Do You Know Who Lives in You?
The Holy Spirit isn’t an “it.” He is God—living in you, helping you understand, obey, and walk with Him.
In the last two devotionals, we saw that love leads to obedience—and that Jesus gives us His Spirit to make that possible. But that raises one more question…
Who, or what, do you worship?
Do you simply love a vague concept, a father-figure called, “God,” or “Creator,” or “Eternal Spirit”? Do you mystically love an historical person that in many churches remains nailed to a cross? Do you love a feeling, an energy that covers you in a congregation of worshipers? Or, more specifically, do you love the eternal, all powerful “I AM”, creator of all things who revealed himself to us through Jesus Christ and who personally lives in those who believe in Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit?
If you have been with me as we’ve meditated on the Gospel of John, you will know that I worship the more specific, personal God. We’ve come to three chapters in the Gospel in which Jesus teaches about the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised his discipled that we will know “him.”
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:15-17 ESV).
Who is the Holy Spirit? Some people call the Holy Spirit an undefined, “it” as if the Holy Spirit is just an energy or an impersonal thing. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit by a personal pronoun, “he” and “whom.” Jesus’s disciples, “know him” because “he dwells in you and will be in you.”
Although a spirit, the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of truth,” that is, of the same substance as Jesus who is “the truth” (John 14:6), and Jesus is the same substance as the Father, for they are One (John 10:30). The disciple of Jesus worships the God who is “One in three Persons,” a Trinity. Yes, it’s mind blowing!
What is most important for us to understand, because Jesus repeated this several times, is that the Holy Spirit is a Helper, the one who lives in us on Jesus’s behalf, the one who makes us a child of God; the breath of God in us, who ensures we have eternal life!
Today, believe in Jesus and know that God lives in you through the Holy Spirit who helps you understand and obey, and who comforts and helps you, always.
This devotional is part 3 of a short series on following Jesus.
