Our Personal Relationship with the Holy Spirit

John 14:16

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,

Belief in the ministry of the Holy Spirit is core to the life of a Christian.  The Holy Spirit is a gift bestowed on the disciples of Jesus Christ that is not available to the world at large.  The Holy Spirit is the differentiator in the lives of those who are believers.  Nothing of kingdom significance is possible on this earth without the presence of the Holy Spirit.  As believers, the Holy Spirit is our source of holiness and happiness.  It is only through the work of the Holy Spirit that believers are able to fulfill their God-given calling in life.

One of the tragic misunderstandings of many Christians is thinking of the Holy Spirit as a force, a power, but not as a person.  The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity.  The Holy Spirit seeks to have a very personal relationship with each of us.  The Holy Spirit longs to be our counselor on all issues big and small.  The Holy Spirit stands ready to be our advocate in heaven and our defender against Satan.  The Holy Spirit monitors everything that we do and whispers to us to keep us on our course of sanctification.  And yes, the Holy Spirit will not hesitate to rebuke us harshly if we do not listen to His quiet urgings.  Through it all, the Holy Spirit is forever with us to give us peace, comfort and strength in all of the trials of our lives.

Jesus Christ paid a great price for us to have His Spirit within us.  Let us commit today to developing a deep, personal relationship with our Helper. 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing the ever present Spirit of Your Son, Jesus in our lives.  We exalt the name of Your Son for giving His life so that we could have a personal advocate, intercessor, counselor and protector who never leaves us.  We rejoice in knowing that the Holy Spirit is our source of holiness, happiness, comfort and strength throughout our lives.  We humbly submit to His whispers and urgings.  We pray that we will surrender to His perfect instruction.  We ask that we may develop a deep and mature personal relationship with our ever present Lord.  We ask all these things in the name of the One who asked the Father to provide Our Helper, Jesus Christ.

Tuning In To God's Voice

John 16:13

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.

Our Heavenly Father has given all of us Christians the Holy Spirit to teach us the Truth.  The Holy Spirit takes us beyond head knowledge of God into a personal relationship with Our Creator.  If we submit to the urgings of the Holy Spirit, we will not only learn about Our Savior, but we will learn to relish and savor all things that glorify Jesus Christ.

Additionally, we will find that the Holy Spirit goes before us as a guide.  He clears our path of obstacles as He opens our understanding.  He leads us on the path that we should follow.  He makes things plain and clear for us as never before.

In order to profit from this awesome gift of the Holy Spirit, we must train ourselves to listen for God's voice in our lives.  Listening to God is an acquired gift.  It is a byproduct of discipline and obedience.  We must set aside time to tune into God's voice.  The tuning comes from setting aside time for reading the Word, prayer and meditation on the Word, as well as, personal praise and worship.  When we are obedient in all these things, God will reveal Himself to us in all aspects of our lives.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us the Holy Spirit to guide us in all truth.  We rejoice in knowing that the Holy Spirit will speak to us if we learn to listen for His voice.  Help us, Lord, to overcome the voice of our flesh.  We pray, Father, that You open our ears so that we can hear You at all times.  We ask that Your Holy Spirit help us to overcome the distractions of the world so that Your voice is not drowned out.  We beseech You, Father God, that You would strengthen us so that we can be diligent in the small things that we need to do to prepare ourselves to hear Your voice.  We ask all these things in the name of the way, the truth and the life, Jesus Christ.

A Question We Must All Answer

Acts 26:15

Then I asked, “Who are you, Lord?”

When Jesus struck Saul down, Saul had one important question that he wanted answered.  "Who are you, Lord?"

God has placed this question in all of our hearts.  When we come to a time in our lives when we are challenged to ask the question, He responds with an answer that convicts us of our ignorance and our weakness.  He shows us the way, the truth and the life that is in His Son, Jesus.  He shows us a void in our hearts that can only be filled by accepting His Son as Our Savior.

To get to this place and through this place of self-discovery and redemption, we must rely on the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is a divine gift.  The Holy Spirit is the presence of the Lord with us continuously.  The Holy Spirit never leaves us.  Relying on ourselves, we choose to live in the flesh instead of living a renewed and enlightened life in the Spirit.

