Hi Pal,
I trust the previous week was productive.
Today, I’ll be starting a new series of teaching on How to be Led by The Holy Spirit, which I have titled Learning to Soar with The Spirit.
There are a lot of things we will begin to uncover as we go along in this series. Some of them include;
1. The Identity, Purpose and Power of the Holy Spirit
2. The commonest pitfall in being led by the Holy Spirit
3. The ways through which the Holy Spirit leads
4. Good Counsel Vs God told me
5. Learning to Trust that Prompting
6. The secrets of seamless flow with The Holy Spirit
7. The golden key to hearing the Voice of the Spirit
8. The roles of Prophets in Guiding the Believer
9. Can God change His mind about something He had given you specific instructions about?
10. Operations of the Gifts of the Spirit
And many more.
I strongly believe that the subject of being led by the Holy Spirit is perhaps the most fundamental of all Christian doctrines, immediately after that of Salvation. Now that you are born again and transferred into the Kingdom of Light, there is a way to navigate your way into your inheritance, into communing with your Father and enjoying the present day Ministry of the Holy Spirit. The only way to do that is to learn to be led by the Holy Spirit.
John 14:16-18
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
John 16:7-15 KJV
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
The first thing we will begin to deconstruct today is the Identity, Purpose and Power of the Holy Spirit.
Who exactly is This Holy Spirit? And why does the Believer need Him anyway? Many unbelievers do just fine without Him I suppose. How powerful is He really? These and more are perhaps the questions in your heart, but the Holy Spirit will help us find you answers.
The Identity of The Holy Spirit
The first thing you need to know about The Holy Spirit is that He is the Third Perosnality of the Triune God. The Holy Spirit is exactly God in Essence, Capacity and Virtue but uniquely different in Assignment, Expression and Dispensation. He is not any shade less God than God… I am wary of using the phrase “…than God Himself,” because even that would suggest that that God Himself is inadvertently slightly different and superior to the Holy Spirit, but God is not. The Holy Spirit is God!
A few Scriptures to buttress this very valid point;
John 4:24 NLT
For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.
2 Corinthians 3:17 KJV
Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Luke 1:35 KJV
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
The unique relationship among the God-head is so immaculate yet distinct that the only way they have co-existed from eternity to eternity is because there is a holy sense of DIFFER-ence among them, that is they differ to one another only with respect to assignment, expression and dispensation without altering their unified essence, capacity/authority and virtues.
Some have used interesting symbols to attempt explaining this amazing triune relationship like water, (water, ice and steam), Sun (light, heat and radiation), etc. But no matter how hard I try to explain the Identity of the Holy Spirit, relative to the other personalities of the Trinity, I still will fall short of a perfect exegesis that articulates this supernatural relationship, because ultimately, it is a Mystery. These are the types of Mysteries where even after you have done all the theological amd scientific research possible, you still have to submit your logic to the superiority of Faith in order to enter into the experience of their reality.
So my friend, the Holy Spirit is God. That is who He is! I’m sure you don’t expect me to explain God to you in a blog article ????
That being said… we now go to His Purpose.
The Purpose of the Holy Spirit.
Remember I stated clearly that The Holy Spirit is different from the other personalities of the God-head in Assignment, Expression and Dispensation? That is why His Purpose is slightly unique to Him.
Because of the unique Assignment of the Holy Spirit, His expression is quite different from those of The Father and The Word. The Word had to become Flesh and dwelt among us in order to become the propitiation for our sins. He had to alter His expression eternally in order to become a suitable lamb that takes away the sins of the world. He hasn’t returned to His former state, He is still The Word but has retained the form of a man as an eternal sign of His mediation and priesthood over our lives after the order of Melchizedek. This is one of the most remarkable expressions of God’s love to us. The Bible refers to Him right now as a man.
1 Timothy 2:5 KJV
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
For the Holy Spirit, His expression is quite different because of the nature of His Assignment. He isn’t the Saviour, He is the Reformer. After the Saviour must have saved, The Holy Spirit then takes over to begin the work of Reformation and Transformation in the life of the believer.
There are 5 Names used to describe the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer;
1. The Comforter
2. The Helper
3. The Standby
4. The Counsellor
5. The Advocate
His primary assignment is to furnish in the believer a present day reality and fulfilment of the mind of the Father in the life of the believer. All that God has in store for the believer is couriered through the agency of the Holy Spirit. He is the vital link between our Heaven Reality and our Earthly Experience. If any man ever experienced a lot of heaven while on earth, it is because he partnered with his Vital Link.
1 John 5:7-8 KJV
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
He is Heaven’s Connect for the believer and has a tremendous impact on to quality of a believer’s life.
However, according to John 16, He has an assignment to the world as well. He convicts the world of sin, and ensures the sinners is aware of his sin, He convicts the world of the righteousness, and ensurss the sinner knows there is a just God with a righteous unbearable standard, and He convicts the world about a certain judgment that is imminent which if unhelped, he would eventually suffer. That judgement began with the judgment of the enemy. Having convicted the world of all these, then He points them to Jesus! Praise God!
For the believer, He leads into all Truth and shows the believer things to come. He is such an advantage! Any believer without a vibrant present day working relationship with the Holy Spirit is losing so much more than the Stock Market can capture in economic terms.
We need to stop here today. I will emphasise more on the Purpose of the Holy Spirit next week with respect to how He leads into all truth.
The series may last for a few months and this is so we exhaustively uncover very key areas regarding our relationship with The Spirit of God.
God bless your hearts.
Have a fabulous week ahead.
I hope this blessed you and answered a few questions in your heart. Let me hear from you!