Skip to main content

Come Holy Spirit: True Life is Found Only in Christ!

The Scripture clearly teaches that true Christian believers are defined by a willingness on their part to submit to the Words of Christ and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Many are still to this day unaware of the work of the Holy Spirit in the transformation and regeneration process of believers. In the first century, even the disciples of the Lord did not understand the plans that God had in store for His church. They seemed to be Restoration minded1 and not so much Resurrection minded. But shortly after He had again spoken to them of His coming departure from earth, and just when the time was right, Jesus revealed those plans to the disciples. The news that He would be leaving them after three years of close fellowship saddened them greatly. So, as a word of encouragement, He seizes the moment to reveal the next step of His plan for the life of all believers. He explains that it is very advantageous that He arise and go to the Father (John 17:5) because of the gift He was going to bestow in doing so, the Helper, Comforter, or the Holy Spirit. Here is His statement of revelation and encouragement:

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: “of sin, because they do not believe in Me; “of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; “of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. (John 16:7-11 (NKJV))

Jesus speaks of a threefold work the Holy Spirit (Helper) who would be coming to them as a constant presenceeven reminding them that all that Jesus said and taught was true. In His threefold work, the Holy Spirit would function as the source of internal conviction that would come upon all who do not believe in the Lord. He also would be the key influence in the believers life, leading them through the pruning process as He shears away the old life and transforms us into the new. Finally, He impresses upon the heart that judgment is coming. This conviction of judgment reveals that the Prince of the Power of the Air (Satan) has been judged and all who follow his deceptions will receive a similar fate.

For the Christian, these are some very revealing facts! But for this post I want to concentrate on one, the conviction of righteousness. Jesus verified that He alone was righteous when He ascended to heaven to be in the presence of the Father. The contrast in the passage is starkly seen when you compare our sinfulness to His holy and sinless perfection. But the Holy Spirit, who generates this illuminating truth in our hearts simultaneously points us back in the direction of Jesus who alone can wipe away the sin and impart to us, again through the power of the Holy Spirit, His righteousness. So there is hope for all. The way may be narrow and the gate may be straight but nonetheless it is still available for all who will come to Him.

Jesus' work was the greatest act of compassion and love
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote:

"Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one's community back from the path of sin."

Emotionalism which can be seen in a fear of abandoning the ones you love to their sin without showing them that sin separates us from God, is an aberrant and deceptive type of love. It only serves to love another into hell. We cannot allow feelings for others to desensitize us to the truth. God's word is truth and forever it must be proclaimed. It is the lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, Psalm 119:105.

This emotional abandonment was never so with Christ. Rather it is this compassionate work of God, in illuminating our sin by showing to us through the resurrection that He is righteous, that the key to open that straight gate to life is acquired. prompting the confession of our sin and the reception of the grace of forgiveness. It is this work of God in which we finally see ourselves as sinfully nauseating that pulls us from the fire and into the glorious path of true life. It is a truth that absolutely must be upheld. He must increase and we must decrease.

True life can only be found in Christ
On this earth we have a less than perfect existence. As a matter of fact, we struggle with broken and imperfect things all the time. The things we experience are very repetitive and serve to only pass time as we struggle for existence. The rich will say just work hard and get ahead in such a way that your debts will be of no hindrance to your happiness. And to that end many strive. Others have just given up. They live life hoping for another to come to their assistance so they do not have to ask, "where will I find another piece of bread." Still others eek out their existence barely making it from one paycheck to the next. And all of these examples for what end? Honestly, their lives all end in death. It is not earthly life that is true life but that which is spiritual and found in Christ. It starts with being born-again, not physically but spiritually through the Holy Spirit of God.

Jesus said, true life does not consist in things one possesses, whether they be material or intellectual, Luke 12:15, but in knowing He has the power to deliver you from death. The Christian mission is to preach the truth to all people.

Jesus gave His all for us that we may have the true life He promises. As the Creator of the world and all that is seen He surely has the wisdom to illuminate to us the true life originally given to our first parents in the Garden of Eden. They sinned and for a moment it was taken from them and they were driven out of that holy paradise, but God in His mercy clothed them with His grace and rescued them from that fall. God's desire still, is to clothe us with His grace and it is found in Christ. True life and living comes alone through a personal relationship to Jesus.