Let us make a commitment today to let go of our lives in the flesh.  Let us become humbled, broken and repentant.  Let us allow the Holy Spirit to show us who we really are.  May the new condition of our hearts lead us to and keep us in the presence of Our Lord.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us Your Son, Jesus.  We praise You for revealing to us that Our Lord is always present with us.  We bless the name of Jesus who brings us peace to fill our minds and His love to be our daily portion.  We pray, Father, that you will open our eyes to the way, the truth and the life that is in Your Son, Jesus.  We ask that the Holy Spirit reveal to us the depths of our ignorance and our iniquity.  We cry out, Lord, for the strength and the wisdom to give up our own convictions and delight in doing Your will in our lives.  We humbly plead that we will abandon our flesh and live our lives in Your presence.  We ask all these things in the name of our ever present Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Certain Challenge of Jesus Christ in Our Lives

Acts 9:4

He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?"

Saul thought he was doing everything right.  He was on fire for his spiritual cause.  Unfortunately for Saul, his cause was grounded in his own reasoning without a foundation of faith in Jesus and without the direction of the Holy Spirit.  Saul rightfully could claim an "A" for effort.  But he was not being challenged by Jesus Christ for his efforts, he was being challenged for the self-driven misdirection of his efforts.

Just like Saul, all of us will face a day when the Lord challenges us.  As with Saul, Our Lord has grounds to accuse us.  While Jesus may not have grounds to challenge us for persecuting His church, He certainly will have a strong case for challenging us on the grounds of our obstinacy in following our own will and not fully surrendering to the call of Our Lord on our lives.

While Saul surrendered his old life and became Paul, the apostle, we have stubbornly hung closer to our old nature than the new one that Jesus has for us.  While we may not have been strongly challenged yet, at some defining point, like Saul, we will all be strongly and directly challenged by Jesus to denounce our old lives and accept our calling as His disciples.    

Let us set aside our own plans.  Let us seek God's plan for our lives.  Let us submit to God's plans for our lives with the same fervor that Paul did.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for drawing us to Your Son.  We praise You for setting aside a perfect plan for our lives in Your kingdom here on earth and in heaven.  We rejoice in knowing that we will serve You for all eternity.  We pray, Lord, that we will not be directed by our own ambitions, but be led by Your Holy Spirit.  We claim Your promise that through Your Holy Spirit, Your strength will be perfected in our weakness.  We beseech You, Father, that You grant us a double portion of Paul's fervor for proclaiming Your Good News to the world.  We pray these things in the name of our Blessed Hope and Assurance, Jesus Christ.

The Amazing Grace of Almighty God

John 1:16

And from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

There is nothing more complete, more sufficient or more perfect than the fullness of Jesus Christ.  To borrow from the teachings of Charles Spurgeon, the fullness of Christ is reflected in His Diety, His manhood, the atoning power of His Blood, His righteousness, His power over death and His endless grace to pardon, to regenerate, to sanctify, to preserve and to perfect.

The fullness of what we have received from God can be summed up in one word grace.  It is the great gift that we receive through His Son, Jesus, that we do not deserve and could never earn.  It is the unmerited good will of God directed toward us.  It is the gift that cannot be received by unrepentant sinners.  It can only be received by those that have been washed clean by the Blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ.  It is all that has been perfectly and completely prepared for all men by Our Savior.

And finally, a perhaps most importantly, God's grace through Jesus Christ is cumulative and never ending.  When we live in the fullness of Savior, we receive goodness upon goodness, joy upon joy and abundance upon abundance.  It is the good will of God towards us and the work of God in us.

Let us humble ourselves before Our Savior.  Let us surrender to His presence in our lives.  Let us prepare ourselves to receive the fullness of His amazing grace.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the unmerited favor that You bestow on us through Your Son, Jesus.  We bless the name of Our Savior for making it possible for us to receive Your unlimited flow of grace in our lives.  We pray, Father, that You will open our hearts to receive the fullness of Your Son, Jesus.  We ask that You show us how to tap into the inexhaustible treasure that He holds in His hands for us.  We ask all these things in the name of the source of all grace, Jesus Christ.

The Immutable Promise of Provision

Matthew 6:30

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you--you of little faith?

Gorgeous are the wild flowers that fill our fields in the spring and the summer.  They pop up everywhere without a hint of human intervention.  They are here with us for only a brief time before succumbing to the seasons.  Yet year after year, God raises them up and displays them spectacularly as just one tiny example of His loving providence.  How is it possible that we doubt the provision and protection of Our Father in heaven when He is so loyal to even the small plants with their limited life cycles?  Do we not have enough faith to see how much more He would provide for His children who He holds so dear as to grant them eternal life?

