Thoughts on the Holy Spirit
Regardless of what anyone thinks on the subject of the Trinity, every Christian should have a high regard of God and an appreciation for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Those who have tasted this heavenly gift have been enlightened to the things to come and have been anointed to share God's word. The Holy Spirit works tirelessly to justify us before God by cleansing us from our sin and setting us apart for God's service. God provides the spiritual strength so that we can escape the corruption of an evil world. This alone is enough to praise the Lord.
The affect on our lives through the work of the Spirit creates a condition of fellowship with our father. These and many other benefits are originated by our faith in Jesus Christ. Through this gift, God enables you to live a life that you entrusted to him with a measure of holiness. God has anointed your body with the Holy Spirit and with power to enable you to serve our Father in Heaven. God placed his seal on you to acknowledge that you belong to him and have guaranteed your eternal life in glory by placing the gift of his Spirit in our hearts.
God has placed his Spirit in our hearts for our mutual benefit. When you look at the overall picture of God's promises you will know that God is not out to harm you. God desires to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11) and has taken steps to ensure that end. God has provided eternal security for you, so much so that no one is able to snatch you from his hand (John 10:28). The Holy Spirit is a gift given to his children to show the extent of his love and ensures that Satan or sin can not overcome you when you obey the commands of your heavenly father. God has predestined his children through the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit to be conformed to the image of his Son. Then God has assured his children a future with him in heaven provided you demonstrate your love for God and show your respects for him by obeying his fatherly instructions.
After God created Adam, God saw something that was different from all the other living creatures. God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make a helper suitable for him," Genesis 2:18. Adam needed support of another person like himself to address the pain and suffering associated with sin and has a way to develop the intimate fellowship with another person that God desired. Jesus categorized life as having two fundamental origins when he spoke about the make-up of man. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. John 3:6. In other words the spirit can not give birth to the flesh nor the flesh to the spirit.
Since your faith in his Son was genuine God honored his word to regenerate your spirit or give birth to your spirit. When Jesus came into your life and baptized you with the Holy Spirit he equipped your life with the power of God. Just as God gave Adam a suitable helper, God gave you the help of his spirit to ensure that you had the power to overcome the overwhelming presence of evil in the world.
God empowered you with his Spirit so you can live a life pleasing to your heavenly father. The Holy Spirit has a mission to perform in our lives to help you live according to the will of our father in heaven. He, the Holy Spirit, is our personal tutor and divine mentor that will raise God's children up in the admonition of the Lord. The Holy Spirit has several functions and one is to remind us of the words that God gave his Son to speak. The whisper of the Spirit's comforting words gave Jesus Christ the power to live a sinless life as he reverently submitted his life to God. It is an awesome and powerful gift that God gave to each of his children so they too could live a sinless life. The solution to sin lies within your grasp and like Christ, you too must reverently submit your life to God.
At the close of his book John said Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written, John 21:25. It's also true that Jesus Christ came into a world where men studied the laws of God every day, but their zeal for the law reduced their passion for God to a set of rules made by man. Today, experts in spiritual maters have written much and the world has been filled with an abundance of information concerning every aspect of God, but they have also reduced the word into what you have to do.
Not all theology has faults that divide the Church, but any doctrine that departs from using biblical terms makes it impossible to understand God from his perspective. The use of non-biblical terms or phrases is harmful to the church when those who believe and teach his word when they are unable to reveal the proper origin of the terms they used.
Coining new phrases or using foreign terms to God’s word will add content and change the intent of God’s word. The Words of the Bible establish common reference points that both you and God can mutually agree upon. A mutual understanding is absolutely essential to know God’s exact intent so we can do exactly what he wants done.
One of the easiest ways to perpetuate doctrine is to use the outlines provided by those who believe the doctrine. Following the same plan makes it possible to repeat the same mistakes and prove the same opinions. Teaching what you believe and have accepted blindly is easier, but you may be doing nothing more than repeating false information. Any doctrine can become a traditional teaching and passed from one generation to the next and from one teacher to another without ever testing your beliefs against God’s word.
The Bible is the only source of information that anyone could base his spiritual expertise upon the God of creation. The prophet’s God selected to write the Holy Scriptures had firsthand testimony making the Holy Scriptures accurate and a reliable source of spiritual information to know God by. Consider this,
Prophets were ordained to write the scriptures and give a first hand testimony of the history of man's relationship with God. This kind of testimony is eyewitness’s testimony that establishes the origin and accuracy of the Holy Scriptures. During the days that Jesus walked on Earth, man had reduced God's word to rules of law to what we call legalism to ensure that man complied with God's word. It also showed that God’s word could be altered to reflect men’s thoughts on what God’s word said. Today we call men’s thoughts on God’s word, commentaries, which are used extensively by those who teach God’s word. Even when the difference are known, most interpret the word of God by some sort of rules to reflect their beliefs.
Paul wrote this concerning what men of God say.
Out of respect for God, anyone speaking for God should teach what God said because our lives hinge on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Deuteronomy 8:3 No one – including God likes to hear what he or she has said twisted or misunderstood. Therefore, it is imperative that you test every doctrine for accuracy and not judge the teacher for his views. Every child of God has the responsibility to work out his or her salvation with God and to personally seek and verify God word for their well being. 1 Thessalonians 5:22 instructs us to hold on to what is good reject-whatever is harmful. This begs you to recheck what you have heard and compare it with the word of God, but most importantly it allows you to make your own decisions.
Obviously, the testing the scripture has to be based on what you are most comfortable with. You are the scales, the device that determines the weight of God’s word within you own mind. It allows you to appraise the worth of new information against what you have proven to be true in the past.
Dissecting the picture into facts is another way to gain the truth. The bible provides facts for you to gather and arrange, as if the word of God were a puzzle scattered out on the table. A piece in this book and a piece is over in that book of the bible, but you reassemble the puzzle through exercising your mind. The bible supplies you with facts similar in nature scattered throughout its pages and those similarities complete a picture when they fit together correctly.
There are many truths in the world, but the responsibility of knowing the real truth and establishing a relationship with God is in your hands. The good news is that God gave his children the gift of the Holy Spirit to help you work out your salvation with God. Christians can be deceived when they don’t know God’s word or take the time to seek God’s position on the issues important to your salvation.
Your eternal life is at stake and you can decide where you will live in eternity before you die. It pleases God to give the gift of life to anyone that wants it, for he does not want anyone to perish or be corrupted by the ways of the world. To this end, God provided a plan of salvation to make eternal life certain. Although the world knows about God a huge number of people have rejected God’s word because it is foolishness to them. For the same reason they will be rejected because they did not want God’s help and turned their eyes to their own pleasure.
The journey to heaven is a once in a lifetime experience. Make sure that the information is credible, convincing, and a practical way to live rather than a matter of convenience. Your future life depends on your desire to receive a gracious welcome into the kingdom of God on the day you walk through the doorway into eternity.
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