Holy Spirit

There are many things that could and should be said about the Holy Spirit. All I know is I need Him. I need His indwelling. I need His power. I want to share what A. W. Tozer had to say about the Holy Spirit.

"We who pride our selves on our orthodoxy...have in recent years committed a costly blunder...Our blunder (or shall we say frankly our sin?) has been to neglect the doctrine of the Spirit to the point where we vertually deny Him His place in the God Head.

This denial has not been by open doctrinal statement, for we have clung closely enough to the biblical position wherever our creedal pronouncements are concerned. Our formal creed is sound; the breakdown is in our working creed.

This is not a trifling distinction. A doctrine had practical value only as far as it it prominent in our thoughts and makes a difference in our lives.

Truth consists not in correct doctrine, but in correct doctrine plus the inward enlightenment of the Holy Spirit...Deity indwelling men!...No man has experienced rightly the power of Christian belief until he has known this for himself as a living reality."

Have you experienced the "power of Christian belief"? How has the Holy Spirit revealed Himself as a "living reality" to you?

Wild Goose Chase

[http://chasethegoose.com/]
I'm going to attempt to catch up on some much needed blogging. I feel like I have gone through a time of great learning and refreshing over the last few months. I have been soaking up so much that the Holy Spirit has been trying to teach me. I think now it's time to begin sharing some of what I feel I have been taught and some what I feel I have caught along the way.

It's amazing that the further down the journey you are with God the more you realize how little you know and the more you know that it is not just what you know, it's who you know.

I believe that the single greatest reason that Christians struggle to be all that God has called them to be is because we have left out the single most important aspect of being a Christian. We can not do this Christianity thing on our own. We weren't created to do this on our own. We have a longing with in us to have a companion on the journey: The Holy Spirit.

You see I believe that we serve a God that is expressed as a trinity. Yes, yes I know that term isn't in the Bible. But if you go to Genesis...God is doing the creating, the Spirit is hoovering over the waters and John says in the beginning was "the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." So our God is set up as a relationship between the Father (God), Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit. I won't even begin to understand in my little finite mind how this works, because I can't understand the infinite reaches of the Almighty God. But I do know that Genesis tells us that we are created in his image. We have the need to be in relationship as well. I believe we crave two distinct relationships: with God, & with people.

In the Old Testament people tried over and over again to be in relationship with God. Always falling short of that great divide because we are so far from being perfect (as every created being is imperfect- perfection can only come in the form of that which has not been created: God). So God had to send his Son down here to die for us...in our place, as the ultimate sacrifice. And before he does he make some bold statements about who would be coming after him.

John 14
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth.

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

John 15
When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

John 16
Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' 6Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. 7But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt[a] in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

12"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

Go back and reread these important chapters. Let them soak in. Ask God to speak to your spirit. Ask Him to reveal himself to you in a new way through the Holy Spirit.

The Wild Goose as the Celtic Christians called the Holy Spirit long and groans for you to open your self up to this great gift that Jesus promised would come after him. Are you ready for the Spirit of Truth to speak?