Receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior is a major event. It is the first step in your Christian life. In Ephesians 2:1-8, the Apostle tells us that we who were dead in our trespasses and sins, have been made alive within Christ and it is all because of God’s grace, which we don’t deserve.
We were created sinless and perfect and had a wonderful relationship with our Creator. Satan, the arch-enemy of God came to the Garden of Eden with a set purpose – to deceive and corrupt man …God’s special creation. He succeeded in getting man to disobey God and the spirit or spiritual art of man died.
In Genesis 2:7 we read, “Jehovah God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”
So, God formed man’s body from the dust of the ground. Then He breathed into man’s nostrils and man became a living soul. We believe the soul consists of the mind, emotion, and will. So where does the spirit of man come to be? We believe the “breath of life” became the human spirit. In Hebrew, the original language of the Old Testament, the word translated as breath is neshamah. In Proverbs 20:27 the same word is translated as ‘spirit.’ We read there “The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah.” That is when the human spirit was formed. The human spirit is the deepest part of our being.
Why did God give us a spirit? This is the means by which we communicate with our God. In Romans 8:16 we read “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” It is our human spirit that relates to God and makes it possible for us to interface with Him.
It is awesome to have the Holy Spirit, who resides in the body of the believer, to communicate with our human spirit. He speaks to us through the inspired Scriptures. He also speaks into our spirit through other people. The Holy Spirit communicates with us through our circumstances.
In John 3:5-6, we read of Jesus saying “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. (NIV)
In Galatians 5:22-23, the Apostle Paul wrote “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law.” The Holy Spirit wants to produce this kind of fruit in our lives. The Holy Spirit desires to fill us or be in control of our lives so that we can show forth the excellence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
One of the ways we can communicate with the Holy Spirit is to pray Scripture back to Him. For example, we might pray John 14:6 back to our LORD. It would be something like this – “Lord Jesus, I praise You for being the Way. Thank you, LORD, for being the TRUTH. Thank you for being life. You are so real.”
Only the Christian is spiritually alive. In 1 Corinthians 2:9-11 (NIV) we read, “What no eye has seen what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived – the things God has prepared for those who love Him – these things the Spirit of God has revealed to us by His Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except for their own spirit within them. In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”
In John 4:24 Jesus said “God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (NIV)
The Bible says that we are fearfully and wonderfully created. How awesome it is that our soul, containing mind, emotion, and will work in concert with our human spirit to interface with the Holy Spirit and thereby accomplish God’s will for our lives and His kingdom.
· We are born of the Holy Spirit.
· We are gifted by the Holy Spirit.
· We are guided by the Holy Spirit.
· We are empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Beloved, this is just the tip of the role of the Holy Spirit connecting with our spirit to accomplish great things for the glory of God.
Let’s go forth to be led by the Spirit,
Pastor Leonard