God Bless
Bro. Mike

* Restoration Minded: By this I mean they were focused on the Jews being freed from the rule of Rome. They wanted their kingdom to be restored in its preeminence.  See Acts 1:6

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

25 Reasons to Believe - In Jesus FREE EBOOK

FREE EBOOK click to download - When book comes up click down arrow on Upper Right to save a copy . A while back the Barna Group released a report titled, "Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church." 1  Under reason two, " Teens’ and twenty-somethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow" they write:  "A second reason that young people depart church as young adults is that something is lacking in their experience of church. One-third said “church is boring” (31%). One-quarter of these young adults said that “faith is not relevant to my career or interests” (24%) or that “the Bible is not taught clearly or often enough” (23%). Sadly, one-fifth of these young adults who attended a church as a teenager said that “God seems missing from my experience of church” (20%)."  If one takes a look at the modern church-scape I can see why. The gap between those pastors and teachers that are fired up about Jesus and those that do not preach all of th

Fornication - The Acceptable Sin?

In the Bible there are several sexual sins that are categorized under the term,"Sexual Immorality." Not the least of these is, "Fornication." However fornication has become an outdated, and in many places, the acceptable sin in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As a matter of fact, many do not even know what the term "fornication" means. Since the advent of the modern Bible translation, many have never heard of it. This article focuses on what the Scripture says about this out-of-control acceptable sin. Fornication is mentioned thirty-six times in the Bible (MT), thirty-two times in the New Testament. In almost all modern translations the word has been substituted with, "sexual immorality" and has come to mean any number of sexual sins. However, sin (missing the mark) is still sin and sin still separates a person from God. So why has this sin become so acceptable even in modern churches???? UPDATE : Here is a testimony of life

The Bride of Christ Has Made Herself Ready!!

The Bible teaches of an upcoming Wedding Day that the Church should be on cloud nine over!! Rev. 19:7-9 states: Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come , and His wife has made herself ready." And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!' " And he said to me, "These are the true sayings of God." The passage above speaks of two distinct events, the Marriage of the Lamb and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Both of these events are reminiscent of the ancient Jewish wedding ceremony where the Bride would become betrothed to her Groom and he would go away to build her a home. In the meantime she would wait anxiously for his return with shouts from his wedding party of "The Bridegroom Comes!" When the shouts were he

Understanding Grace…without it no one can be saved!

Years ago as a pastor, I faced an issue concerning the topic of “Grace.” I had noticed some congregants who were taking Grace to the extreme and beginning to teach that since our sins were bought and paid for at the cross—all of them, past, present, and future—there was no need to strive against sin. Thanks to our Lord, this was noticed and the He quickly allowed it to be curbed. This heresy occasionally rears its head in Christian circles and indeed must be stopped before it becomes out-of-control. The good thing is that a proper understanding of Grace can arrest the heresy in its steps. Because this false perception thrives in loose living, many well-meaning Christians go completely to the opposite extreme and throw the Biblical teaching of “Grace” out altogether. That too is heresy. How should we approach it? Grace, as a doctrine, should always be presented in its entirety. By that I mean, a starting definition, followed by why it is important, and concluding with keeping it scri

Guest post: Hind's Feet

Adrian Bateman, 2016          The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like hind’s feet, And He will make me walk on my high hills. — Habakkuk 3:19 For most human beings the primary goal of life, after survival, is the pursuit of happiness. Indeed it’s one of an American’s “unalienable rights”. But what is happiness? The definition of happy is surely situationally derived. For the hungry it would be having enough food; for the homeless, a home. For the average person it might be having more time, more leisure, more friends, more comforts, more things. Ultimately, happiness involves the removal of obstacles and the correction of problems so that we might live a life without struggle. Or, at least, without what we view as onerous or unnecessary struggle. But this is not God’s definition of happiness. No. True peace—biblical peace, that deep inner peace which we cannot explain—is found only in the presence of God. When we are continually aware of the Pr