Engaging the Holy Spirit

One of the last things Jesus did before His crucifixion was introduce His disciples to the Holy Spirit. We find much of this teaching in John 14, 15, and 16 as Jesus explains He is going away, but when He does, they will not be alone because He will send the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. He says that this is even better than having Jesus’ physical presence because the Spirit will live within them, will never leave them, and will be their teacher, guide, and comforter. And that’s exactly what happened a few weeks later at Pentecost: The Holy Spirit entered the followers of Jesus and has been indwelling Christians ever since.

Puritan writer John Owen comments that at the time of our salvation, the Holy Spirit is given to us and we receive Him “as a vessel receives water” (1). Paul, too, describes God’s love being poured out on us through the Holy Spirit. The picture is one of passive receiving of this gift of grace.

We receive this gift by faith and then are to respond by becoming sensitive to and obeying the Spirit’s leadings in our life. If we don’t honor the Spirit’s presence within us, we will grieve Him as Paul warns in Ephesians 4:30. Owen says, “Hence is that great weight . . . laid upon our not grieving the Spirit – because he comes to us in the name, with the love, and upon the condescension, of the whole blessed Trinity.” To grieve the Holy Spirit is to grieve the entire Trinity.

So, how do we actively attend to the Holy Spirit within us?

Make the time to cultivate an intimate personal relationship with Him. Sometimes we hear God as we go throughout our days, but only if we have learned to recognize the sound of His voice by listening in the quietness of our times alone with Him. Our prayers should be two-way communication. We talk to our Father in heaven, then we listen for His response through the Holy Spirit.

Listen for him continually. As we engage in the activities of our lives, we learn to be attuned to God’s voice. He will direct our paths, speak through our thoughts, and bring verses of Scripture to mind.

Worship Him for being who He is. God loves to hear us say “thank you” and He loves to receive our praises and our worship. He knows that when we praise Him, we open pathways of communication so He can reveal more about who He is and what He desires in our relationship to Him.

Want His will alone. God says we will find Him when we seek Him with all our hearts. That means, we listen for the Spirit’s voice not for our own selfish purposes, but to know Him, to submit to His will, and to act on His direction. (2)

When we do that, we will not grieve the Spirit. Instead He will be pleased!

(1) John Owen, Communion with God (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications), p. 353.

(2) Beverly Van Kampen, The GodSense Journey: Exploring Sacred Pathways, 2016, pp. 31-32.

Knowing God through the Son

We must realize how much God desires for us to know Him and fellowship with Him. Here’s how A. W. Tozer puts it,

"God is a person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires, and suffers as any other person may. . . He communicates with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills, and our emotions. The continuous and unembarrassed interchanges of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion." (1)

We would not have known God and His great love for us if Jesus had not come. We would not have understood God as our Father if Jesus had not introduced Him as such. Instead, we would have seen only the Deity of the Old Testament who was set apart and difficult (even dangerous!) to approach. If Jesus had not spoken as human-to-human, we could not have understood that He invites us in out of the cold of the world and into the warmth of relationship with Him.

Our response to that invitation is to become true disciples and learn to live as Jesus lived (1 John 2:6) We need to develop habits of holy living. The teaching of Jesus and the apostles found in Scripture will guide us in learning how we Christians should treat each other and how we can live separated and holy lives in this world.

Then, we need to engage in spiritual practices whereby we can put ourselves in God’s presence and wait for Him to meet us. Some of those practices include prayer, fasting, solitude, simplicity, confession, celebration, meditation, and worship. As we seek God in these ways, He begins to change us into the image of his own Son. We are transformed, not by our own efforts, but by God’s power as we seek to know Him.

Finally, we continue to focus on Jesus realizing that He never has separated Himself from human experience. He is seated at the right hand of God, still fully human and fully God, standing in the gap between God and mankind. He communicates our need and His payment for our sins to God the Father and He communicates God’s holiness and love back to us. Only a person who is uniquely human and entirely God could qualify for this role. We have a Friend in high places who has not forgotten what it is like to be human, because He still shares the human condition with us. What amazing grace!

“Christ makes himself over to the soul, to be his, as to all the love, care, and tenderness of a husband; and the soul gives up itself wholly to the Lord Christ, to be His, as to all loving tender obedience. . . Let us tell him that we will be for him, and not for another: let him know it from us; he delights to hear it.” – John Owen

1. A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: Christian Publications), pp. 13 and 19

2. John Owen, Communion with God (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications), p. 100 and 104

God the Son: Full of Grace and Truth

If love is a central characteristic of God the Father, as we have discussed in our previous posts, then Scripture is quite clear that grace is a central characteristic of God the Son. Both of those are shown clearly in this Pauline benediction, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14 ESV) and in his epistle to the church at Thessalonica, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all” (2 Thessalonians 3:18 NIV).

When we think of Jesus’ leaving heaven, coming to earth, living among humans, and dying on the cross for us, we begin to realize what a great sacrifice He made – for us. He did it all to pay the penalty for the sinfulness of our hearts. He died so we will not be condemned. And, thanks be to God, He was raised from the dead and is preparing a place so we can be with Him eternally. All by grace alone - we merit nothing, but we are the targets of His great grace.

And, there’s more. Jesus not only wants to take us to heaven, He wants to have this lifetime to work within us and show us what value He places on us and how He wants to use us in His Kingdom. Our relationship with God does not begin when we die. It begins when we accept the grace gift Jesus offers through the payment He made. We then begin to see ourselves as Jesus sees us – treasured, loved, and usable.

Once we realize how much God values us and how much Jesus was willing to do to open a way for us to relate to Him, we are able to respond to all the Triune God has done. Our response is met by a deep love from God and that draws us even closer. It becomes a never-ending journey of God’s love, our response, His continued love, our obedience, His grace, and our gratefulness.

The Bible is full of passages that tell us all that God will do for those who are willing to relate to Him in this way. Here’s a sampling:

"I will never stop doing good to them. . .” (Jeremiah 32:40b)

"I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19)

We are God’s dearly loved ones and that love is made accessible to us by the grace of Jesus Christ, His Son. Living in that knowledge, we grow into the persons He has planned for us to be and we share in the fellowship of the Trinity.

“Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are.” –Philip Yancey