John 14:18 – I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

2 Corinthians 3:17 – Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

Hey all, talking about the Holy Spirit today. So many of my blogs are on God’s word. And you may wonder, where does the Holy Spirit fit into all this? Today we have a lot of emphasis on the Spirit, but not much on God’s word, and people do not understand (from the Bible) who the Holy Spirit is, what he does, what his role is. It is necessary to contend for God’s word because God’s word is the foundation, the basis. Satan knocks the Word of God out, and people are knocked out before they even get started. But we also need the Spirit of God. Because the Spirit is life. He gives life to this whole deal. God is the living God after all, this thing should have some life and power to it. Otherwise it’s just words on paper… and foolishness to us. After all, you can only both SEE and ENTER the kingdom of God via the new birth, being born again of the Spirit of God. That’s why unsaved people just do not get it. They are not OF the kingdom of God. Only when you’re in the kingdom of God, by being born again, does things make sense. That’s why saved people and unsaved people are never on the same page.

People today claim to have the Holy Spirit, and yet their lives show a complete absence of his person and work. God’s word is the Sword of the Spirit, Jesus said his words are spirit and life, and the Bible is a spiritual book. And the Holy Spirit works in accordance to, and never circumvents or contradicts God’s word. Anyway, today we will look at the Holy Spirit. Because he (and he is a “he”, not an “it”) is what makes this thing alive. The Bible says the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Many people today worship Jesus with their soul, but not in spirit. We need the Holy Spirit, to make us alive to God, and to empower us and give us the ability to live and walk as Christians. I try and reference what I write as much as possible, but forgive me if not everything is referenced! I will be drawing on a lot of Bible in this! Hope it helps!

I have quoted John 14:18 as the starting point. Because Jesus was going away, and sorrow was filling the disciples hearts, but he said to his disciples, I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. And that’s what the Holy Spirit is. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. The Holy Spirit is Christ in us. Colossians 1:27 – To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is a mystery, Christ in us, and we in Christ via the new birth. Jesus said, you must be born again. It is not optional, if you are not born again, you cannot see or enter into the kingdom of God. When we are born again of the Spirit of God, our dead spirits are made alive by the Holy Spirit birthing a new creature in us. Our once dead spirits are now alive! Our life is transformed. We pass from death unto life. Even right now, in these mortal, infirmity compassed frames.

How do we get Christ in us though? By being saved. The starting point to spiritual life is being born again. And we do not do it ourselves, to ourselves, for ourselves. We can’t generate it, we can’t make it happen. Because we start off spiritually dead. Sure, all humans have a spirit in them. And it is what separates us from all other creatures. But our spirit is dead. Because of what happened in the garden of Eden. In Genesis 2:17 God told Adam – for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And mankind died that day. And mankind was separated from God. Sin entered and passed on all men, and all creation. The Bible says if we are unsaved, we are dead in trespasses and sins. Alienated from God. Our minds darkened. We walk according to the course of this world, in the vanity of our minds, in darkness, deceived. Taken captive by the devil at his will.

We start off dead towards God. Born in sin, spiritually dead, spiritually bankrupt. And that’s why the first blessing Jesus said was this. Matthew 5:3 – Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That is the starting point, realizing the weight, the penalty, the seriousness, the ugliness, the cost of our sin before God. Then the next verse, Matthew 5:4 – Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. We mourn over our sin. We repent towards God. We turn to Jesus Christ for salvation, for forgiveness, for mercy, for eternal life. As Moses said, there is life or death set before you today, blessing or cursing… you will be one or the other… life and blessedness or death and cursing. You choose. And you WILL choose one or the other. There is no middle ground. There is no washing your hands of deciding what to do with Christ.

Well we all need to get saved. And the Spirit of God, just like in Genesis 1, will move on the face of the deep of your heart. Just like the creation of the world, so the new birth is a new creation. A new creature born of God. In fact the ministry of the Holy Ghost in this world is to reprove the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgement. And that’s where he will start with you, in your life. Without conviction of sin, without confession of sin and repentance of sin toward God, without getting pricked in your heart, without getting poor in spirit, without getting utterly broken before God over your sin, without a deep return of your soul to God, you won’t get saved.

