Day 23: Your Helper, the Holy Spirit

In John 14:15-18, Jesus is speaking to His disciples just before He is about to leave them and be taken from them in physical presence. He says:

“As I’m going, I’m going to send somebody else who’ll take My place and stay with you.”

In effect, He says, "I have only been with you a brief three and one-half years, but the other One who is coming to take My place will never leave you. He'll be with you forever."

This other one whom Jesus said He would send is the Holy Spirit. And Jesus gives Him here one special title, the Helper (or in the King James Version, the Comforter). This is what Jesus says:

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; [I'm going, but another one is coming in My place and He's going to stay.] that is the Spirit of truth [that is one of the titles of the Holy Spirit], whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you. ‘I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.’” (NAS)

Without the Holy Spirit, the disciples would have been left as orphans, little children without anybody to help them or advise them or to stand by them or to show them how they could gain their inheritance that Jesus had bequeathed to them through His death on the cross.

But when the Holy Spirit comes, He no longer leaves us in the position of helpless orphans but He comes to our help, He comes as our Helper, and He shows us how we can claim and enter into our inheritance bequeathed to us through the death of Jesus.

Let us explore some of the specific ways in which the Holy Spirit helps us. In John 14:26, Jesus says to His disciples:

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” (NAS)

There are two great ministries of the Holy Spirit to us, the disciples of Jesus.

1. He teaches us all that we need to know of Scripture and divine revelation.
2. He brings to our remembrance the things that Jesus has taught that we might otherwise forget.

That is why I believe in the absolute accuracy of the New Testament record because I do not believe that it depends on human thought or human memory. But I believe that those who wrote the New Testament were taught by the Holy Spirit. He brought to their remembrance the things that they needed to remember. And He will do the same for us.