The Spirit of Truth Part 6

For the believer, he is of all people most blessed, and most envied. For he has received the Holy Spirit. There is no greater gift than Him, without Him we can do nothing. This hope the believer has of eternal life he once did not have. He was in the world without God and without hope. (Eph.2:12). But in Romans 5:5, the Apostle Paul states, "And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Hope-A full assurance and confident expectation that good things will happen. Paul describes God in Romans 15:13 as "The God of hope." We have hope in no one else. The love of God cannot be compared to human love. That is human, not divine, that is natural not supernatural, that is conditional not unconditional. It is at best shallow, compared to His being a bottomless lake.

In the following verses in Romans 5:6-8, we see that we were helpless, we were ungodly, we were sinners, yet God demonstrates His love for us that while we were all that and more, Christ died for us. Being called children of wrath (Eph.2:3), and that the wrath of God once abided on us (John 3:36), Paul reminds us that the love of God surely saved us from the wrath of God by sending the Holy Spirit to us, for His presence would reside with us forever. For He has done a mighty work, a work only He could do. Born once physically, you had not the power to do, born again spiritually, you had not the power to do either. For that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.(John 3:6) It is indeed the Spirit that gives life, the flesh profits nothing.(John 6:63). Oh, love the Spirit, Whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him.(John 14:17)

But you know Him because He abides with you and is in you. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.(1Cor.6:19) Remember, "The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.(Rom.8:6) The 8th chapter of Romans has so many promises for you to be thankful for that the Spirit accomplishes in you.(Verses 11,13,14,and 16.) C.H. Spurgeon states, "Was it not the Holy Spirit Who guided you to Jesus? Do you remember the love of the Spirit, when after having quickened you, He took you aside and showed you Jesus on the tree? Who was it that opened our blind eye, to see a dying Savior? Who was it that opened your deaf ear, to hear the voice of pardoning love? Who opened your clasped and palsied hand to receive the tokens of a Savior's grace? Who was it that broke your hard heart and made a way for the Savior to enter and live in it? Oh, it was the precious Spirit, that very same Spirit, to Whom you had done so much despite, Whom in the days of your flesh you had resisted? What a mercy it was that He did not say, I will swear in My wrath that they shall not enter into My rest, for they have vexed Me, and I will take My everlasting flight from them."

To finish, no better prayer than that of the great Apostle in Ephesians 3:16-19,"That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God." Paul's prayer for us.

Elder Randy Slak
08/29/2023