And God’s Spirit moves today, seeking those throughout the world who will place their faith and trust in Jesus. The Holy Spirit does in everyone’s heart. God has given everyone the knowledge of him, a conscience, creation bears witness of and gives glory to God. We are all sinners, we were born in sins, we have sinned, we do sin. And that sin carries a penalty. Death. That sin separated us from God. And we have fallen short of the glory of God, we are guilty. We deserve hell. And that’s why hellfire is eternal, once in, you never get out, because no amount of “time” you do can pay the price for your sin. We start to gain an appreciation for what Jesus did for us, just how PRECIOUS his blood is, which purchased our freedom. He bore the wrath of God against us, and took it all on himself. We put him on the cross, you and I did. We spat on him, we beat him till he was unrecognizable as a human being. Our best efforts are worthless, the best we can muster, all of us, everything we have and are is filthiness, unworthiness. There is no good in us. Utterly deceitful. We are condemned. We are under the wrath of God, he is angry with us. So God will send you to hell, and rightfully so as Judge of his Creation.

Furthermore, noone sets him or herself to seek God. We don’t decide one day to seek God and get saved. It takes God. Salvation is of the Lord. It’s his to give, it’s his to offer, and it’s his to do. Do we save ourselves? No we can’t. We have ZERO control over where we go, what happens, we rely on God keeping the end of his bargain. And he will, but there’s also responsibility you have. To apply his Son’s blood to your life. Because his covenant is based on the blood of Jesus Christ. People today are proud of their independence, but we are so dependent it makes our head spin, we are COMPLETELY reliant on the grace of God. Even the most nasty, wicked, evil, God rejecting person lives and breathes on the fumes of God’s grace and longsuffering. We have zero control on anything. We could die this second from any one of a billion things that could go wrong in our body. Then what next? That’s why when the Holy Spirit moves upon you, don’t miss it. Don’t quench the Holy Spirit, don’t grieve him, don’t knock him back. We are all gone out of the way, we are all gone astray, we have all gone our own way. We need to be found, we need rescuing, we need to be drawn to God by God to himself. And he does draw each person. He is drawing you today. God is Just, he is the Judge, he is Holy, so the penalty for all our sin is death and hell and eternal separation from God… but he also is Love, he has mercy and compassion and grace. And he has provided the answer. He provided a sacrifice for your sin, his Son, the Lamb of God. Who paid the price for our sins, so we can go free. Justice was not perverted, justice was done, but it fell on Jesus in your place.

But was it in vain? Because we all have had our sins paid for, but we still have to receive and take ownership of what his blood paid for. And then we have responsibility, we can soften our hearts, we can humble ourselves, we can be broken before him… or we can resist, harden our hearts. The sovereignty of God meets our free will and ability to choose. And today, we have all chosen. Most likely all my readers are well and truly set in their ways. God’s Spirit moves on your heart, convicting you of sin, but you resist him, you choose vanity, deception, your lusts, your own thoughts and understanding, instead of just crying out to God, to calling on his name, CALL ON HIM and he will answer, instead of yielding to God, instead of humbling yourself, instead of becoming poor in spirit, realizing the weight of sin, the horribleness of your sin, of realizing the hell we are all one heartbeat from. You may be saved, but not RIGHT with God, out of fellowship, out of communion, a life spent in a far country in riotous living, devouring harlots, living life up, just as the prodigal son. But just like him, we need to come to ourselves. 1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We all need to be returned to God, to Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep.

But then, the wonderful day comes. Someone gets saved. And when you get saved, you are instantaneously converted, you are born again of the Spirit of God. Baptized into Christ. Because after you repent and believe, which in and of itself is a work of the Spirit of God, God then creates a new person in you. Jesus comes to live in you. Forever. And today we will discuss the whys and hows. It is better to read the Bible for yourself, but I will try my best to hold forth the truth. Salvation is a new creation. A new creature is created inside us, born of God. It is a miracle. It’s not something we do, it’s something God does to and for us. We only start to discover what has happened to us as we grow in the faith, as we read the Bible, as we realize we are different! Because we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness, from the power of Satan, into the kingdom of the Son of God, the kingdom of light, the power of God. Jesus’ claim to a soul trumps Satan’s claim to a soul, just like Jesus with the devil possessed man of the Gadarenes. He said go, and they went, and eagerly fled from him. This new creature is totally separate from our old man. We have an inner man born of the Spirit of God, and an outer man, the flesh… a new man and an old man.

Being born again is called spiritual circumcision. God carves out a completely new person inside us, separate from the flesh, the new man is sinless, born of God, but the old person, the flesh, cannot but sin. And thus the life of a saved person is a life of internal warfare, the Spirit lusting against the flesh, and the flesh against the Spirit, and we have troubles in this life. But that’s why our physical death is victorious, we are liberated forever from our flesh nature. The war, the brief war, is over. And Christ wins the battle, because he is supremely victorious over our flesh, sin, Satan, death, hell, the world.

