A couple of weeks ago, a friend I had helped with some work sent me one of the greatest gifts ever. I received a shipment from Goldbelly, the online gourmet food source. In the dry ice-laced package were two massive tomahawk ribeyes from a famous butcher in Manhattan. If you’re a steak connoisseur, you would be stunned by these bad boys. They were beautiful.
The other day, I had these thoughts in mind when we went to dinner at my pastor’s house. My pastor, his wife, and my wife are all mostly vegan (for my wife, it’s a choice to manage a health issue without medication). Every time that foursome gets together, I am the lone carnivore. We eat some good dishes, but every time we’re together, it seems like they’re trying to present things as better, even though I know they would be tastier if they included meat, butter, milk, or some other animal product. The substitutes are never as complete, rich, and flavorful as the originals.
I can picture Jesus’s disciples feeling that way during his long farewell in the upper room the night before he died. The news that Jesus was leaving them and that one of them would betray him sounded like a devastating blow to those men. The hits just kept coming. He then tells them, “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 go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7). He was essentially telling them, “Guys, it’s really good that I’m leaving, because now you’re going to get the Helper. He’s better than I am!” No doubt they had the same thought I do when I see the tomahawk ribeye and someone tells me tofu is actually better: You’re kidding me, right?
In all honesty, if we had the choice of having the Holy Spirit or sitting down for coffee with Jesus, most of us would choose Jesus. Every time. But should we? Or was He right? For this age and at this time, was it better that he go away and leave the Spirit with us?
First, the Holy Spirit is a person, a member of the Godhead, as much God as the Father and the Son. He is not “the Force,” a power boost, or an “it.” If that is obvious to you, you represent only about one-third of American Christians, according to recent surveys. Because He is a person, you can have a relationship with him, pray to him, cry out to him, lament over your pain to him, and listen to him as he speaks to you.
Yet most of us take him for granted. I’m in a Bible study group that meets on Wednesday mornings. As we read through and study the Old Testament and God’s relationship to His people, we often marvel at how different life would have been if we did not have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. God was present among Israel, appearing as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The tabernacle, and later the Temple, served as a visible reminder that God dwelt among them. The God of Israel actually lived among His people, unlike other gods who were distant and associated with celestial bodies like the sun and moon.
Yet, for all his presence and care for them, God was not intimate. His holiness was such that one could not look upon him and live. When he met with Moses on Sinai, the people could not set foot on the mountain for fear of death. The priest could not enter the Holy of Holies within the Temple, which would undoubtedly lead to his death. This was not the work of an arbitrary and capricious God, but simply what happened when that which was holy came in contact with that which was fleshly and sinful. It cannot survive in the presence of the holy.
By contrast, we can enter into God’s presence. We can sit with him, speak with him, see his face, and listen to his voice. We can have a personal relationship with God, and we can do that because we are also holy. What makes all this possible is the presence of the Holy Spirit, living within us. When we enter a relationship with Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, comes and lives within us. He regenerates us, making what was dead to sin alive and holy. He makes us new, and because of this newness—this holiness— we can now be and live in God’s presence in a way that was never possible for those who went before us.
But that’s far from all. The Holy Spirit guides us toward Jesus. He ignites our hearts for the things that are of Jesus—those things that are good, beautiful, and true, things we never wanted before but that our desperate hearts now deeply want and need, even as we still battle the flesh that remains in us. And the Holy Spirit provides the power of God to resist that flesh, the death within us, and to choose to put death to death and be made new. In this way, the Holy Spirit regenerates and transforms us. It is through His power that we are made new. He uses the circumstances in our lives, trials, and other people to mold us into something new, something God created and planned for us to be all along.
He not only transforms us; he convicts us. He makes us aware of our sin and inspires us to respond to that sin by repenting and returning to him. Every time you felt a nudge, an unsettling in your spirit as you did something you knew you weren’t supposed to do, a press to turn away—that was the Spirit within you convicting and appealing to the new person you have become to believe in and act in accordance with that new, holy being (even when you didn’t feel so holy). As Paul told the Colossians, “And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless, and above reproach in his sight.” (Col. 1: 21-22). That cleansing agent is the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit also prompts. Sunday morning, I woke with a widowed friend on my mind and a need to pray for her. I texted her that she was in my thoughts and that I was praying. She reminded me that Sunday was her late husband’s birthday, and she had been grieving him. This type of thing happens to me all the time, as I know it does to you: a sensitivity, a prompting to pray, to reach out, to see another person. We often have no idea why, but we frequently learn there is a distinct reason. This isn’t coincidence or intuition; it’s the Holy Spirit, prompting our hearts to pray and often providing us with the words and interceding on our behalf when we have no idea what or how to pray. He’s like our great networking parent, connecting us with all our brothers and sisters, but even better because He lives within them and us and always knows our needs.
He gives graciously to allow us to serve each other. He’s giving me the words to write this right now, hopefully encouraging and reminding you that God is with and for you. He gives you the ability to teach others, the passion to welcome people into your homes, a knack for creating beautiful things, the ability to lead and influence others, or the insight to see things others don’t. These aren’t superpowers meant for your own benefit, but tools to serve the body of Christ, intended for others. Every great idea, creation, invention, and innovation throughout human history, every good thing made by human hands for the common good- whether by Christian hands and minds or not- was inspired by the Holy Spirit. He is God’s mechanism for revelation and always has been.
Finally, the Holy Spirit brings power. We have unlimited power in Jesus’ name, the power that created the world and raised Jesus from the dead. We have sweet friends with whom we’re very close, and we’ve kind of adopted their kids as “practice grandchildren.” They invited us to their house some time ago to meet a special guest. Hanuk lives in a part of India that has been relatively unreached by the gospel. He and his wife were in dire straits, feeling depressed and weary of life. They made plans to take their lives and bought poison to do so. While Hanuk was away, his wife received a visitor, a wizened old man who said his name was “Jesus,” a name she had never heard. He instructed her to locate a specific woman in her town who could provide her with healing instructions.
Hanuk’s wife found the woman and informed her about the visitor. The woman explained that Jesus was the one to whom she prayed. Then, the woman took Hanuk’s wife to a church service to see her pastor. The pastor’s sermon on Jesus’s resurrection of Lazarus captivated Hanuk’s wife.
Meanwhile, back home, Hanuk decided to take the poison. He was found in distress and transferred to the hospital, where he succumbed to the poison and was pronounced dead. Hanuk’s wife learned he had taken the poison, rushed to the hospital, and discovered his body. He had been dead for some time, and the hospital was in the process of obtaining a death certificate for him. Hanuk’s wife ran to fetch the pastor, the story of Jesus and Lazarus resonating in her mind. She brought the pastor to the hospital, where he prayed over Hanuk. After more than an hour of death, Hanuk came back to life. When he awoke, he spoke of a dream in which a man touched his mouth and pulled the poison from his lips. As he described the dream, his description matched the man who had appeared at his wife’s door!
Hanuk is now a pastor, and he and his wife run an orphanage for abandoned children. Hanuk’s story is far from unique, in that miraculous events like this happen worldwide, particularly in the developing world, where doctors and medical care are scarce. Medical care and miracles are provisions of power in the Holy Spirit; He is powerfully at work everywhere, even in you.
I want to have coffee with Jesus, but not if it means losing the Holy Spirit’s presence. Jesus’s death and resurrection changed everything, but the Holy Spirit’s life and work in our lives may be the most significant change of all.
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