We have allowed the cares of the world to come in and diminish our faith in the promises of Almighty God.  We have followed the world's lead and put our faith in our own independence instead of in the hands of Our Creator.  We have tried to satisfy ourselves in all the things of the world instead of the perfect provision of Our Loving Father in heaven.  In the process, we have complicated our lives to the point that we cannot be satisfied. 

Let us seek the simplicity and satisfaction of the promised provision that is ours to claim from the One who never breaks His promises.  Let us trust that His planned provision for us is more than sufficient and is far more satisfying than anything that the world has to offer.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing for our every need.  We rejoice in knowing that all the treasures of Your kingdom are ours through the eternal inheritance secured for us by Your Son, Jesus.  We pray, Father, that you will help us break our worldly appetites that are impossible to satisfy.  Strengthen us, O Lord, that we may bear up to our daily troubles, stand up against our temptations and allow none of these things to move us away from You.  Help us to seek You, Father God.  We pray all these things in the name of our endless fount of provision, Jesus Christ.

Finding God's Grace in All Things

Galatians 1:15

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace,

When it pleased God, He called us from darkness, blindness and ignorance into the light and knowledge of the Gospel.  When it pleased God, He called us out of bondage to sin into the liberty of Christ.  When it pleased God, He called us from the fellowship of men into fellowship of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  When it pleased God, He set us apart to have our names written in the Lamb's Book of Life.  It was all through His grace.  It was all in His timing.

When it pleased God, He called us from dependence on our own righteousness to trusting in His Son, Jesus Christ.  As we learn to focus entirely on Jesus and less and less on ourselves, our eyes are opened to see how everything God does is done in perfect timing when it is pleasing to Him. 

As we grow in our efforts to focus on Jesus, however, we continue to fall back on our old ways.  In the flesh, we expect God to show up exactly when we want Him to and in what manner we want Him to.  In doing so, we often miss Him when He shows up in the birds, in the trees and in the smiles and words of those around us.  The facets of Our Almighty God are beyond our understanding.  Most of His good work goes unseen and unappreciated by us.  It is the shallowness of our relationship that creates this phenomenon.

Let us strive to find a deep and inmate relationship with Our Savior.  Through Him, let us find and cherish Almighty God in every breath we take. 

  

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the never ending flow of Your grace in our lives.  We rejoice in knowing that You have a perfect plan for our lives and that You will release it according to Your perfect timing.  We pray, Father, that you will help us to turn our focus away from ourselves and turn our attention to Your Son, Jesus.  We pray that the Holy Spirit will open our eyes so that the fullness of Your grace is revealed to us in every aspect of our lives.  We ask these things in the name of the Resurrection and the Life, Jesus Christ.

The Day That We Stand Before the Throne

2 Corinthians 3:18

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Is it not unimaginable that one day we will stand before Our Father in heaven in the image of His Son?  Is it not incomprehensible that one day we will be completely free of sin, holy and pure just as Jesus is holy and pure?  Is it not the most wonderful thought to know that one day we will stand before Jesus in honor and glory and we will see His glorious body with our own eyes and we will be like Him?  Such are the immutable promises of Our Heavenly Father to us through His Son, Jesus.

We were all created in the image of Our Heavenly Father.  We were created to be with Him and be one with Him, one with Jesus Christ and one with the Holy Spirit.  Even though we are now burdened by our sins which God cannot accept in His presence, we can still look forward to the day that we will stand in glory in His presence because of the atoning work of His Son, Jesus.  As Christians, we can live confidently knowing that the stench of our sin is removed by the blood of Our Savior for all eternity.  We can rejoice in knowing that our transformation is ongoing now and will continue until it is completed when we stand before the Lord.

Yet, day to day, as we seek our transformation, we remain in a battle with our flesh that seeks to remain in sin.  We must rely on the strength promised to us by Our Savior.  We must claim His promise to perfect His strength in our weakness. We must seek the aid of His Holy Spirit to help us overcome the daily torments of our flesh and the regular attacks of the enemy.  We must submit and fully surrender to the ongoing, sanctifying process of being transformed into the image of Our Lord.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for creating us in Your image.  We come before You to confess our sins to You, to repent of our sins and to thank You for providing Your Son, Jesus, to redeem us from our sins.  We pray, Lord, that You will provide the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that we may turn away from everything that displeases you and turn toward everything that is pleasing to you.  May we stand before You one day in the image of Your Son and hear the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant."  We ask these things in the name of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Rekindling Our Joyous and Fervent Moments

Jeremiah 2:2

Go and shout this message to Jerusalem. This is what the LORD says: "I remember how eager you were to please me as a young bride long ago, how you loved me and followed me even through the barren wilderness.