God gives us his Holy Spirit. Jesus comes to live in us. And he lives in us and through us. His life flowing through us, changing us, and affecting those around us. We are alive, who were once dead. It’s what makes this whole thing alive. It’s not dead religion, it’s not rituals, it’s the person of Jesus Christ in us. We live in resurrection power. We died with him, were buried with him, and ROSE with him! Reckon it to be so! Jesus saves us, but we are far from left there. He gives life and live abundantly. Salvation is a changed life, a complete altering of your course of existence. It’s a miracle, and the greatest work on this side of eternity. We are made alive to God by the Holy Spirit being in us. He makes us alive. No longer dead. No longer blind. No longer in chains of darkness. We become a habitation of God, a temple of God. Suddenly, our minds are enlightened, we see! It is a miracle. That’s why the Bible uses the word “quickened”, we are made alive to God, by God, through God. God in us! God doesn’t save us, and then leave us to live life in the energy of our flesh. God has fully provided for us in every way. God gives us his Spirit so we can live, so we can endure. When we are weak, he is strong. We endure, because him in us endures. He is faithful IN us, he is always perfectly faithful. God was not our heavenly Father, but now he is OUR Father, and we become the children of God. He is your Father when you are born again, and he deals with you as with a son. That’s why chastisement is one of the signs of being saved, because we go astray, we sin, and God being the good Father he is, chastises us, scourges us, he gets us back in line.

The Holy Spirit’s work is to transform us into the image of Jesus Christ. We become Christlike. We have his Spirit in us. And thus that’s the outworking! The Spirit of Christ in us! And thus our life more and moreso mirrors the image of Christ. It doesn’t mean we are sinless, it doesn’t mean we don’t fall, it doesn’t mean we don’t struggle. The Bible says we have this treasure in earthen vessels. And God does purging, cleaning up in our life, and there may be lots to be done. But things start to fall away. God brings things to our attention, God gives victory over sin, over addictions. Christ in us bears fruit in our lives. And it is his fruit. That’s what Jesus meant when talking about the vine, we cannot bring forth fruit except we abide in him, and he brings forth the fruit. We are just the branches, without abiding in him, we cannot bear his fruit, we cannot bring forth fruit. Are you tapped into the vine today? It’s not self effort, it just living life. That’s why it’s called the fruit of the Spirit, it’s not stuff we are generating ourselves. Talk about freedom and liberty! The Son makes us free and free indeed. And you should bring forth fruit, if you don’t it’s because you’re not saved. The Holy Spirit changes us. He separates us unto God. Just like God separated the light from the darkness. God will start doing separating and cleansing and chasing sin and routing Satan’s strongholds and past grip on us out our lives. God says, Be ye holy, for I am holy. The Bible says, Come out from among them and be ye separate. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. He shines the light on us. The light of Christ!

The Holy Spirit seals us. We are sealed unto the day of redemption. Once you’ve got him, you’ve got him forever! How amazing! You can’t get unborn again. Our salvation is final. But in a sense it is ongoing. We still have not received our glorified bodies. We are saved, then we are sanctified, which is the process in this life of God separating us unto himself, and then we await glorification. But such is the sureness of God’s promises, his word, that the Bible says, NOW are we the sons of God. We can reckon things to be so, such is his faithfulness to us. After all, he dwells in us by faith! We HAVE (present tense) eternal life. God doesn’t leave us guessing. The Holy Spirit bears witness with our Spirit that we are the sons of God. You should have the witness of the Spirit in your life. You should KNOW things, you should know you are born again, that God is your Father. Romans 8:15 – For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth, and you should love truth, you should come to the light, not run, not scuttle, not hate the light. You should love other saved people, you should care for souls, you should readily receive God’s word, you should have a love of the truth, God’s word is truth, and because after all Jesus is the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word. How can you have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ dwelling in you by faith, and then reject his very word? If Christ is not in you, you are not Christ’s. In fact the Bible says you are none of his. That’s why the Lord, Lord’ers are rejected, he says depart from me, I don’t know you. Do you HAVE the Son? That’s what the new birth is, Christ in you!

