Understanding the Holy Spirit is one of the essential concepts of Christianity. After the Gospel of Jesus Christ, awareness of the Holy Spirit's role in our lives is the most critical element of our spiritual growth and sanctification process. Yet, the topic "Understanding the Holy Spirit" is rarely taught or discussed in the church.
The person of God is made up of three persons called the Trinity. The three persons of God are:
- God, the Father - The designer and planner. The intellect and passion of God.
- God, the Son - The Savior. The physical form of God.
- God, the Holy Spirit - The power and essence of God.
These are not three manifestations of God but three different persons as one person.
The Trinity is not easy to understand. I'm not sure that we can ever fully understand it. However, another example might give you some grasp of the three persons of a single God:
The Bible says that God created us in his image. This idea is greatly misunderstood. Most of us think that the image of God refers to our humanoid shape and appearance. No, that is not it at all. God created us in his image refers to the three persons of God. We are also three persons existing as one:
- Our soul - our reason, intellect, passion, and emotion.
- Our body - our physical form
- Our spirit - our divine nature. Our core. Our essence. That part of us that communicates with God.
All three of those persons within us are unique and separate, yet they are all equally us!
1 Thessalonians 5:23 ESV
Most of us, including most Believers, are unfamiliar with the Holy Spirit, yet the Bible says that he is God also. He is just as much God as Jesus or the Father. Yet, we pretty much ignore him.
- convict them of their sin (John 16:8-11)
- lead them into all truth (John 16:13)
- sanctify their mind, body, and spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18)
- empower them with strength, ability, knowledge, and powers (1 Corinthians 12:4, Romans 8:11)
- become the source of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
- seal them forever as belonging to Christ (Ephesians 1:13)
- For a more complete list, click here!
You can see that if you are a Christian without understanding who the Holy Spirit is, you are trying to serve God without power and without strength. You are trying to serve God in your flesh.
It is at this point that most churches and Christians diverge from the truth. The Holy Spirit in your life is a supernatural experience. There is no other way to look at it. Additionally, it is a two-fold event:
- Sealed in the Spirit - When we accept Christ as our personal Savior, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us. It is at that point that we are sealed in the Spirit. Christ places his guarantee on us that you belong to the kingdom of heaven. This seal is a one-time event.
- Filled with the Spirit - This filling is NOT a one-time event. It is a daily event, a daily process. It involves daily surrendering ourself to God so that we can be emptied of ourself and filled with him.
If you are a Christian who does not understand the Holy Spirit, you do not have access to the supernatural portion of following Jesus. You are stuck in your own ability, unable to do much for God at all.
Without the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us, our walk with God devolves into a physical relationship of behaviors, emotions, rites, rituals, practices, and observances. These things create the illusion of a relationship with God. "Behaving like a Christian" makes us feel good because we have performed something that makes us feel holy or something to win the favor of God. Yes, we are still saved, and we are still going to heaven, but we live an empty and powerless life without the inclusion of the supernatural portion found in the Holy Spirit.
A.W. Tozer
Don't try to "do things for Jesus." Yield. Allow the Holy Spirit to create opportunities to share the gospel, minister to others, and know the will of the Father.
Without the Holy Spirit, the only thing left is religious behavior and a works-based theology. Religious behavior can never please God. Works and transformation are the fruits of the Holy Spirit, not the means to finding him. Works and change without the inspiration, strength, and power of the Holy Spirit are like putting the cart before the horse.
Daily we need to surrender ourselves to the power and purpose of the Holy Spirit. We do this in prayer. We offer our thoughts, desires, goals, dreams, family, income, health, etc., to the Holy Spirit and ask him to empower us, guide us, and direct us.
Ephesians 5:18 NLT
Being filled with the Spirit is to be empowered by God with power, resources, and purpose. The Greek word meaning in Ephesians 5:18 (plerousthe be filled) indicates an ongoing, daily process. Emptying ourselves is simply the daily process of surrendering to God.
- The Ritualistic
- The Emotional
Neither path is improper; neither approach is where you need to be, either. It is just part of the spiritual growth process. The danger is that we will not grow beyond the path and become stuck. It is the Holy Spirit that takes us to the next level: the Supernatural.
The Ritualistic
The ritualistic path is a relationship that focuses mainly on knowing God through ceremony and ritual. This path consists of procedures, rites, rituals, and religious activities. Communion, Lent, Maundy Thursday, Palm Sunday, Advent, group fastings, and group prayer have value and importance; however, all of these physical things are utterly useless without the supernatural. It is the intimate experience of knowing God that makes these things of value.
Most of the time, people walk away from these practices thinking they have done something holy or have done something to earn God's favor. None of these things will earn us favor with God. Having a deep, personal relationship with the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is the only form of favor God will accept.
There is nothing more intimate and holy than prayer. It is the single most important act that one can do as a Christian. Unfortunately, Believers stuck in the physical realm have difficulty having a meaningful prayer life because prayer belongs to the supernatural realm.
The Emotional
The emotional is a relationship that focuses mainly on knowing God through the emotional characteristics of the Christian experience. This relationship is a quest for the emotional: drama, feel-good events, feel-good works, worship, the miraculous, and often confusion.
Emotional worship will always consist of music, never anything else, even though there are many other ways to worship God. The music is designed to exhilarate the Believer, causing them to confuse the "pep-rally high" with a religious experience and thereby validate their belief in God.
Often, everyday events in this type of relationship are deemed to be miraculous. In so doing, these "miracles" are evidence of God's power in our lives. God does perform miracles in our lives all the time. While the everyday events are miraculous on some level, they are not evidence of God's intervention in our lives - rain falls on the just and the unjust alike (Matt. 5:45). These blown-up miracles serve only to diminish God and his power.
Believers stuck on the emotional path have difficulty having a meaningful prayer life because prayer does not always generate an emotional event, especially if that is your prayer's objective. Prayer belongs to the supernatural realm.
The Supernatural
If we love God and possess a strong desire to know and serve him, our physical relationship will eventually become a supernatural relationship. The supernatural is a relationship that focuses mainly on balancing the physical, the emotional, and the supernatural. It consists of a deep, abiding intimacy, reverence, and trust in God. To get to this point, one must pass through the jungle of either the ritualistic realm or the emotional realm.
It is the Holy Spirit that brings us to that point.
John 16:13a NLT
The more we yield to the Holy Spirit, the faster we can get there. The ritualistic realm does not know the Holy Spirit and tries to get there through works and proof that God exists. The emotional realm does not know the Holy Spirit either and tries to get there through emotions and feelings. This has a lot to do with why many Christians crash and burn in their faith. It's because their faith is based upon intellect & reason or feelings & emotion. These things eventually fail, and if our belief is based on these things, they crash & burn. Faith is based upon believing without any evidence whatsoever (Heb. 11:1). If we love God, truly love God, and draw near to him, he will draw near to us and reveal himself to us through his Holy Spirit (James 4:8).
The ritualistic domain is antithetical to the spirit realm (God is Spirit). The emotional domain is also antithetical to the spirit realm. So how can a ceremonial act produce sanctification and growth? How can an emotional experience produce sanctification and growth? The answer is that it can't.
John 4:24 Berean Study Bible
Romans 14:17 ESV
John 16:7 ESV
It was the intention of Jesus that we, as Christians, should be empowered by the Helper (the Holy Spirit). To make the transformation, simply be aware of his presence, aware of his power, and aware that he also is God. Yield. Ask him to work in and through you. Expect your life to change because of it.
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