Make Friends with the Holy Spirit

Make friends with the Holy Spirit.

I deliberately use a phrase that suggests the personality of the Holy Spirit. I think for many Christians, the Holy Spirit is a kind of theological abstraction. They accept that God the Father is a person. They accept that Jesus Christ is a person, but they have no concept that the Holy Spirit is a person. And yet, scripturally and theologically, this is a fact.

Now, I’d like to quote a passage of scripture from the words of Jesus, John 16, verses 12 through 15:

“I have much more to say to you”—that’s to his disciples—“more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.”

And then He speaks about various things the Holy Spirit will do. He will report on what He hears from heaven. He will bring us the latest news from heaven. He will show us what is yet to come. He can unfold the future to us. And then He says, “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine.” That’s extremely important. Everything the Father has belongs to the Son, and everything the Son has, the Spirit administers. So that, if you put that together, the Holy Spirit is the administrator of the total wealth of the Godhead. All that the Father has and all that the Son has, they have in common. But it’s the Holy Spirit who takes from the wealth of the Father and the Son and makes it available to us.

So you can be a child of God and an heir of God and yet live like an orphan if you don’t know how to relate to the Holy Spirit, ‘cause He’s the only one that administers their wealth. Jesus brings this out again in John 14:15–18, where He says to His disciples,

“If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever”—that’s the Holy Spirit. And when He uses the word ‘another,’ He’s emphasizing He’s a person—“the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

Two vitally important facts: First, Jesus comes to us in the Holy Spirit. Second, unless we relate rightly to the Holy Spirit, we are like orphans, even though we are truly sons of God. You see, it is the Holy Spirit alone who enables us to live as true sons of God.

This is brought out very clearly by Paul in Romans 8:14. And Paul says, and it’s very definitive,

“As many as are being continually led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.”

So to become a child of God, you have to be born again of the Holy Spirit. But to become a mature son of God, you have to have an ongoing relationship. You have to be daily and continually led by the Holy Spirit. I observe in the church today that there are many who are truly born of God, but who are not regularly led by God. They know the new birth, but they don’t know that continuing relationship to the Holy Spirit which alone can enable them to live as mature sons of God.

So if you want God’s best, you have to cultivate that ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit as a person, who is your personal guide, who is the administrator of the riches of the kingdom of God, who alone can impart all these things to you in experience. And then let me say one further important fact in our relationship to the Holy Spirit: We must be respectful and sensitive toward the Holy Spirit. Paul brings this out clearly in Ephesians 4:30 and 31:

“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.”

The Holy Spirit is compared to a dove, a timid bird that is easily scared away. And so when Paul says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit,” he means, ‘Don’t scare that dove away.’ And he mentions the things that scare the dove: bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, along with every form of malice. We have to be very, very sensitive in not saying or doing anything that would frighten away that beautiful, sensitive dove, which is the Holy Spirit, because He’s the only one that can bring us into our inheritance and can enable us to live daily as mature sons of God.