The Bible says if we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. But many people just use the “Spirit” as an excuse to live however they want, according to their lusts, according to their carnal mind, and wash it off on Christian liberty. They excuse themselves. The Bible says use not your liberty as an occasion the flesh. And we are not to turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. We are not to trample underfoot the blood of Christ. Romans 6:18 – Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. And being born again is a baptism. It is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We are baptized into Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. Reckon it to be so! We are raised up in newness of life with Christ. Some of these things are hard to understand. It all happens at conversion. Don’t believe lies. We are commanded to be filled with the Spirit, but there is no further baptism to receive unlike Pentecostals and the tongues crowd say, it all happens at conversion. By the way, if you’re “working” up a spirit, its not the Holy Spirit. Devils are conjured up… the Holy Spirit is not invoked or conjured up. And the Holy Spirit is… HOLY. We receive the Holy Spirit by simple faith. We get filled with the Spirit by reading our Bible, by God coming upon us in daily life. By being yielded to him, and he moves in us and upon us and through us. The degree to which you yield and decrease and submit is the degree to which you are filled with the Spirit. How much of you does God have? You read the Word, you pray, you get honest, and God will fill you with his Spirit.

The Holy Spirit teaches us. What he teaches us can’t be untaught. When he reveals truth to you, it sticks. See, I can talk forever, but unless the Holy Spirit teaches you, nothing is taught. Nothing will make sense. The Holy Spirit can use me, but he does the teaching, he does the convincing. He will bare witness to you whether I’m talking rubbish or not. You should be able to detect false doctrine, you should get grounded in truth, you should be able to pick fakes and phonies. Stop being deceived, stop being tossed around, stop being made merchandise of, stop being taken for all you’re worth. He guides us into the truth. If you have the Holy Spirit you should only have peace when you’ve found the truth. You should not settle on lies, you should not have peace living in a lie or believing lies. That’s why people all over the world, no matter the background, the skin colour, the culture all arrive at the same point. It is the same Holy Spirit sent forth into the whole world. He brings to remembrance the words of Jesus, the Holy Spirit was sent forth in Jesus’ name, he doesn’t speak of himself, he gives glory and bears witness of Jesus Christ. And the Bible says there are three that bear record in earth… the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one. They agree in the person of Jesus Christ… and that witness is in the whole earth. Jesus has created all people, he has lighted everyone that has come into the world. We are all without excuse.

The Holy Spirit empowers us and gives us grace to live the Christian life, because we simply can’t in our flesh. But we sure do try! The Galatians tried! We do try. It cant take many different forms. It can take the legalistic form. It can be the carnal form. And all of it is slavery, bondage, beggarly. Fleshly, carnal Christians, self willed, self motivated, self effort. Satan will get you. And he knows there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Aren’t you TIRED? Enter into Jesus Christ’s rest! The flesh is very deceitful. Our hearts are deceitful. But living in our own energy, our own efforts, is tiring. Jesus said his yoke is easy and his burden is light. It’s just simple faith folks, just believe. And his life is in us and flows through us, out of our belly should flow rivers of living water. It’s not self effort, it’s not performance. True spirituality is not self effort. Read God’s word and you will be spiritual. It’s a spiritual book. The Holy Spirit leads us, and we hear the still small voice of Jesus Christ. And you can, should and will know his voice. You should know the stranger’s voice from the shepherd’s voice, you should start getting some discernment and wisdom, you should know that unmistakable voice of your Saviour. He guides us, he leads us to pasture, he leads us by the still waters, he restores our soul. Even through the valley of the shadow of death, he is with us. He is with us the whole way to glory. He PROMISES never to leave or forsake us. He is the friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

The Holy Spirit regenerates us, he revives us. He enlightens our minds. Suddenly we go from alienated, separated from God, to be able to come into the very presence of God. That’s what the priesthood is a picture of, we can go right in, we can offer the sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise and worship, we can offer our lives up to him, our reasonable service, we can pray and we have power with God, we can affect those around us. As the Bible says, We are begotten again unto a lively hope! This thing is alive… not dead. We can have fellowship and communion with our Creator. All through and because of and by Jesus. The Holy Spirit transforms our thinking, our understanding. The Holy Spirit separates us from this world, from darkness unto himself. We are drawn out to God. It’s not separation for separation’s sake. But it’s separation unto the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit is called the Comforter, and he comforts us. Truth brings comfort. Do you have and know the true comfort of God? God has not left us alone, Jesus promised to come to us, and he said the joy that he gives, no man can take from you. The peace he gives us is a peace that passes all understanding. He sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts, he manifests himself to us. He makes himself known to us through his Holy Spirit. We KNOW. We understand. We begin to grasp and understand the magnitude of love and mercy and longsuffering and compassion of our Saviour to us. We KNOW him. 2 Corinthians 5:16 – Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. I never understood that verse till right now, because we can know Jesus Christ as an unsaved person, and the Bible says the devils believe and tremble. We can live a life in intellectual land, in head belief land, and never actually believe in, and receive Jesus Christ. Take ownership, take possession of what he has done for you. You’ll know Jesus in a completely new light, you’ll actually KNOW him! Heart belief! And then the next verse, 2 Corinthians 5:17 – Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

