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Life
Through His Spirit
Our lives have been touched deeply by the Spirit
of God. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would be our
helper, our guide, our teacher and he is all that
and more. In the Gospel of John chapter
14:16,17 Jesus said, "And I will ask the
Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be
with you forever-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." The word "Counselor"
literally means "helper", someone that comes to our
aid in the time of trouble. This is the Holy
Spirit. When life gets tough the Holy Spirit
comes to your aid. He gives strength, hope and
peace. He brings light to dark places of our
lives. He helps us to walk through circumstances
that look impossible. He brings life.
Jesus also said that the Holy Spirit would be a
teacher. John 14:26 says, "But the Counselor,
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." If the
disciples needed the Holy Spirit to understand
Jesus' teaching then it is absolutely certain that
we need the Holy Spirit to understand the Word of
God. Apostle Paul said it this way in his
letter to the Corinthians, "The man without the
Spirit does not accept the things that come from the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, he
cannot understand them, because they are
spiritually discerned." ( I Corinthians 2:14)
If you want to understand the Bible you are going
to have to be taught by the Spirit of God. You
cannot simply rely on your own mental abilities.
The Word of God is understood only by the born-again
spirit that is within you as it is taught by the
Spirit of God. This is why there are religious
people who have no true life from God. They
read and study only by the power of their own minds
and fail to come to the truth. Therefore they
get mired in ritual, in doing works for God and not
the works of God. The Spirit brings life not
bondage to a religious system.
The Holy Spirit is also a guide into truth.
John 16:13 says,
"But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will
guide you into all 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." Each of us
need to hear what God has to say about our lives
every day. The Holy Spirit is able to set the
agenda for our lives, every single day.
Recently a man boarded a plane in order to go to a
business meeting. When he arrived at the
meeting, the customer apologized because the meeting
had to be cancelled, he had come all that way for
nothing. As he was contemplating his plight he
struck up a conversation with a woman in the office.
She was going through a difficult period in her life
and was searching for answers. As the
businessman shared his faith in Christ the woman
instantly accepted the Lord. The businessman's
trip was cancelled by his customer, but his
spiritual mission was completed when he spoke to the
woman about the Lord.
Part Two: Receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit
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