we continue our tour we come to II Timothy 1:7. I absolutely love this verse and rely on it heavily in my spiritual battle.
7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid,
but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
Titus 3:5-6 describes how God saved us through baptism (Debbie’s paraphrase) and being renewed by the Holy Spirit.
5 he saved us,
not because of righteous things we had done,
but because of his mercy.
He saved us through the washing of rebirth
and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
6 whom he poured out on us generously
through Jesus Christ our Savior,
The last verse we will look at today is in Hebrews 9:14.
14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit
offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,
so that we may serve the living God!
Paul says that it was through the eternal Spirit that Jesus offered Himself as an unblemished sacrifice to God.
Sweet Sisters, my goal for this lesson was to introduce you to the Holy Spirit. He is a vital, powerful part of our Christian walk. I would challenge you that as you study the passages we have looked at in this study, to go back and make a list of all the roles that the Holy Spirit is capable of performing in our lives.
If you have not taken advantage of being in a relationship with Him before, my prayer is that you will now.
Debbie