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| Earl Gillespie |
Part 2 of 3
–In the last day, that
great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let
him come unto me, and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said,
out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spoke he of the
Spirit, whom they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Spirit was
not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:37-39).
This verse seems to indicate that the Holy Spirit would cause some sort of a spiritual outpouring. The Holy Spirit is God’s Spirit, which God compared it to living water. Ponder for a moment the phrase, ‘living water’, visualize water that is alive. God also compares it to his breath. Can you tell when someone is breathing on you, even with your eyes closed? The Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of Jesus. Jesus promised to send his Holy Spirit with power to his disciples after his return to the Father in Heaven.
In most cases in
scripture the arrival of the Spirit is followed immediately by someone speaking
God’s word or prophesying. The Spirit of God brings God’s word, and when
the Spirit inspires, it feels impossible to keep quiet about the Word.
The Spirit is, truly
and literally, God within us. Sometimes a person can sense the presence
of a Being far greater than can be imagined; I’m sure when the Spirit touches
us, He holds back a great deal otherwise we’d be completely overwhelmed. We must conclude that the spirit world has
many ways of interacting with the natural elements of this world.
In conjunction with
healing and other miracles, the presence of the Spirit is often described as “warm”,
“a tingling sensation”, “electrical” or “breathtaking”. These sensations
do exist (and they’re quite pleasant) but they should not be looked for as
“proof” that a person is feeling the Spirit. Every believer receives the
Holy Spirit when becoming a Christian, and always has the Spirit in him or her
whether His presence is felt or not. What the Spirit does give daily is
deeper insight — eyes to see and ears to hear — or as Jesus said “I have come
that they may have life, and more abundantly”. If we take away the embellishment of the word
‘abundantly’ we would realize that there are things that Jesus promised and there are things that Jesus did not promise. It was never a promise of the Holy Spirit to enrich our
natural life. The Spirit works on a spiritual level and its promise to give a
deeper, more meaningful spiritual life in every sense of the word.
Pragmatism as a philosophical movement began in the United States in the 1870s, and has played a great role in the reinterpretation of the scripture especially as pertaining to the Holy Spirit. Its objective was and is to separate what is real from what exist. Great minds began to investigate the role religion could play in a contemporary society and sought to make a distinction between God’s "existence" and "reality". The term "exists" is used only for those things which adequately exhibit brute physical resistance to our movements. In this way, such things which affect us, like numbers, may be said to be "real", although they do not "exist". According to the pragmatist, God, in such a linguistic usage, might very well be "real", causing believers to act in such and such a way, but might not "exist". This attack on the foundation of faith and God was not met with a uniform protest or action by the defenders of the Christian faith.
This strange philosophical approach has advanced the knowledge of good and evil, allowing mankind to feel as if he has control of the Holy Spirit. Rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to speak, we speak for the Holy Spirit. Rather than allowing God to carry out his plan, we pray for God to empower us in our daily life. This new philosophical approach to God has allowed us to sanitize the scripture by removing the blood and gore. There is no message in the killing sprees and the suffering of the Old Testiment. We are so pumped up on all of the good things that God is supposed to be doing, that when disaster strikes the first words out of our mouth is, "Why" Why didn't Peter, Jame and John open up a fish market and get rich selling fish while Jesus stood on the corner preaching the Kingdom message?
We cannot prove the existence of the Spirit world through natural means, the Spiritual world must be addressed through faith. It is through faith, our connection and experiences with the Holy Spirit is able to grow. If our faith is weak, then our connection to the Spiritual world is weak. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6 ).
One of the things the Holy spirit does is give us new power over sin in our lives when we surrender those areas to God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). But another work of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of sin (John 16:9). There are times when we are blind to some of our real sins or have not fully let go of them. Part of the preparation for being baptized with the Holy Spirit or receiving a fresh infilling is to ask the LORD to show us by his Spirit, if there is an area that we are not surrendering to him or if there are hidden sins we do not recognize. Examples are from the letters to the churches in Revelation. Jesus told the church in Ephesus that they did many things well, but had lost their first love for him, (Revelation 2:44) and he told the church in Laodicea that they were lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, and both needed to repent. (Revelation 3:14)
Some results those among us have experienced from the Holy Spirit is a new sense of God's presence, more experience of the Lord, new power over sin in our lives because the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin (John 16:9). Bible reading coming more alive and our ability or freedom to talk to others about Jesus increases. There are gifts and manifestations of the Holy Spirit such as the fruits of the Spirit. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23) Fruit does not grow overnight and Paul talks in 1 Corinthians 13 about the importance of having the fruit of the Spirit when using the gifts of the Spirit.
Above all, the relationship between the believer and the Spirit is just that — a relationship, a community of two, in which the Spirit feels like the embrace of a friend, brother, or soul-mate. One then becomes aware that the Holy Spirit has the same community-of-two relationship with every believer on the planet, which defines the family of God, the community of faith, the true Church. And in that sense, the Spirit feels like home.
In any attempt to understand the Spirit of God, it is just as important to understand what is not the Spirit of God. There is the Spirt of God and there is the spirit of the devil. There is the Holy Spirit and there is the evil (unholy) spirit. John cautions us not to believe every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1)
Satan is real and not a guy in a red suit with horns. Peter warns us "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith."(1 Peter 5:8-9) Jesus was tempted in every way as we are yet without sin. The devil came to Jesus quoting scriptures and promoting a Gospel of prosperity (Matthew 4:8-9)."Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted." (Hebrews 2:18 & 4:15).. We are told about the armor God has for us to put on daily in Ephesians 6: 10-18.
Matthew 4:1 Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Mt 4:1
Led of of the Spirit; by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.--To be tempted of the devil. There is a certain mystery enveloping the subject Of the Savior's temptation, which all the efforts of commentators and theologians have not been able to remove. Attempts have been made to give the whole passage a metaphorical interpretation; but such an interpertation can hardly be given, without shaping the Word of God, to a passage like this, occurring in regular course, as a part of a plain, simple, historical narrative. The sacred writer undoubtedly meant for it to be understood as it was spoken, and must have been understood at the time, as asserting literally that Jesus was assailed by an evil spirit, not human, but yet having a distinct personal existence.
Next
Part #3
The Two Spirits
