Listen. Listen. Listen. (part two)

This is the simplest way I can explain the Holy Spirit's nature. I even put it this way when I taught Bible class to grade schoolers when I was in High School at my home church in Edmonton. Even though we see an egg in one part it is really three parts – the shell, the yoke and the white part. Strike three matches and you will see one flame – simple yet profound.



Here’s another simple explanation as to why we need Him. In John 4, Jesus tells the woman at the well, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” Since God is spirit, I must have within me His nature, to help me understand Him. Remember that spiritual truths are spiritually discerned and it is only with the help of the Holy Spirit that I will understand anything spiritual. This is why it’s so hard to explain spiritual truths that are so simple to us, to a non-believer who does not have within him the ability to understand what we’re saying. He just can’t do it because he doesn’t have the Holy Spirit within him to discern spiritual truths. If God were an eye, we would need an eye within us to understand him; strange but true.


Where does He live? He lives with us and in us. “The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” John 14:17.


Let me give you an illustration of what the Holy Spirit looks like when He is working.


Every-other Monday night in my home, I teach a class to nine young moms I personally invited to attend. The study is based on the book Managing Your Moods, a book in the Women of Faith series. Usually for about thirty minutes we talk about the book and then for the next hour-and-a-half or so I preach. :) Anyway this is what happened to one of my students after leaving class the other night. She walked outside only to find there was about five inches of snow that had fallen unbeknownst to any of us. She said she said to God, “O Great! Now there’s snow.” She got in her car, cried all the way home (not going there), walked inside and opened her Bible. The Bible fell to the word snow, which was at the top of the page in her concordance. “Hummm,” she thought. “That’s interesting.” She then proceeded to go down the passages under snow only to come upon Psalm 51 which she started to read. Verse one, verse two, verse three (wondering why she was still reading) until she came to verse seventeen. Voila. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise,” which was the verse someone had remembered in class that we looked up and discussed at length, WHICH WAS THE VERSE SHE WAS LOOKING FOR WHEN SHE OPENED HER BIBLE. She said when she found the verse in the way she found it she literally had goose bumps. “YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!” I said when she told us about it. That is the way it feels to encounter the Holy Spirit. That is how it feels! She even emailed me to tell me she had something she HAD to tell the class the next time we met. She said she had never had one of those moments before, but since then, thought she had had two more.



Let me tell you what just happened.


The Spirit led her and guided her into all truth, i.e., scripture, which he inspired the authors to write. He then interpreted that scripture for her and gave her a spirit of discernment enabling her to connect to it, having encountered it in class. He comforted her with words no one else could. He helped her in a time of weakness. He heard her prayer and convicted her with regard to sin, righteousness and judgment. Look at the scripture He led her to that he, himself had revealed and spoken from creation:


"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”


This, my sisters, is the scripture God knew she needed – that God spoke to her in a very “spiritual” way. My sisters, you nor I could have caused that to happen. Only the Holy Spirit could have CAUSED that to happen.


What’s needed for the Spirit to speak? A broken and contrite heart. My sisters, doesn’t that sound like the first beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”? Christians, Christians, Christians MUST have the Holy Spirit living within them and through them in order for them to go from being poor in spirit to being persecuted for righteousness sake. We can’t climb the ladder, so to speak, without His help.