Don't Neglect the Holy Spirit

 

“And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” – Mark 1:10-11

As a part of my independent study and upcoming senior project, I wanted to make paintings based on the Gospels. This first one is the Holy Spirit, descending like a dove. If you’ve grown up in church, you have an idea of who the Holy Spirit is. He is the Spirit of God that lives in every believer. He is the third of the trinity, separate but the same as God the Father and Jesus the Son. I would try to continue to explain the trinity but 1, it’s hard to understand no matter how you try to explain it, and 2, trying to explain the trinity is the fastest way to heresy, as my professor Dr. Olsen said. So instead, I’m just gonna focus on what the Spirit is according to scripture, hoping you can understand Him better in your walk with Christ. And I’ll keep it short, unlike David Platt and his fifty points on the Holy Spirit at CrossCon this year (iykyk).

First, the Holy Spirit is a gift. “And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38, ESV, emphasis added). We receive the Holy Spirit when we turn to Jesus and repent. And God, the gracious Father He is, is good to give to us. “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13, ESV). We simply ask the Lord for the Spirit in our lives when we ask God to “come into our heart” as the church language goes.

          Second off, the Spirit is our help. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring you to remembrance all that I have said to you.” ( John 14:26, ESV). Jesus says the Holy Spirit is a helper, someone to assist us in following Jesus. The Holy Spirit is how we get the strength of the Lord. “Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” (Romans 8:26a, ESV).

Okay, so how does the Holy Spirit help us? There are many (and I do mean MANY) ways that the Holy Spirit helps us. Go back to John 14:26, that last part of the verse: “he will teach you all things and bring you to remembrance all that I have said to you.” The Holy Spirit is our built-in reminder of Jesus’s teachings. It’s the Spirit that tells us how we are to live according to Jesus. It’s also the Spirit that convicts us whenever we sin (not shames us, that’s a whole ‘nother topic). It’s the Spirit that sanctifies us, the process of becoming more like Christ. Through the Holy Spirit, we gain love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). The Spirit is what works in us to become more like Christ, which is the whole end goal. We can't ignore Him.

Not only that, but we gain access to the Father, to Jesus through the Spirit, as He has direct access to the Father and Son. “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26b, ESV). The Spirit prays on our behalf when we don’t know what to pray. This is restated just a verse later: “And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:27, ESV). Because of the Spirit, we can understand God, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” (1 Corinthians 2:12). We cannot understand God without the Spirit. Therefore, we cannot neglect the Spirit.

Okay so let’s recap: The Holy Spirit is a helper that makes us look more like Christ and a gift from God that allows us to understand Him. That’s the short, SparkNotes version. If you want to know more, I highly recommend listening to David Platt’s sermon on the Holy Spirit from CrossCon this past year (and yes, it really is fifty points). But having a basic understanding of the Spirit is necessary in our spiritual lives, to understand how we become more like Christ and deepen our relationship with the Lord. Don’t neglect the Holy Spirit whenever He pulls at you. That’s the Lord.