We are a new creature, there is a new creature inside us, and that’s what matters. And feelings and emotions can be nice, and can be part of it. But they are not IT. The Holy Spirit can save someone without any show, any feelings, without anyone knowing! And most likely will. There are so many counterfeit, false, fake, seducing, enticing spirits out there, the faith healing movement is counterfeit, there is a lot of counterfeit moving and work of the “Spirit” going on today. Jesus said don’t follow them, go not after them. Experiential religion. Emotional religion. Experiences are dangerous. Trusting in anything other than God’s sure word will get you in trouble. There are many spirits, seducing spirits, false spirits, there is a lot of false garbage out there, false Christs arising, new Bibles. We are in a time of departure from the faith, departing from God’s word IS departing from the faith, because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God! You need to CONFESS and REPENT of your sin, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Many people place their faith in the wrong thing. Place your faith in God’s promises, they HOLD, they are faithful promises. God’s word is always fulfilled. The Holy Spirit makes us alive, he brings life to this whole thing. Oil is a picture of the Holy Spirit in the Bible, and without oil, you’re done, without oil the whole thing seizes up, the whole thing can’t go or get going.

The letter does kill, but the Spirit brings life. You need the breath of life today, we all need spiritual revival. God addresses the innermost part of our being. Man looks on the outside, man fixes the outside, but the inside is often left destitute, and in complete poverty and wretchedness. God fixes us from inside out. And that starts with being born again. Our spirit is united with the Holy Spirit and we are made spiritually alive. We are reconciled to Christ, we who were afar off are now brought nigh. Then our soul God cleanses, heals, he puts us in our right mind, he sanctifies us. We start to realize, hey, I was waaaay off the beaten track! How great God is! How merciful and longsuffering and compassionate he is! I was headed to hell! I was more lost than a feather in a whirlwind! We were a long, long way astray, but the Shepherd sought us out!

In fact the Bible says when we are saved, we have the mind of Christ! That’s why we HEAR him. We hear his voice, we understand, we GET IT. What was foolishness to us is now the wisdom and power of God. We go like Paul, from Christian killer to Christian maker! Our body comes last, and we await our future body, which we have the promise will be like his glorified body. Romans 8:18 – For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. We have a greater hope than we even begin to conceive. We can’t even begin to grasp future glory and blessedness await those that are saved. We have such great and precious promises. If we saw the future, we would really put a lot more stock in the future, in Jesus, but we see through a glass darkly… but then face to face! Then we will know even as we are known. That is scary for the unbeliever. Because the Bible says at best, we know in part, but there is coming a day when the deception, the veil will be removed. The lusts will pass away, humanity’s glories will fade to nothing, and then if you are unsaved, you will just go to hell. No parties, no fun, no lusts, no good memories, nothing to cling on to in hell. Weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, regret, remorse, torments, unquenchable fire. FOREVER and EVER. Get saved!

The promise of the Father was and is the shedding forth of his Spirit upon all flesh. We live in such a blessed but such a terrible time! We have such great opportunity, but also to whom much is given much is required! What enormous regret it will be in hell to have missed out on your salvation. ETERNITY! The promise of the Father comes to all who believe in Jesus Christ. A belief that receives what he has done for you personally, placing your faith in him, your whole life and existence, pinning your life on the faithfulness of the faithful Son of God, whose name is FAITHFUL and TRUE. A belief that receives the Holy Spirit. No great fanfare, just the hearing of faith. God be merciful to me a sinner.

The promise is to everyone, from all four corners of the earth. ANYONE. And he will make you alive, and alive forever more. I can’t do justice to what the Bible teaches on the Holy Spirit, I have struggled to reference, but READ your Bible. SEARCH the Scriptures. Find out for yourself! Just believe. Take God at his Word! Without the Spirit of God, we are dead, cold and lifeless, spiritually stone dead. The Spirit gives life, it is the breath of God from heaven. There was a mighty rushing wind at Pentecost, and it filled those who were there, waiting on the promise of the Father. And Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, sent in his name, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Lord. And Jesus came to them, another Comforter, that will abide with us forever, that he promised. I will come to you. He did, and he does. And when he does in your life, you will know it, and you will know the joy, the peace of being at peace with Holy God. And he can come to you today.

John 3:6 – That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

John 3:7 – Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

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