Holy Spirit

[Jesus said,] "When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes — the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father — he will confirm everything about me."

—John 15:26 MESSAGE

Key Thought​

I have always been amazed at how Jesus uses the last few hours of his life to prepare his followers for their ordeal as he faces the cross, their wonder in his resurrection, and their amazement at his ascension. There is so much happening in a relatively short time, and it is so...

 

[Jesus said,] "I'm telling you these things while I'm still living with you. The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you. I'm leaving you well and whole. That's my parting gift to you. Peace. I don't leave you the way you're used to being left — feeling abandoned, bereft. So don't be upset. Don't be distraught."

—John 14:25-27 MESSAGE

Key Thought​

I hate...

 

[Jesus said,] "I will talk to the Father, and he'll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can't take him in because it doesn't have eyes to see him, doesn't know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you! I will not leave you orphaned. I'm coming back."

—John 14:16-18 MESSAGE

Key Thought​

The Holy Spirit is all about...

 

[Jesus said,] "If you love me, show it by doing what I've told you. I will talk to the Father, and he'll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you."

—John 14:15-16 MESSAGE

Key Thought​

Love is shown by the actions that back up a person's words. We show our love for Jesus by what we do, by obeying what he has taught us. Jesus, however, doesn't expect this demonstrated love for him to be a one-way street. He shows us his love for us by having...

 

How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

—Hebrews 10:29 NIV

Key Thought​

If we reject Jesus, we reject everything that God is and everything he has given. We insult Father, Son, and Spirit. We reject grace at every level. The message of Jesus is precious and must never be spurned...

 

On the final and climactic day of the Feast, Jesus took his stand. He cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says." (He said this in regard to the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were about to receive. The Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.)

—John 7:37-39 MESSAGE

Key Thought​

Jesus is looking...

 

[Jesus said,] "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you — they are full of the Spirit and life."

—John 6:63 NIV

Key Thought​

The apostle Paul said essentially the same thing as in today's verse when he wrote, "I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him ..."...

 

[Jesus said,] "But the time is coming — indeed it's here now — when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth."

—John 4:23-24 NLT

Key Thought​

"Must..."! That is a hard word when spoken by Jesus! So we should pay careful attention when the Lord uses it. Our actions must conform to his words...

 

[Jesus said,] "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."

—John 4:23-24 NIV

Key Thought​

Jesus' words, spoken to the woman at the well in Samaria, echo down through time. They cut through the worship wars of every era. They rattle our selfish preferences and challenge our...

 

For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.

—John 3:34-35 NIV

Key Thought​

John's gospel declares again and again that Jesus is God among us. He speaks the words of God. His actions are the actions of God. He follows the will of God. On Jesus and in Jesus, the Spirit of God operates with absolute power and authority, yet in complete harmony with the will of God —...