Pastor Ian continues this series ‘Simply’, with the additional focus on ‘Knowing God’s Spirit’.
Reading from Galatians 5:1-25
Many believers will say they ‘Walk By The Spirit’. but what does that mean and what does it look like for you?
Simply defined, it is ‘Allowing the Holy Spirit to do in you what God sent Him to do.’
The Holy Spirit has been sent down to us from the Father to accomplish one and only one, eternal purpose.
We settle for a small portion of what He wants to do when we will simply ignore Him and quench the Spirit by wrongly believing that He is mysterious and therefore His presence is something we must take by faith and never understand.
But the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of revelation He:
- Brings us the revelation of God’s word
- Gives us the ability to understand the revelation He brings
God wants you to be able to do more than simply speak in tongues or maybe exercise another gift. How many believers have been stunted in their spiritual growth because they have focussed on one or two particular gifts of the Spirit and have no desire to go any further?
Have you stopped believing that the Holy Spirt can do more in you? Have you convinced yourself that His only purpose is to give out gifts?
We can quench the Holy Spirit by ignoring him. We can love Jesus, know him as our friend, saviour and comforter but still ignore the Holy Spirit. We ignore the work of the Spirit in our lives.
The purpose of the Holy Spirit; Bring us home to Christ as the spotless eternal bride.
He wants to bring us to a place where we are willing to let go of everything for God’s sake.
We have been chosen to be the bride of Christ!
The Holy Spirit wants to take us to a deeper relationship, a new place. Are we reluctant to go?
Not as single gift has any meaning, if it is divorced from the Holy Spirit’s eternal purpose.
His every gift has a purpose behind it. If you prophesy, that prophecy has one purpose behind it to glorify Christ. Every time someone is healed the Holy Spirit is saying that’s your Jesus, you are seeing the manifestation of who He is.
Everything the spirit does points to Jesus ‘When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.’ John 16:13
It is not about ourselves, it is only to reflect and to see a Jesus in His people.
The Holy Spirit gives us a foretaste of God and what is to come. A foretaste is an advance taste or realisation. To have a taste of the whole before we have the whole.
Ephesians 1:14 describes Christ ‘who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it..’
The Holy Spirit is the one who brings us into His very presence as a foretaste of being received as His bride. Enjoying everlasting love and communion with Him.
The apostle Paul in Ephesians 1:13 describes a people of God who ‘…believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit’
This talks about a people who are specially marked by a work of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit has produced in them a distinguishing mark, something supernatural that has changed then forever.
They are no longer ‘of this world’ because they have set their affections on things above, not on things of this earth.
We pray that today you will know the Holy Spirit, that if you don’t know him intimately, you cultivate a lifestyle to increase intimacy with Him. For those that do already know Him, you would grow closer to Him.
Let Him reveal to you the heart of the Father, so that we become the acceptable Bride of Christ.