Sealed with the promised Holy Spirit

Have you ever been faced with a decision to make and you knew what you wanted to do but something on the inside was prompting you to take another route? With your eyes your decision seems logically right but with your heart it was not. How about having that sudden feeling to help someone you felt was in need or maybe noticing someone in the store that you sensed was hurting by whatever it was they were struggling with in life, so you give them a smile, the only thing you can do that might help ease their pain. Some may call it your conscience or the act of compassion, but those are only a few characteristics to the Holy blessing inside of you. We all have the Spirit of Christ within us. Do you know about the Holy Spirit?

For it is written, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want Gal 5:16-17. You might be asking, who really is this Spirit, what is its purpose? Jesus talks about the Spirit as the Counselor, the Spirit of truth. In John 15:26 Jesus says, when the Counselor comes, the One I will send to you from the Father-the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father-He will testify about Me. John 16:7 It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send Him to you. When He comes, He will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in Me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see Me; and about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged… When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak whatever He hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, because He will take from what is Mine and declare it to you. Everything the Father has is Mine. This is why I told you that He takes from what is Mine and will declare it to you John 16:7-15. It is easy to take from this that the Spirit is given to us as a guide with one destination in mind, Jesus and all of Jesus. The Hebrew translation for the Spirit, Ruach, is known as, wind or breath and the Greek transliteration of the Holy Spirit, Paraclete, means called beside or along side to help. We can relate the wind or breath (Old Testament-Hebrew) to God forming man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils Genesis 2:7. We were created in His image, with the Holy Spirit dwelling within however with the fall of man we soon lost the Spirit of God within us. Genesis 6:3 "My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years." So we no longer had everlasting life right. But (New Testament-Greek) once Christ made the ultimate sacrifice for us, he left us with the Holy Spirit, in each believer as our helper, our guide, our truth. And if you read in the Old Testament very few were given the Holy Spirit from God, mostly only to accomplish Gods will but as soon as Christ came and died for mans sin you will see that many and many more were blessed with the Holy Spirit for believing in Christ and our lives were no longer numbered but we were given everlasting life, 1 John 5:11 God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

Do you have the Holy Spirit with you? Well in Ephesians 1:13 Paul writes, In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation-in Him when you believed-were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. Now I am no expert in the readings of the bible but when God says, when you believed, you were sealed, I believe it. I think sometimes people believe that the Holy Spirit is too unattainable, but why would God want to withhold the Spirit of truth, the truth about Jesus Christ? For it is written in Luke 11:13 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? And it is also written, For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of Gods household, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone Eph 2:18. We believers are not foreigners of Gods household.

Can the Holy Spirit be taken from you once you receive it? You know I was always afraid that the Holy Spirit would depart from me, once I did, said or thought something wrong. I made Him so delicate. I guess I thought He came, went, came, went, what a silly thing. If this is so true then how was it that Jesus having the Holy Spirit on Him, how was he able to walk the earth, the crowded streets filled with commotion, shouting, crying, and hecklers? He still was filled with anointing was he not? He healed and continued to heal. The Holy Spirit is strong, confident and courageous. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. It is important to understand that the Holy Spirit is of Jesus and God. God is a triune God, meaning he is of three, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Might seem a bit confusing to a new believer but educate yourself on the trinity of God through the Bible for your benefit. This is why Jesus says in John 16:7, that the Holy Spirit will speak whatever He hears. Jesus speaks for the Holy Spirit and Jesus is of God, unity.

 Did you know that you can grieve the Holy Spirit? In Eph 4:29-32, No rotten talk should come from your mouth, but only what is good for the building up of someone in need, in order to give grace to those who hear. And don’t grieve Gods Holy Spirit, who sealed you for the day of redemption. All bitterness, anger and wrath, insult and slander must be removed from you, along with all wickedness. And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. Amen to that right? Be careful of what comes out of your mouth and mind. If you know when you are speaking it that it is not right with the Lord then why continue on. If the Lords Spirit tells you to hush, then hush, simple as that, Amen. Walk in the light of Christ. This reminds me of an earlier post I did “The light within," helps you get a sense of feeding your Spirit the right stuff.

