The Holy Spirit is God’s incredible gift to humanity. He is our Helper, Comforter, Teacher, Advocate, Counselor, Strengthener and Intercessor (John 14:26 amp). God intended for us to know the Holy Spirit personally, to feel His comfort, experience His strength, receive His teaching and be guided by His counsel.
This Pentecost has been a powerful season where God has led our church and many others across the nations to rediscover the person of the Holy Spirit. He is part of the Trinity – the three dimensions of God that are equal and work in perfect unison. The Holy Spirit is the dimension of God that we relate to and commune with on earth.
Jesus walked the earth 2020 years ago. He lived a sinless life, died on the cross, shed His blood to redeem humanity and was resurrected from the dead. He is now seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven (Heb 10:12). But His Spirit is with us on the earth and ready to be poured into the lives of those who seek Him.
Here are four characteristics of the Holy Spirit that reveal His power, His promise and His role in your life:
- The Holy Spirit will be with you forever
Jesus said He would pray and the Father would send a Helper, a Comforter, to abide with us forever (John 14:16). The word abide means to be with, live with and maintain a presence. This is the promise of Jesus to us. Even though He is no longer with us physically, His Spirit never leaves us. You will never be alone again after you have received the Holy Spirit into your life.
The final words of Jesus before leaving planet earth are recorded in Matthew 28:18-20. The Great Commission is to go and make disciples of the nations, to baptise them in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and to teach them to obey. Then He reminds them, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age”.
Discipling one person is hard. Discipling the nations seems impossible. But Jesus promised He would give us a Helper who would teach us all things and bring to remembrance everything Jesus said (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church on the Day of Pentecost and filled us with power to complete His assignment. Our mission, and the help we need to complete it, has not changed in 2000 years.
“Our mission, and the help we need to complete it, has not changed in 2000 years.”
2. The Holy Spirit will come and dwell in you
Pentecost didn’t stop in the upper room 2000 years ago. The Holy Spirit came to live on the inside of the believers in the upper room, who became His vessels and carried His Spirit to the ends of the earth. The Holy Spirit has been spreading to the hearts of men and women ever since.
The Apostle Paul wrote in his epistles “Don’t you know you are a temple of the Holy Spirit?” (1 Cor 6:19). You may at times feel disconnected, lost, confused or unworthy. But the word of God calls you a temple – the one piece of architecture that was the central part of the life of Israel because it housed the Spirit of God – is now you. God now chooses to dwell in you. When you read the Old Testament accounts of the building and rebuilding of the temple and its role in the nation of Israel, you will see just how integral it was to God and His people. To think that under the new covenant you are now God’s temple on the earth shows how infinitely precious you are in the sight of God. And when God joins us together corporately, we become the Church of the Living God in a city. That is powerful!
John 14:17 tells us that we will know the Holy Spirit because He dwells with us and will be in us. This is amazing. God created us with the unique ability to accommodate the Spirit of God. His Spirit then leads us into sonship (Rom 8:14) and all truth (John 16:13).
Jesus tells His disciples that although He is going, He will not leave us orphans. He will send us the Spirit of Truth (John 14:17-18). We are adopted into His family by His Spirit. God in heaven is our Father, and when He pours His Spirit into our hearts we can cry out ‘Abba Father’. This is a supernatural connection point where He responds to our heart’s cry and takes us as His own. This is how we can know Him so intimately and personally as our Father.
3. The Holy Spirit will be the transformational power in your life
You can’t tell a person to change. That is unfair. You don’t know the background, what they’ve been through and what is holding them back. Yet you can introduce them to Jesus and the Holy Spirit and walk with them on a journey of transformation.
Time and time again we see Jesus intervening in the lives of individuals and deep, lasting change taking place. In John 4 Jesus encounters a woman at the well. Her life is completely dysfunctional and broken. She had so many men in her life and Jesus has prophetic insight into the situation. He neither condemns her or excuses her sin – He simply shows her a pathway to restoration.
The Holy Spirit takes a major role in this transformation story. Once she recognises this is the word of God for her, the woman opens up about her questions on how she should worship God accurately. She had received a lot of advice in the past based on religion and tradition, but she hadn’t been able to resolve the confusion in her heart. Jesus gives her the answer: “God is Spirit, and the hour is coming when those who worship Him will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth”.
