The Holy Spirit
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June 03, 2012 |
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 "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever." (John 14:16)
After the Lord Jesus resurrected and ascended into Heaven, His disciples and the church members gathered in Mark's upper room and prayed every day waiting for the Holy Spirit the Lord had promised. When the Pentecost had come, suddenly there came from Heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.
The lives of the disciples and church members who received the Holy Spirit as a gift were renewed. When the apostles boldly preached the gospel before the people, approximately 3,000 people repented at a time and a man who had been lame from his birth came to stand up and walk by the power of the Holy Spirit.
1. The reason why God sent the Holy Spirit
John 14:16 says, "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever." John 16:7 reads, "…it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you."
It means that the Lord will come again to take us to the everlasting dwelling place, Heaven, and He will be with us by sending the Holy Spirit who is the One with the Lord. In the Words of Jesus are embedded the heart and love of God who created men and is cultivating us to be His true children.
God didn't forget about Adam even after he committed the sin of disobedience and was driven out from the Garden of Eden. He has guided men to live according to His will and when the time came He finally sent His only begotten Son Jesus as atoning sacrifice for all men. He wanted to be with us by allowing for us to recover the relationship between the Father and His children.
Through His crucifixion and death, Jesus made peace between God and us. Moreover, after He broke the authority of death and ascended into heaven He sent another Helper to us. The "Helper" refers to the Holy Spirit who protects and helps believers. Jesus opened the way to Heaven but He knew that man's capability just isn't enough to go the way He opened by themselves.
God let us know how much He loved us by giving Jesus on the cross, and then He demonstrated His love again by sending us the Holy Spirit.
2. Things the Holy Spirit does for us
1) He gives us strength to overcome the world.
1 John 2:15 reads, "Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." The worldly things belong to the flesh and the untruth which are opposite to God who is spirit. Therefore, we can love God when we cast away the fleshly attachments we have for the world and worldly things.
Perhaps you feel it is difficult to cast off love for the worldly things. This is because men are created of dust from the ground. One of the characteristics of dust is that it easily changes when other substances are added to it. Men, who were created of dust, also have a very similar character. After Adam sinned, men have been corrupted more and more over time because they have seen, heard, and made contact with so much untruth, sin, and evil in the fleshly world that is governed by the enemy devil and Satan. That is why it may seem not so easy to cast away untruth in such a dark world and live a life of goodness following the truth.
However, we can get rid of the untruth and the flesh when we receive the help of the Holy Spirit. God knows very well about the traits of men who were created with dust so He sent the Helper, the Holy Spirit and lets Him help us. (Psalm 103:14)
Then, how does the Holy Spirit help us to overcome the world? When we take in the worldly things, He causes us to feel His lamentation so that we can turn away from it. He also helps us pull out the love for the world. He also helps us to pray fervently, to be filled with the Spirit, cast away sins, and work faithfully. By doing so, He leads us to a better heavenly dwelling place.
2) He gives us realization of God's love.
The Holy Spirit is gentle like a mother. In His love He comforts and encourages God's children who try hard to cast away the worldly things. He gives joy and peace to them when they try their best to cut themselves off from the worldly pleasure. He not only gives them visible blessing like blessing of finance and good health but also lets them feel God's love more. Do you have some hardship before you? Remind yourself of your Father God who never gives up on you and keeps His deep love for you. God is our Father. He doesn't just stay in Heaven but He stays near us all the time as well.
2 Corinthians 6:18 reads, "And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me." The Holy Spirit always gives us realization that God is our Father. When you accept the Lord and receive the Holy Spirit, you come to call God "my Father." At first, you might feel awkward but you can feel familiar to the extent that you cast away untruth and live according to the Word.
Like this, it is the Holy Spirit who makes the relationship between God and His children tight. The Lord allows for us to come back to Father's bosom and the Holy Spirit plays a role in recovering the relationship. He guides Christians to lead a good Christian life after they accept the Lord. He teaches them what sin, righteousness, and judgment are and leads them to the right way. He also searches all things, even the depths of God as written in 1 Corinthians 2:10, so He teaches us how to discern what the will of God is and obey it.
3) He lets us clearly know the spiritual world.
The Holy Spirit lets us know that the visible physical world is not all that exists. Signs, wonders, extraordinary miracles, and wonderful things are performed by the power of the Holy Spirit. By performing things that are impossible to take place in the fleshly world, He lets us know the existence of God, Heaven, and Hell.
In other words, the Holy Spirit is God's heart itself and His strength itself. Jesus and His apostles manifested signs by the power of the Holy Spirit when preaching the gospel. Seeing these, people came to believe in God the Almighty and Heaven. Such works of the Spirit let us feel the spiritual world as if we see it and touch it.
However, there are the spiritual blind and deaf who don't believe the existence of Heaven and Hell even though they hear the gospel. Today, God still shows us the works of the Holy Spirit. He opens our spiritual eyes and lets us see the spiritual world and believe in it. As we come to believe in the spiritual world without doubt, we can possess full hope for Heaven.
John 4:48 states, "So Jesus said to him, 'Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.'" In Manmin Central Church, signs, wonders, and powerful works still take place. The blind have come to see, the mute to speak, dead nerves to regenerate, deteriorated bones to be recovered, and the lame to jump and walk. Through them, many people came to live healthy lives now. The testimonies of healing of AIDS, leukemia, cancer, and atopic dermatitis keep flowing in.
All those works take place in the fiery works of the Spirit. Since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, God demonstrates the works of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ through the God's servant who obeys God's Word and lives in the Light.
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