Weekly Devotional 10-9-23
How do You Know the Holy Spirit is an Indwelling Presence?
The day before His crucifixion Jesus called the apostles together wanting to prepare them for what was soon to happen to Him, His arrest, mocked trial, and crucifixion. We read of that meeting in the Gospel of John, chapters 14-17. In those chapters Jesus talked with them about many things including the helper the Father would send after His departure back into heaven. We read of this in chapter 14 verses15-20. Consider: “15If you love Me, keep My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. 19A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. 20 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
From this passage we learn that Jesus promised the apostles that soon His Spirit, the Holy Spirit would indwell them. Of certainty, this promise came to pass, that is, in 11 of the 12. One of their number (Judas) was not a true apostle or believer in Christ. Prior to the Father sending the Holy Spirit the apostles did not know for sure that Jesus was God in the flesh. But this changed dramatically when the Holy Spirit did indwell them (verse 20). Before He came. they wondered, but afterward there was no doubt. Before He indwelt them, they were fearful but after His indwelling they were bold and faced down all adversaries. Before His indwelling they were powerless, but after His indwelling, they were able to cast out demons, heal the sick and in some instances raise the dead. They all suffered martyrdom (except for John-God had a different purpose for him) without fear. Beyond those things, they turned the world upside down. Thousands believed their witness and turned to Christ for salvation. But was this only meant for the apostles or was the Spirits indwelling intended for others?
Following are 15 Verses (there are many more) that state that the Holy Spirit is for all believers.
1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
1 Corinthians 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
2 Corinthians 6:16 Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Ezekiel 36:27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.
Isaiah 63:11 Then His people remembered the days of old, of Moses. Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is He who put His Holy Spirit in the midst of them,
2 Timothy 1:14 Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
Acts 6:5 The statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch.
Ephesians 5:18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,
Romans 8:11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Galatians 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Romans 8:9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.
Romans 8:15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
Galatians 4:6 Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
1 John 2:27 As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.
Having then established that the Holy Spirit was meant of God to indwell all believers how is each believer to know that he, or she, is so indwelt? The answer most assuredly is, because He is God’s gift to all believers with the exclusion of none. What God gives He does not take back! Also, there are several testimonies of the Spirits indwelling given by Himself. Consider…….
We, as the apostles after the Spirits indwelling know without doubt that Jesus was/is in the Father, part of the Godhead (John 14:20). We have the mind of Christ (in thought and commitment). Consider 1st Corinthians 2:10-16: “10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
We are assured that the Holy Spirit indwells us if we have a desire to keep God’s commandments. Consider 1st John 2:1-6: “1My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. “According to the previous passage only the Holy spirit can illuminate in us the recognition of God and 1st John 2 tells us that Jesus, the advocate of God, by the Holy Spirit causes us to have a recognition of sin and a desire to confess it. It is only the Holy Spirit that can cause us to want to obey God’s commands.
These things are not present in whom the Holy Spirit does not dwell.
What a God we have. He has not left us alone but dwells inwardly by His Spirit, The Holy Spirit.
Steve
Stevelampman.com
Transforming Power, the Work of God on Behalf of man