 Do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body 1 Corinthians 6:19. If you now know that you hold the Holy Spirit within you, a gift from the one and only God, would you respect it, appreciate and use it. Use it, how can I do that? It is important to know that the Holy Spirit is for you, loves you. Romans 15:30, …through Christ Jesus and through the love of the Spirit. Yes, the love of the Spirit, not our love of the Spirit but the love of the Spirit towards us. The Holy Spirit longs to help us in our time of weakness as this next verse shows us. In the same way the Spirit also joins to help in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings Romans 8:26 (Gift of tongues). Simply ask the Holy Spirit to pray for you when you find yourself confused, lost and unsure of the right thing to say to God, the right thing to ask of him, that should be all the time right, for God knows what we do not know. Listen to the Holy Spirit, your Counselor. You know what is right from wrong. For it is also written, I will put My laws on their hearts, and I will write them on their minds Heb 10:16. Yes you know what is right, you’ve just been caught up with listening to, you. You see the commandments, the law, was removed once Christ came in and gave his life for us, removing all sins, removing that condemnation within but God did not leave us without knowing what’s right from wrong, how to be a better mankind, He placed it within us. 

Do you know that the Spirit talks to you? In Acts 13:2, the Holy Spirit speaks with the prophets, giving them instruction on His will. In fact, the New Testament is filled with several stories of how the Holy Spirit talks with the apostles, believers in Christ. Phillip, was told by the Spirit to get up and go to the desert Gaza, so he got up and went. There was an Ethiopian man, a high official of the queen of the Ethiopians in charge of her entire treasury. He was sitting in his chariot reading the prophet Isaiah aloud. There the Spirit told Phillip to go and join the chariot. So Phillip ran up to it. When he heard the man reading the prophet Isaiah, he asked him if he knew what he was reading. The man said no, so he invited Phillip to sit with him and guide him through the scripture passage. Well that passage happened to be about our Christ Savior. The eunuch asked who it was about, so Phillip started to tell him the good news about Jesus. Amen! Not only that, the man even accepted the Lord Jesus Christ and was baptized by Phillip that same day. Glory be to God for Gods will was being accomplished by the Holy Spirit through Phillip. Then there is Peter, he had a vision while praying one morning of a large sheet being lowered to the earth by its four corners. In it were all the four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth, and the birds of the sky, a voice said to him, "Get up Peter; kill and eat!" Peter told the Lord, No, "For I have never eaten anything common and unclean!" Then the voice said to him, "What God has made clean, you must not call common." Act 10:11-15 As he was thinking about the vision, very perplexed about it, the Spirit told him to get up and go downstairs because there were three men looking for him, and that he was to follow them with no doubts because He had sent them. Peter went and soon found out what that vision was about, teaching the news about Jesus Christ to the gentiles, baptizing them with the Holy Spirit, which at that time was unknown to the apostles since they were only teaching the good news to the Jews. God had made the gentiles clean (forgiven) and God wanted Peter to teach them the good news about Christ Jesus. The Spirit in this story of Peter much like Phillip helped to bring truth to the unbelievers, showing them the love of Christ.  It’s an awesome story, starts in Acts 10. The Holy Spirit said something to these men of God, and they didn’t sit on it and wait, or just not listen, they got up, they ran to it. I want to be the one to run to the will of God. Don’t you? They Holy Spirit also has a will for each one of us. A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial 1 Cor 12:7. As you read you will see the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the message of wisdom through the Spirit, faith by the same Spirit, prophecy, different kinds of languages, interpretation of languages and so on, distributing to each one as He wills. For the longest time I could not speak in tongues and I wanted to for so long. I was hurt when I saw other believers receiving that gift, was I not good enough I thought. I was so off. Its not about you being good enough, you know you already are since God gave his one and only Son for you. It’s just a matter of Gods timing and your believing. Ask God for it, and expect to receive it. As soon as I did, I could not stop speaking in Gods language for two hours straight. It was beautiful. I even rocked my son to sleep singing the most beautiful song ever. I hope this gave you some insight to who the Holy Spirit is and what He wants for you. Stop thinking you are unworthy to receive the Spirit of God, you are the only thing holding yourself back from the anointing of the Holy Spirit, God already counts you worthy, if He didn’t he wouldn’t have sent his Son down to sacrifice His life for you.

Love & God bless,

Marisa