Holy Spirit

While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it's not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

—2 Corinthians 5:4-5 NLT

Key Thought


Two forces are at work within us as children of God. They work in opposite directions at the same time. Our bodies...

 

God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge — a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete.

—2 Corinthians 1:21-22 MESSAGE

Key Thought


The test of genuine disciples and true followers of Jesus is the presence of the Holy Spirit living in them. The Spirit transforms Jesus' followers to become like him (2 Corinthians 3:18). The Spirit helps produce the fruit of Jesus' character...

 

[When John the Baptizer was proclaiming the coming of Jesus], Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God's Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit, a voice: "You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life."

—Mark 1:9-11 MESSAGE

Key Thought


I hope you can look back on your baptism and remember it as a precious and...

 

I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too — your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful — I can't take it all in! Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there! If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon, you'd find me in a minute — you're already there waiting!

—Psalm 139:5-10 MESSAGE

Key Thought...

 

Whenever, though, [people] turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are — face to face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives...

 

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

—Psalm 143:10 NIV

Key Thought


As in this psalm, we cry out to God because we are aware of enemies who are set to attack us and of our personal sins that so easily entangle us in evil. On our own, we have no personal power to stand up under the weight of these two realities. So, our hearts cry out to God asking for him to teach us to do his will and for the Spirit to guide us to...

 

[God, speaking about the Israelite exiles in Babylon:] "And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart, so they will obey my decrees and regulations. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God."

—Ezekiel 11:19-20 NLT

Key Thought


The work of God's Spirit is at the core of God's promise to make a new people, a people with an undivided...

 

The old way, with laws etched in stone, led to death, though it began with such glory that the people of Israel could not bear to look at Moses' face. For his face shone with the glory of God, even though the brightness was already fading away. Shouldn't we expect far greater glory under the new way, now that the Holy Spirit is giving life?

—2 Corinthians 3:7-8 NLT

Key Thought


We live under the new way of the Holy Spirit, not under law! While the Old Testament law...

 

"And I will never again turn my face from them, for I will pour out my Spirit upon the people of Israel. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!"

—Ezekiel 39:29 NLT

Key Thought


God speaks of the coming of his New Covenant relationship with his people. One dynamic of that Covenant is that the Spirit will be part of a permanent relationship with them. Paul speaks powerfully of this relationship in Romans 8 (especially Romans 8:32-39). God's leaders before Jesus had the Spirit...

 

It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.

—2 Corinthians 3:5-6 NLT

Key Thought
Unfortunately, many of us who claim to follow Jesus can miss the incredibly radical claims of the apostle Paul. One of these claims is simple...