Last Sunday, Pastor Herk of the Little Church in the Pines continued in his Sermon Series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. He asked: What good is faith if you do not use it? And, how can you use it if you do not know how faith works? We are living in confusing times where God is in control, but we do not understand what is going on around us. Though we cannot always see it, God is still at work in the world, so we can trust and stand on our faith. God makes a difference in the world, and we can also make a difference in the world today. The Holy Spirit working in us can equip and enable us to suppress evil, reach the lost and advance the Kingdom of God. Hebrews 13:8 proclaims, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Yet, we have allowed accountability to the Lord and integrity in godliness to be lost sight of in this generation. But, making a godly difference today in our world around us is not as difficult as it may seem. The Lord Jesus said in John 14:15-17, “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever — 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. It is the Holy Spirit’s ministry to help us. Every “born again” Believer that knows and has Jesus Christ in their heart as Savior and Lord can make a positive difference.
Be the person that Almighty God designed, created and called you to be. That is the key for each one of us: to be all that we can be for God. Our Maker has a plan for every one of us. We can either plug into His plan and be part of the redemptive work of the Holy Spirit in this lost and dying world or we can be in and of this fallen world. But, when we are the people that God created us to be, we find that we have the power to make a huge difference, not only to those around us, but to our society and culture for Christ’s sake. The Holy Spirit’s ministry objective is to keep us on track as followers of God, and holy (set apart for God’s purposes), not of the God-rejecting world system or to conformed to the image of the godless around us. We need to conform to the image of God and to make a difference in this world, being the kingdom worker that God calls us to be, living and breathing as God’s representative in the world.
This requires being a person of integrity. Integrity is defined as: “The entire, unimpaired state of anything, particularly of the mind; moral soundness or purity; incorruptness; uprightness; honesty. Integrity comprehends the whole moral character”, being all that God wants us to be. Think about and pray about keeping God central in our lives and being the best person that we can be in serving the Lord.
Use the example that Christ gives us. Jesus allowed the Holy Spirit empower Him, seen in Luke 4:14 “Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region.” The importance of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in our world and in the lives that know Jesus as Savior and Lord. Continuing in Luke 4:16-19 So Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” The Holy Spirit lives within us and keeps our faith alive.
Let's continue Pastor Herk's message on the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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