First, Our Heavenly Father extended His perfect love, forgiveness and pardoning grace to us through His Son, Jesus.  Then, as we accepted Our Savior, we were welcomed into an intimate relationship with the Father and the Son.  Their love was implanted in us.  We returned that love in a very ardent manner of worship.  We constantly built on that relationship by fervently following the ordinances given to us.  Even through difficulties and discouragements, we clung passionately to our new life in Christ.  Then something happened.  Somehow our love and our passion waned.  But He remembered how we first loved Him.  His love for us never changed.

Any parent who has grown kids has fond memories of how their young children delighted in being in their presence.  They also remember how the zeal of the children being with them diminished as the children grew older and formed their network of friends.  What parent at some point doesn't say, "how I miss those early years."

So it is with Our Heavenly Father.  He remembers how hungry we were to know Him when we first received His Son as Our Savior.  He feels sorrow when He sees our knowledge of Him increasing while our zeal for Him is becoming stale.  He is sad when He sees us spending so much time in the world and so little time with Him.  He longs for us to return to the energy and enthusiasm that we showed Him when we were first born again in Christ.

Let us return to the joyous and fervent moments in Christ that we enjoyed when we were first born again.  Let us turn those memorable moments into the foundation of our ever increasing intimacy with Our Savior.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for pouring out Your perfect love to us so that we are able to return that love to You.  We rejoice in knowing that Your throne is always open to us and You eagerly wait for us to come to be in Your presence.  We pray, Father, that you will fill us with the zeal of young children who run to their earthly parents to express their love and their joy in being in their presence.  May the fire of Your Holy Spirit rekindle our devotion and fervency for You.  We pray these things in the name of the One who loved us so much that He died for us, Jesus Christ.

Refreshing Ourselves Daily

Ezekiel 36:26

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

When we accept Jesus Christ as Our Lord and Savior, we are given a new heart.  We are given a heart that senses sin and danger.  We are given a penitent heart, keenly aware of the things that offend our Lord.  We are given a sanctified heart, submissive to the will of God.  We are born again into a renewed life.

We are renewed by the Spirit and the grace of God.  New light is given to us.  A new will filled with new purposes and resolutions is provided to us.  In our renewed spirit, we find new affections and desires for God and all things holy.  As new men and women in Christ, we find new delights and joys in the Lord every day.

Being born again is the unmistakeable work of the Holy Spirit. We are given a new vision of life - kingdom vs. carnal.  We are taught, directed and sanctified by the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  We are equipped to walk in the ways of Our Savior.  We are given ongoing access to the One who replaced our heart of stone with a heart of flesh.

Let us refresh ourselves regularly in the Lord.  His presence in our lives is infinitely superior to anything that the world has to offer.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the new hearts that You have given us through the redeeming work of Your Son, Jesus.  We praise the name of Jesus for the renewed lives we are given through His sacrifice.  We pray, Lord, that You will keep our hearts soft.  We beseech you to protect us against the world that tries to harden our hearts.  We humbly ask that You give us the grace that we need that we may stay refreshed in Christ and be vessels of refreshing to those around us.  We pray these things in the name of the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Jesus Christ.

Returning to the Fullness of the Light of the World

Luke 15:8

Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it?

Where will the woman look for her lost coin?  This passage infers that she will look everywhere.  How long will she look?  She will look carefully and extensively until she finds her coin.  Where will she look?  The passage does not specifically reveal where she will look, but it is likely that she would follow the same process that we would follow upon losing something.  She will go back to the place where she thinks that she lost the coin.  If the coin is not there, she will go back to all the other familiar places that she can think of until she finds the coin.  

Aren't we all just as diligent as this woman whenever we lose something that is of value to us?  Do we not employ an exhaustive effort to find anything lost that we consider a personal treasure?  Of course, we do. 

So why do we delay even a second when we recognize that we have lost even a fraction of our zeal for Christ?  We should go back immediately to the place where we lost it.  Did we lose it because we cut back on our prayer time?  We need to return to our most robust prayer habits.  Did we lose it because we stopped studying the Word of God?  We should return to our diligent studies.  Did we lose it because of our habitual sin?  We need to repent and surrender to Christ.

