The Holy Spirit is a person . . . He is not the force from Star Wars. The Spirit is also not a force like electricity. Yes, the Holy Spirit is powerful, but He is personal!
An example of the removal of smoke from the Sistine Chapel artwork.
It’s amazing to see what happens to some of the beautiful pieces of artwork in the old Orthodox Cathedrals because of smoke from all the burning candles. Looking up to Michelangelo’’s great paintings in the Sistine Chapel, it was dark and faded. Over the last four centuries, there had been so many candles burning in the chapel, that the smoke had gradually put a layer of gray over the once-brilliant painting. It looked dark and unimpressive. Once cleaned, the beauty of the original artwork shone through again.
These next few posts on the Holy Spirit are intended to help you uncover again the beauty, power, and truth of who the Holy Spirit is, how He works, and why we desperately need His presence in our lives.
In this series, we want to both fully understand and fully experience Holy Spirit.
Fully Understand: The Holy Spirit doesn’t get the appropriate amount of time or the accurate amount of attention He needs. We can pretty easily understand God the Father and God the Son. But the Holy Spirit, we don’t easily comprehend Him. But That’s okay, neither did some of the early Christians in Acts 19:1-2.
Fully Experience: It’s never sufficient to simply describe Holy Spirit; you need to experience Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is best understood when experienced.
Over the next few weeks, we will remove the layers of gray, like the layers that clouded Michelangelo’s beautiful paintings, so we can experience the Holy Spirit and understand why life in the Spirit is such an exciting life to live.
We want to consider what it means to have the Holy Spirit live in us, with us, and through us. As we do that I have three main points for you today. The first is…
THE HOLY SPIRIT BRINGS FREEDOM
We see in Romans 8:1–4 that when we follow the Spirit instead of our sinful nature there is no more condemnation. “No condemnation” is incredibly freeing. Too many live with things that condemn them. Their lives are full of guilt and regret. They live by the statement, “I wish I would have . . . ”
Remember a time that you knew you were guilty of something but no one else knew. That secret can eat you alive. If/When the secret becomes public, a part of you is embarrassed, but a part of you is now free. Living by The Spirit can do that very same thing for us if we will let Him.
Freedom Starts With Forgiveness.
The Spirit draws us to Christ, but you must choose to accept His forgiveness and then live as forgiven people.
According to Romans 8:5 (NLT) in order to live by the Holy Spirit, we must think about things that please the Spirit. Sin doesn’t have to have power over you. The same Holy Spirit who drew you to Christ lives in you to help you overcome the things that want to steal your freedom. So, stop getting tripped up by the things that have been forgiven.
Freedom is sustained by the Spirit.
It’s one thing to know you’ve been set free; it’s another thing to live and walk in that understanding. The enemy of your soul understands the power of a person living in freedom. So, he will try everything possible to keep you from living in that reality.
Here’s how Satan attacks:
He tries to undermine God’s credibility.
He tries to make it hard to live a Christian life.
He tries to confuse you with false teaching.
He tries to cause division in the body of Christ.
He tries to get you to trust yourself more than God.
Freedom is strengthened by your daily experiences with the Spirit.
Your daily experience in the Spirit gives you an understanding of God’s mysteries.
Your daily experience in the Spirit gives you enlightenment to Scripture. Your daily experience in the Spirit gives you the opportunity to connect with a community of faith. We can see in Acts 2:42-47 the power of having a community of believers around us.
Having a church family frees you from the pressures of serving Christ alone. It allows you to have fellowship with believers, grow in knowledge of the Word, serve Christ with friends, share your faith to those in your pathway, and worship God in spirit and in truth.
THE HOLY SPIRIT BRINGS PEACE
Everyone is looking for peace of mind these days. People will do anything, spend anything, and go anywhere just to get it. According to Romans 8:6-8, having peace of mind comes from the Spirit. So, who or what occupies your mind? Whatever space in your life that God gets, will have peace; whatever space God gets eliminated from, probably won’t have peace, but will likely be dominated by fear.
There are several things in life that attempt to steal our peace of mind
Uncontrollable circumstances
Unchangeable people
Unanticipated problems
How does the Holy Spirit bring peace?
The Holy Spirit helps you accept what you can’t control: Even when the world is troubled and your heart is troubled, God can bring you peace through His Spirit.
The Holy Spirit helps you trust God’s loving care. (Isaiah 26:3)
We live in a fallen world; we have a foe; we have our own faults. All three of these truths lead to us living in a world that is not problem-free. So, you have to trust in God. And the Holy Spirit can help you develop a confident trust when your mind is telling you otherwise.
The Holy Spirit helps you surrender to God’s control.
One of the reasons why some people don’t have the “peace of mind” that comes from the Spirit is that they are actually fighting against God. (Psalm 119:165)
When we live in obedience to God rather than struggling against Him, we have peace in our hearts and live in His protection.
THE HOLY SPIRIT BRINGS FELLOWSHIP
Consider the Trinity. God makes himself known to us in three persons. Each person of the Trinity interacts with us in different ways. The three persons of the Trinity have fellowship with one another; in other words, they are intimately related to each other and act cooperatively.
2 Corinthians 13:14 (NLT) “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
What does “fellowship of the Spirit” mean? It means the Holy Spirit wants friendship. He is a catalyst for helping us understand that God is not some distant deity that we can’t connect with, but He wants a personal, intimate friendship with us. He has always wanted this.
Fellowship with the Holy Spirit involves sharing our lives in communion with Him. It’s opening the deepest parts of our personality (thoughts, motives, feelings, attitudes, decisions, future, fears, passions) to the influence and direction of God’s Spirit
This fellowship helps us to avoid the sins against the Spirit (envy, jealousy, selfish ambition, sexual immorality) and develop the character traits that reflect the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control).
Life in the Spirit includes so many benefits and blessings. We experience Freedom, Peace, and Fellowship, because of The Spirit. But it is so easy to write off the Holy Spirit because there is some weirdness to it. However, just because something is weird, does not mean it is automatically bad.
Over the next few posts, we are going to continue to talk about who Holy Spirit is, have an opportunity to experience the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and talk about what we do next when we have experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Be Blessed
P. Scott