Bulletin
The Spirit of Jesus
The Spirit of Jesus
The reason Jesus needed to leave his friends, the apostles, and the church was absolutely necessary for the second part of his mission. I want to follow up on last week’s article about this mission. What is the difference between Jesus and the Holy Spirit? Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be. They are one, in many many many ways. If the Holy Spirit became a human, like Jesus became, what would he be like? Would he be exactly like Jesus? Would he think like Jesus, speak like Jesus, care like Jesus? Would the Holy Spirit pray like Jesus, talk like Jesus, and be a man of sorrows like Jesus? Consider the perfect parallel.
Consider how Jesus and the Father are similar, in many many many ways. Jesus said, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.” (John 14:9-10). So if we put up a mirror to Jesus and the Father, they look the same, “He who has seen me has seen the Father”. Likewise, if we could put a mirror next to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the would look the same. Jesus said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” (John 16:16-17). The Holy Spirit being in Jesus, “abides with you and will be in you”, is the promise. The Holy Spirit is going to be a mirror for Jesus. Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit said, “He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.
“All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” (John 16:14-15). The Holy Spirit reflects, mirrors, glorifies Jesus. Jesus glorifies the Father, and here we can join in, invited in. By taking that same spirit of Jesus and put in us. The inner mirror in us, in contrast to, “the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). The spirit of the world or the Spirit in Jesus? Paul said, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,” (Eph. 5:18). People get drunk, by actively drinking. People are filled with the Spirit, by actively keeping his word. Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:23). So abiding in his word we abide in his spirit, the Holy Spirit. In the end, Jesus is now on the inside. Dan Peters
- The_Spirit_of_JesusWord.docx (9.18 kB)