Jesus Christ is our greatest treasure.  When the world works overtime to distract us from Our Treasure and our awareness of the presence of Our Treasure dims one iota, let us run quickly to return to the fullness of His Light.  If we practice to stay in the fullness of His light, we guard against losing even a portion of Our Treasure.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us the most awesome treasure known to mankind, Your Son, Jesus Christ.  In our weakness, Father, we find that we have drifted away from our zeal for Your Son.  We pray that You will help us return to the place where we lost Him.  We ask that You show us how to invigorate the good discipline in our lives that we once had.  We beseech You to give us the strength we need to walk away from the torments of our flesh.  Lord, bring us back to the fullness of the Light of Our World, Your Son Jesus.  We ask all these things in the precious, precious name of Jesus Christ.

Proclaiming Complete Belief and Submission to Jesus

John 20:28

Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"

The unbelief of Thomas is well documented in the Bible.  He was a skeptic, a true doubter, looking for proof that the Lord was who He said He was. 

Thomas' story is the perfect illustration of the struggle of every believer who is wavering in deciding his or her relationship with Jesus Christ.  What sets Thomas apart from those that never fully surrender their lives to Jesus was his sincerity in seeking the Lord.  While Thomas was weak in his convictions, he was sincere in seeking the truth.  Jesus was gracious in His response to Thomas just as He will be for all that are sincere in seeking Him.

Like Thomas, we are all called to come to the the place where we finally see and believe the total redemptive work of Jesus and fully submit to Him as Our Lord and Savior. Thomas, once seeing the wounds of Jesus, proclaimed both his complete belief and complete submission to his Master when he spoke the words, "My Lord and My God."  All in one burst, Thomas asserts his interest in Jesus as his Lord, espouses his affection for Him and denotes his submission to Him.  This is exactly what Jesus Christ is looking for from each of us.

Even though we may have been slow and weak in our commitment to Christ, Our Lord waits on our sincere entreaty.  He will respond to each of us just as He responded to Thomas.  He will overpower us with His presence so that we may with the same exuberance as Thomas proclaim, "My Lord and my God."

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the loving kindness, the mercy and the grace that You extend to us in our slowness and our weakness in surrendering everything to Your Son, Jesus.  We pray, Lord, that You will open our eyes so that we can see, fully believe in and seek the precious gift that is available to us in a relationship with Your Son.  Father, we ask that You take us to a place where we are overpowered by the presence of Jesus just like Thomas was.  May Your Holy Spirit guide us and strengthen us so that there will be nothing left in us that doubts the fullness of the new life in Christ that awaits us.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Lord and Our God, Jesus Christ.

Discovering Our Appointment

Jeremiah 1:5

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

As it was with Jeremiah, so it is with each of us.  God created us and has a plan for our lives.  He has set us apart to serve Him in a way that only we can do because of the unique nature and capabilities that He has given to each of us.  God draws each of us into a relationship with Him so that we can understand what He has prepared us to do.  We do the things that we are called to do in response to the outpouring of love and forgiveness that we receive from Our Creator.

As we seek our place in God's kingdom, we must be careful not to think too highly or too lowly of ourselves.  We should maintain a keen sense of our weaknesses and our insufficiencies, but we should not let our weaknesses keep us back from our calling.  We should fear no man and go about our work humbly as we grow in our relationship with Our Heavenly Father.  Our primary focus needs to be on seeking God's will for our lives and discovering the appointment that Our Creator has set aside for us.  Once we confirm our appointment, we need to respond accordingly.

The good news is that we do not have to discover our appointment or respond to it on our own.  Our Heavenly Father has given us a Helper to guide us through the process of finding and accepting the calling that He has placed on our lives.  As long as we set aside time to be in the presence of Almighty God and surrender to the urgings of the Holy Spirit, we will discover our appointed role in the kingdom and rejoice in our opportunity to serve Our King.  

Let us earnestly seek and faithfully respond to our appointment.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for creating each of us to fill a specific need on this earth and in Your eternal kingdom.  We thank You for providing the Holy Spirit to help us separate our own carnal desires from the will and plan that You have for our lives.  We pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit will help us to dig deep into our relationship with You.  We ask, Father, that the Holy Spirit teach us how to be vessels of Your perfect love and forgiveness.  We ask all these things in the name of the One who makes it possible for us to become Your good and faithful servants, Your Most Faithful Son, Jesus Christ.