Monday, August 13, 2012

"I've got Jesus, why do I need the Holy Spirit?"

I've always known about the Trinity.  There's God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit, right?

Ok. I pray to God. I follow the teachings of Jesus (or at least try my best to!).... and then I....I.... uh... now what's the purpose of the Holy Spirit again??   

When I saw the title of the Frances Chan book "Forgotten God: Reversing our tragic neglect of The Holy Spirit", I immediately knew I wanted to read it.   I'll openly admit that I have neglected/ignored The Holy Spirit.  And not just recently.... all my life!   Why?   I honestly don't know.   I guess my best answer is just plain ignorance.  Seriously.  I just haven't taken the time to study about The Holy Spirit and what his part in the trinity is.  However, I desperately want to change all that.

I always try to have my God/bible study/prayer time every morning.  But something I started doing lately is BEFORE I open my bible, I pray to The Holy Spirit to help interpret the words I'm about to read in a way I've never experienced before.  The Holy Spirit inspired the writing of the Bible, so who better to help us as we seek to understand it?   I'm telling you, that prayer was ANSWERED immediately!!  And what's even weirder, is that I was seeing verses about The Holy Spirit that I never remember reading before... I mean, I've read them many times, I just didn't realize they were talking about the Holy Spirit.  But now verses telling me how COOL The Holy Spirit is are jumping out at me left and right!!   He's everywhere, He's everywhere!!!   How did I miss him before???

John 16:7 - "It is for your good that I am going away.  Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you."  

John 16: 13 - "But when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth." 

I've often wished that Jesus could be physically here with me to talk with and guide me through this world.  But he is here, in the form of the Counselor.  The Holy Spirit.  

Personally, I love the term "Counselor".   Especially in today's culture when "Who's your therapist?" seems to be one of the most common questions being tossed around.   It seems everyone is into counseling... therapy.... bettering themselves somehow.   What does a good therapist do for us?   They help us wade through our issues that may be clouding our judgement about certain situations and help us get to the truth of it all.  We all could use some good counsel these days, right?  I love that Jesus promised he would send us THE Counselor to speak truth to us.  God's truth.  

"I am convinced there is a desperate need in the church for the Holy Spirit of God to be given room to have His way.  I think we can agree that there is a problem in our churches today, that something is wrong. Most people do not connect what is missing or wrong with a particular need for the Holy Spirit." - Chan

How about you guys?   Have you neglected The Holy Spirit in your lives too?   Like me, have you also ignored the counsel of the Spirit?  If so, pick up a copy of "Forgotten God" and read with me.   I'm excited to see what power and truth the Holy Spirit will bring into my life... and yours too.  :-)




7 comments:

  1. If it weren't for the Holy Spirit, we would really have no way to Jesus and God. HE IS our lifeline; HE IS the way our prayers are presented to the Lord. And HE IS so faithful to make Scripture to become alive to us!

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  2. What a great post, Marcia! I'm a wee bit behind the rest of the world, only now reading Francis Chan's CRAZY LOVE - and devouring it! And after reading your post, I'm hopping over to order FORGOTTEN GOD to study when I finish CL. Why oh why are we as Christians so negligent of this AMAZING Counselor that lives and dwells in us? I think part of it may lie in the fact that many denominations (including the one in which I was raised) are sooooo nervous about the subject because they are so "anti-charismatic" and fearful of those who call themselves "filled with the Spirit." Which is just stupid, if you stop and think about it. If we've invited Jesus into our hearts, His spirit LIVES there!! Thanks for the post!

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  3. So true Lisa... I'm really beginning to LEARN that!

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  4. Diane... man, I LOVED "Crazy Love"! What a great book! That's what got me into the Chan books... Enjoy!!!

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  5. More signs from The Holy Spirit this morning.... this came in my inbox today from Oswald Chambers Daily Devotionals: "Quench not the Spirit" I Thessalonians 5:19

    "The voice of the Spirit is as gentle as a zephyr, so gentle that unless you are living in perfect communion with God, you never hear it. The checks of the Spirit come in the most extraordinarily gentle ways, and if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice you will quench it, and your personal spiritual life will be impaired. His checks always come as a still small voice, so small that no one but the saint notices them.

    Beware if in personal testimony you have to hark back and say - "Once, so many years ago, I was saved." If you are walking in the light, there is no harking back, the past is transfused into the present wonder of communion with God. If you get out of the light you become a sentimental Christian and live on memories, your testimony has a hard, metallic note. Beware of trying to patch up a present refusal to walk in the light by recalling past experiences when you did walk in the light. Whenever the Spirit checks, call a halt and get the thing right, or you will go on grieving Him without knowing it.

    Suppose God has brought you up to a crisis and you nearly go through but not quite, He will engineer the crisis again, but it will not be so keen as it was before. There will be less discernment of God and more humiliation at not having obeyed; and if you go on grieving the Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, you have grieved Him away. But if you go through the crisis, there will be the pæan of praise to God. Never sympathize with the thing that is stabbing God all the time. God has to hurt the thing that must go."

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  6. I love this post, Marcia! And Imma hootin' and hollaring' for you. I'm not sure we can know God if we don't acknowledge the Spirit of God that is said to be within us when we surrender our hearts to Him. The word even teaches us that the Spirit is a very down payment (deposit) on our future inheritance. The Spirit is the very manifestation of Christ within us, the Spirit provides our Christ-likeness. I like to think of this as though Jesus gave a very portion of Himself to every believer, and injected that part of Him right into our being.... so that He can dwell with us at all times. This is why our body is a temple... because we house the Holy Spirit. Of course God hears us, He is with us. Of course Jesus can intercede on our behalf when we have nothing but a groan, because a part of Him is right inside of us, knowing all things up, down, left and right. The Spirit is a counselor and a friend. I even saw a verse yesterday that almost alarmed me... Matthew 12:32 "Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come." Like, whoa!

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  7. Whoa is right!..... I gotta do some research on that verse Melissa.... that's a bit confusing for me. Is THAT the "unforgivable sin" that people talk about??? Hmmmmmmm.

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