Friday, June 5, 2009
Galatians 4:6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father."
THE HOLY SPIRIT'S GIFTS ... PRICELESS
Children enjoy many blessings because they are part of a family. They enjoy the blessing of being tenderly loved and cared for by their parents. As they grow up they're blessed to have their physical needs provided. Things like food, clothes, and shelter. They are specially blessed to receive nourishment for their souls through the spiritual instruction they receive from Dad and Mom from God's holy Word.
Many and precious also are the blessings we are privileged to enjoy as sons and daughters of God, thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit who brought us to faith in Christ. Among these are the following:
* Spiritual peace which results from the knowledge that God our Father has forgiven all our sins. He reconciled us to Himself through Jesus for time and eternity. We have been made right with Him. Nothing in the world can separate us from His love.
* Comfort in our troubles. We know our Father knows all about us. He is aware of every intricate detail of our life -- our wants and needs, worries and cares -- and is deeply interested for our welfare. In His fatherly love He causes everything, including the painful experiences we encounter along the pathway of our life in this sinful world, to work for our good. He will never leave us or forsake us.
* Confidence when we pray. Since He adopted us as His children through Christ, He'll not turn a deaf ear to us when we speak to Him. We may approach His throne of grace with boldness, there to receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
* The hope of eternal life. As we engage in our daily activities in this temporary world, as we occupy ourselves with daily tasks and chores (some of them stressful and wearisome), we are buoyed up and energized by the assurance of an everlasting inheritance that our Father has promised to bestow on us when life's little day is over, for Jesus' sake. The inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for us, who through faith are shielded by God's power till the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
How priceless are these gifts of the Holy Spirit! How blessed we are to possess them! Let us praise Him for His wonderful work of love!
