Holy Spirit, God and Lord!

"God does not bestow his Spirit on his people in order to set aside the use of his Word, but rather to render it fruitful."  - John Calvin

To be fair, there are a lot of misconceptions about who or what the Holy Spirit is. Some might see it as some magical entity, or a cold, indifferent force provided by God to believers. 

As usual, if we want to find out more about this matter we should turn to the most reliable source, the Bible. Therein, it doesn't take long to discover the identity of the Holy Spirit: God.

Due to obvious limitations here, we cannot cover everything about the Holy Spirit. We can, however, briefly examine some basic points on the subject. Perhaps this might even encourage you to pursue a further study.

Many times you will hear some allude to the Spirit as "it," but this is not the case. The Holy Spirit is a person. The Bible reveals that the Holy Spirit is a divine being with intelligence, feelings, and even a will (Romans 8:27). 

A person receives the Holy Spirit at the moment they accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior (1 Corinthians 12:13; Romans 8:9). In other words, the moment we believe, the Holy Spirit abides permanently inside us.

This wasn't the case in the Old Testament. The Spirit would go back and forth among the saints, equipping them for service, but never really residing within them (Judges 15:14; 1 Chronicles 12:18; Psalm 51:11).

One of the many wonderful functions of the Holy Spirit is that of providing the wisdom to understand things that God has revealed to us by his Spirit. There is no way this would be possible without it. Only the Spirit of God knows his thoughts (1 Corinthians 2:10-11).

It's important to stress that this wisdom comes directly from God and not man. Our feeble minds could never accommodate the knowledge that would be required to replace the Holy Spirit's instruction (1 Corinthians 2: 12-13).

Needless to say, the believer derives considerable benefits from the Holy Spirit. Of foremost importance, having been forgiven and made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ, the believer has become the temple of God the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:7; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Scripture: Isaiah 11:2; Romans 5:5; Ephesians 1:13; John 16:13; Romans 8:14

Prayer: "Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground."  - Psalm 143:10

God bless you!

Mary