Come Holy Spirit

It is interesting to consider why God sent the Holy Spirit. I believe that the Holy Spirit, that third person in the Trinity, fulfils three major roles in the work of salvation:

• Firstly, the Holy Spirit is the empowering presence of the living God. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force. As part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is God himself acting in his world and in our lives. He draws us by his grace to our Heavenly Father. He intercedes with us and within us, helping us to pray. The Holy Spirit teaches and admonishes us when we read Scripture. He applies and nurtures the fruit of the Spirit in our lives (love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control). The Holy Spirit assures us of our forgiveness and our adoption as the children of God, and brings comfort, hope, and healing. In short, the Holy Spirit mediates the presence of God in our lives and in the church.
• Secondly, the Holy Spirit empowers the church for effective service, witness, and global mission. Just before Jesus ascended into heaven, he promised to send us the Holy Spirit who would empower us to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). It is the Holy Spirit who enables the church to serve sacrificially and to be an effective witness unto Christ and the gospel. It is the Holy Spirit who blesses us with the gifts of the Spirit for the common good. It is the Holy Spirit who brings unity and helps shape and form the Body of Christ. It is the Holy Spirit who makes sure that the gospel is proclaimed to the ends of the earth through the empowered witness of the church. It is the Holy Spirit who brings about transformation in our lives by the renewing of our minds so that we might conform to the pattern of Christ and be clothed in his truth.
• Finally, the Holy Spirit is the One who continues to manifest redemptive signs of God’s kingdom breaking into the world. The good news of God’s powerful work in this world did not stop at the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through Christ’s first coming and in the power of the Holy Spirit, God’s Kingdom began to break through and is still breaking through into the world bringing a foretaste of the future realities of heaven (healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, hope, deliverance from evil, etc.) The Holy Spirit applies all the future realities of the New Creation into the present. This process will not be fully complete until Jesus returns, but if we look around we can see that God is still at work by his Spirit, reconciling the world to himself.

I don’t know about you, but I want more of the Holy Spirit in my life. I have a deep thirst and yearning to drink from the water that Christ offers just as he said, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” Through Christ and in the power of Holy Spirit those rivers of living water might flow from within us. Isn’t that incredible? In conclusion, if we wholeheartedly give our lives to Christ and pray for an anointing of the Holy Spirit, we may begin to live our lives as authentic disciples of Christ. We might see the Holy Spirit at work in us, blessing us with gifts of the Spirit leading to an abundance of the Fruit of the Spirit. We might begin to see those rivers of living water flow from within us by the effect and impact we have on those around us who have ears to hear, hearts to receive, a mind to understand and accept Jesus as their Lord, Saviour, and Redeemer. Amen