Friday, July 3, 2015
2 Peter 1:21; John 3:7-8 ... men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. ... "Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
THE UNSEEN POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Apostle Paul urges us to "put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:24). What a change within is here described, as faith in Christ brings with it the beginning of a divine restoration of the image of God in its most essential ways! Christ-believers are made like their heavenly Father, gracious and generous in our dealings with others (Matthew 5:45). Trusting in Jesus is used by God to make a change so fundamental that we are able to love others with the self-sacrificing kind of love that caused our Savior to offer himself up for us! (Ephesians 4:32).
Since the Holy Spirit is so intimately involved in the creation and maintenance of faith in Christ, is it so amazing that Christians also are described as being like the Spirit?
Consider these two Scriptures taken together (2 Peter 1:21; John 3:8). Peter describes the unseen working of the Holy Spirit in the writers He inspired to put down God's very words, the Scriptures. Place this verse alongside Jesus' description of the Spirit's working within every believer. The Spirit is like the wind, unseen but powerful. By the power of the Spirit the believer is like the Spirit-- the power in our lives unseen but plainly evident.
Notice how in both cases the Spirit's means of working in human hearts is intimately involved-- namely, the inspired, written Word. The Holy Spirit worked marvelously through human writers in order to give us the word of life. The same Spirit works in the hearts of Christ-believers so that the evidence of this power is seen in our daily lives.
"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness ..." (Galatians 5:22-23).
