Easter Five Day devotional
Day Four – Who is the Holy Spirit?
Christians believe in a God who is one God and yet three persons. Those persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Several passages point to this reality. In Matthew 28:19 Jesus says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Second Corinthians 13:14 says, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” First Peter 1:2 refers to believers as those “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood.”
The reality of one God in three persons is called the Trinity. This doesn’t mean that there are three gods, and it doesn’t mean that God has three masks that he wears. It means that God, at his very core, is more complicated than just being an individual in isolation. God himself is relational, just as he has created us as human beings to be relational.
The Mysterious Member of the Godhead
We might feel like we can get our minds around the idea of God the Father as the one who speaks the world into existence. And we can imagine God the Son because he took on flesh in the person of Jesus. But the Holy Spirit can be very mysterious to us. Is the Spirit a he? A she? An it? Is the Spirit kind of like the force in Star Wars or like the idea of peace and serenity? The Holy Spirit seems to be surrounded by mystery.
In the New Testament we get the clear message that the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, but is personal and relational. John 14:26 tells us that the Holy Spirit teaches and reminds. Romans 8:26-27 tells us that the Holy Spirit prays and intercedes for us. Ephesians 4:30 says that the Holy Spirit can be grieved. Acts 5:3 tells us that the Holy Spirit can be lied to. And in Galatians 5:16 we are told to walk by the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is not a force that we harness. He is a person who we walk with, learn from, and follow. He is God’s gift to every Christian: “You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9). He indwells us (John 14:17) and empowers us to live in joyful obedience to Jesus (Acts 1:8, Romans 8:11).
What Do We Do in Response to the Holy Spirit?
God himself dwells within every believer through the Holy Spirit. What do we do then in response to this? There are two key commands in the Bible that answer this question. The first command is in Galatians 5:16: “So I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” The second command is in Ephesians 5:18: “Do not get drink on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” Command #1: Walk by the Spirit. Command #2: Be filled with the Spirit.
Nowhere are Christians told to ask for the Holy Spirit. The Spirit already is with us and in us. But we are told to walk by the Spirit and to be filled with the Spirit. These commands seem to mean the same thing. They are both telling us to yield our will to the will of the Holy Spirit and to follow his lead. This comes through when we think of the command in Ephesians 5:18. When someone is drunk on alcohol, the alcohol takes control of them and they act however the alcohol leads them act. If, instead of getting drunk, we are filled with the Spirit, then we will let the Holy Spirit be in control, and we will follow wherever he leads us.
Being filled with the Holy Spirit does not imply that we will be in some sort of spiritual trance. It simply means that we will be walking with him in such constant joyful obedience that he will be the one in control of our words, our actions, and our attitudes. We choose to follow his lead instead of clinging to control of our own lives.
How Do You Walk by the Spirit?
The Holy Spirit is not a visible person standing beside us, but an invisible person living within us. Because of this, it is not always obvious how we can walk with him and follow his lead. It is not as simple as just taking a walk and following his footsteps. But there are several things that we can do each day to walk by the Holy Spirit.
First of all, we can spend time reading, and reflecting on, the Bible. The Holy Spirit is the ultimate author of the Bible. Second Peter 1:21 says, “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” This is why Ephesians 6:17 calls the Bible “the sword of the Spirit.” When we read the Bible with a heart to respond, to understand, and to obey, then this is an instance of us walking in step with the Holy Spirit.
Second of all, we can spend time praying. Ephesians 6:18 says, “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.” And if we think we’re not very good at praying, we read in Romans 8:26, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” When we pray, the Holy Spirit is always involved in the process. We pray in his power, and he helps us as we pray. Prayer is how we experience union with God, and so prayer is a key way that we walk in step with the Holy Spirit.
Third of all, we can take simple steps of obedience when the Holy Spirit prompts us. We may imagine that being filled with the Spirit will involve profound and heroic acts of faith. Sometimes this will be the case. But it is unlikely that we will be capable of these big steps of faith and obedience if we are not responding to the Holy Spirit when he prompts us to do simple things like apologize to someone, put down our phone and pray, or speak a word of encouragement to a fellow believer. As Jesus said in Luke 16:10, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.”
Finally, we can walk by the Spirit by putting ourselves in community with other believers in Jesus. If every Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then we are wise to spend time with other Spirit-indwelt people. This makes us more likely to be in tune with how the Spirit is leading us. Not only does the Holy Spirit indwell each individual believer, but he dwells in a special way in the midst of gathered believers. As 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” If we want to be led by the Spirit, we’ll be a part of a church family instead of trying to walk with God on our own.
Response
- What is your key takeaway about who the Holy Spirit is, and about how he related to Christians?
- Of the four ways that were given for how we can walk by the Spirit, in which one do you think God is calling you to take a step of action?