This is a word for us today. We are spirit beings living in a natural world, called to relate to God in heaven. The only way we can relate to, commune with, and worship God is through our spirit. The Holy Spirit is our connection point.
Just like the woman at the well whose life was radically changed, the great Holy Spirit continues to lead us to encounter Christ, unite us with Christ and bring us to a place of restoration. Everything that God touches, God turns around. Every time Jesus intervenes, things are put back together again.
We have many untold testimonies of transformation in our church. One young man in our city, who was totally lost in years of ice addiction and crime, had an encounter with the Holy Spirit and He set this young man free. (You can listen to his story here, or read about it here.)
In Mark 16:17-18 Jesus told the disciples “And these signs will follow those who believe. In My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues…they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.” Jesus has gone, but His Spirit is here continuing the work through His believers. He is still healing, transforming and working miracles.
“Jesus has gone but His Spirit is here continuing the work through His believers. He is still healing, transforming and working miracles.”
4. The Holy Spirit will make the love of God abound in your heart
The scripture says hope does not disappoint, the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Rom 5:5). The proof that the Holy Spirit is at work on the inside of a believer is the manifestation of the love of God.
Jesus said “love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). The law of the Old Testament was not done away with at the arrival of Jesus. Rather, it was fulfilled in one law – the law of love.
The Old Testament law given to Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness following their deliverance from Egypt was what turned a mob of over a million former slaves into a nation. It formed the basis of civil society and governed their relationships and behaviour. When Jesus was questioned by the Pharisees and Sadducees about what was the greatest commandment, He revealed the law of love:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Mat 22:37-40).
The law that brought Israel into nationhood and continues to underpin the foundation of our justice system and civil society in the Western world today, is built on two foundational elements: love God and others.
“We humans, in our sinful, fallen state, cannot get love right without the Holy Spirit.”
In sounds simple, but nothing could be further from the truth. We humans in our sinful, fallen state, cannot get love right without the Holy Spirit. The world often tells us what love is, but Paul gives us the true definition in 1 Corinthians 13. He reveals that the heart motivation of love is greater than any outward demonstration of power, spirituality, knowledge or good works. These things are nothing without love. The greatest proof that He is at work in our lives is the motivation of love.
Jesus said “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13). Jesus proved His infinite love for us when He laid His life down on the cross. Then, in Acts 1:8 He tells His disciples that when they receive the Holy Spirit they will become His witnesses to the ends of the earth. In its original translation, the word ‘witnesses’ means ‘martyrs’. When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives it changes our internal motivation and gives us the capacity to love others the way Jesus loved us. It is not self-serving, it is based on sacrifice.
There is great trouble and strife in the actions. Any revolution that happens where Jesus is not lifted up and exalted ends in pain. This is my great concern. We need the Holy Spirit to make the love of God abound in our hearts and cross over every human divide.
“We need the Holy Spirit to make the love of God abound in our hearts and cross over every human divide.”
If you, in your heart, reach out and seek the Holy Spirit, speak to Him and invite Him into your life, there will be a presence that comes around you that brings peace, guidance and comfort. Jesus went to the Jordan river to be baptised and the Holy Spirit alighted upon Him in the form of a dove (Luke 3:21-22).
This is the nature of the Holy Spirit – He is waiting for us to take the first step. He desires to meet with us, but it is up to us to decide to get to know Him. He is a gentleman, He is not going to come if you haven’t invited Him. But if you look to Him and open your heart to Him, He will come into Your life.
Pastors Brian and Lynne Heath have been married for 40 years and served as the senior leaders of City Builders Church (formerly COC) at Sale, in the heart of Gippsland, for the past 27 years.
Brian is one of the longest serving pastors in the Gippsland region and has become a true father to many spiritual sons and daughters and a valued mentor to younger ministers and community leaders.
Brian has a strong prophetic dimension to his life and carries the apostolic grace to build strong churches and to teach, train, impart and prepare the Church for the last day’s harvest. Brian believes the church of the future will not only carry the grace to win souls, but to impact and influence every domain of society.
Brian is also part of an apostolic team that travels regionally and throughout the Pacific. He is also working with ministry partners to build an alliance of like-minded ministries, churches, individuals and organisations that desire to rediscover and rebuild the Christian foundations that this great nation was built upon.