 | Blogs > Noah235 > PLOUGHMAN'S LUNCH > HOLY SPIRIT POWER: Part 2 |
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This is the second of a number of posts about the power of the Holy Spirit. If you haven't read HOLY SPIRIT POWER: Part 1 then you might find it helpful to read that before reading this. I finished that first post by saying that I am aware of 5 ways in which the power of the Holy Spirit can transform our lives. In this post I will deal with the first of the five: 1. Power to know Christ Everything in Christianity begins with our relationship with Jesus. There is a sense in which the whole purpose of our Christian lives is for us to KNOW Jesus Christ. Now what is needed for two people to know each other well? These are my suggestions: (a) Be available to each other and spend time together. When Jesus was on earth he was able to develop close relationships with the 12 apostles because he spent a lot of time being with them. But since he only had one body, opportunities for many others to spend time with him in the same way were limited. However, when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit he sent him into our hearts and so he is able to be with everybody all of the time! This is the first way in which the Holy Spirit helps us to know Christ. (b) Communicate with one another. When you don't know someone well, it is often difficult to know what to say. But when we do not know how to pray, we have the Holy Spirit to help us and in fact "the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express" {Romans 8v26}. While typing this blog I have had my TV on in the background and this has given me an idea for an illustration as to how the Holy Spirit works to help us to get to know Jesus. For me to be able to watch a programme on my TV there are two things that need to happen. Firstly a broadcaster such as the BBC needs to send a signal from a transmitter. Secondly I need to have a TV set in my living room in order to receive the signal and convert it into sounds and pictures. Both of these processes involve electrical power to enable them to take place. When Jesus wants to make himself known to me the Holy Spirit is the power at both ends making it happen. Many of the activities of the Spirit are dramatic and spectacular, but just as nowadays we take the technical marvel of TV for granted, so it is with the work of the Holy Spirit in making Jesus known to us. It is as if we had a TV set installed in our spirits at the time we became Christians which the Holy Spirit uses for this purpose. There is a third part of the communication process. As well as people being together and talking to each other, they also need to PAY ATTENTION to each other. While typing this blog I have been aware of the sound of the TV, but because I have been concentrating on typing I have not really been listening to what has been said. As I have been looking at my computer screen while typing, I haven't been able to see the picture on the TV at all. If we feel that we are NOT getting to know Jesus as we hoped, then maybe it is because we are not listening to what the Spirit is TELLING us, or maybe not looking at what he is SHOWING us. Maybe our attention is elsewhere and not focused on him. I can push this analogy even further. Maybe we have turned down the sound control so we can't hear it at all, or maybe we have changed to a different channel, or even switched the set off altogether. The interpretation of these things is hopefully obvious. But if all is well then Paul's prayer in his letter to the Ephesians (3 v 16-19) should be answered: "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God" So don't forget to WATCH THE TELLY, and no I don't mean the one in the corner of your living room! Peter  "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth" 2 Timothy 2 v 15 |
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