TEXT:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me’ (Luke 4:18).
Just as Jesus waited until He could say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me”, before He started His public ministry, so His disciples were told to do the same. ‘And now I will send the Holy Spirit upon you, just as my Father promised. Don’t begin telling others yet—stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven’ (Luke 24:49 TLB).
The Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthian Church that the Holy Spirit had been given as a guarantee, that what Jesus was preparing for them, really was for them and they would experience all of it (See 2 Corinthians 1:22, 5:5 and Ephesians 1:14). He also reminded them that everything they received, whether then or in eternity, was all through the Holy Spirit. Today’s Teaching focusses on some of the things the Holy Spirit does in us and for us.
1. The New Birth – ‘Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts’ (2 Corinthians 3:3 NLT).
Jesus told Nicodemus, ‘Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’ (John 3:3). Paul wrote, ‘We have been baptized into Christ’s body by the one Spirit, and have all been given that same Holy Spirit’ (1 Corinthians 12:13 TLB). Water Baptism is the outward sign of that inner, new birth. We baptize new converts in water, not in the name of a leader or denomination, but in the name of Jesus.
Salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit. We’re not giving people a helping hand, other than enabling them to hear the gospel. It’s when they say they believe that the Spirit of the Lord causes them to be born again. We cannot save ourselves by good works, we need divine intervention!
2. Love – ‘The fruit of the Spirit is love’ (Galatians 5:22)
God is love and loved the world so much He gave His Son (See John 3:16). God the Holy Spirit cannot act outside of love. He doesn‘t just have love, He is love. Every act of God is motivated by love, even discipline, ‘For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child’ (Hebrews 12:6 NLT).
When we are filled with the Spirit of the Lord, we find it much easier to show love. ‘Dear friends, let us practice loving each other, for love comes from God and those who are loving and kind show that they are the children of God’ (1 John 4:7 TLB). ‘Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works’ (Hebrews 10:24 NLT).
Where there is the absence of love, one must question the validity of a person’s salvation, ‘But if a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that he doesn’t know God—for God is love’ (I John 4:8 TLB).
3. Life – ‘We do not tell them that they must obey every law of God or die; but we tell them there is life for them from the Holy Spirit. The old way, trying to be saved by keeping the Ten Commandments, ends in death; in the new way, the Holy Spirit gives them life’ (2 Corinthians 3:6 TLB).
It’s sad when Christians live under the rules of men but there’s no life. The Jewish Christians wanted the Gentile converts to be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses, even thinking a person couldn’t be saved if they didn’t. The first Church conference had to decide on that very issue, ‘For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to place on you any greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from [consuming] blood, and from [eating the meat of] things that have been strangled, and from sexual impurity. If you keep yourselves from these things, you will do well’ (Acts 15:28-29 AMP). This decision caused great encouragement throughout the churches.
Remove guilt and condemnation and our faces light up with life as we worship and witness. Not that we ignore the Bible, but we focus on Jesus and through Him win the battle against temptation and sin.
4. Liberty – ‘Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’ (2 Corinthians 3:17).
When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he had life but no liberty, because he was still bound by the grave clothes. The command was, ‘Loose him and let him go’ (John 11:44). Many Christians get saved but are still bound by the grave clothes of past associations and practices.
In areas of the world that have many gods, people are happy to add Jesus to the list. This is why water baptism is so important as the believer publicly declares they have repented, have turned away from their sins and acknowledge that Jesus is the only way to be saved and is now their Saviour and Lord.
Paul taught, ‘Do not be unequally yoked’ (2 Corinthians 6:14). If the past hangs on to us, it will eventually drag us down. Praise the Lord that the Bible says, ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new’ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Now that really is liberty!
5. Legacy – ‘The old way, with laws etched in stone, led to death, though it began with such glory that the people of Israel could not bear to look at Moses’ face. For his face shone with the glory of God, even though the brightness was already fading away. Shouldn’t we expect far greater glory under the new way, now that the Holy Spirit is giving life? If the old way, which brings condemnation, was glorious, how much more glorious is the new way, which makes us right with God!’ (2 Corinthians 3:7-9 NLT).
The Bible says, ‘But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord’ (2 Corinthians 3:18).
This is our legacy and it’s by the Spirit of the Lord. ‘Yes, dear friends, we are already God’s children, right now, and we can’t even imagine what it is going to be like later on. But we do know this, that when he comes we will be like him, as a result of seeing him as he really is’ (1 John 3:2 TLB).
In the light of the above truths, let’s thank God for the Holy Spirit and allow Him to work in us and through us for the glory of God.
Recent Comments