Hello everyone, I would like to share a few thoughts about the Holy Ghost. I often speak about Him for good reason. He is my helper and advocate. He is my guide and teacher. He represents the Lord Jesus Christ in my life and does what Jesus told us He would do in John chapters fourteen to sixteen—if we permit Him. I wish that more people would get to know Him. Few do.

I speak of  Him as a real person, which is true, because He has personality, feelings and emotions and I can say that because scriptures tell us that we can grieve Him and offend Him. After all, we cannot offend “an influence”, but we can certainly offend a person with feelings.

The Holy Spirit is a person who is eternal, omniscient and omnipresent, thus the third person of the Godhead.

One of the things that He does is to give us the right words to say when we minister to someone and preach the gospel and the ability to do what is required. According to Jesus, when we speak under His anointing, The Holy Spirit touches peoples’ hearts. He is getting that person’s attention, just as Jesus said He would do in John 16:8.

He reproves the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. Therefore, as Paul said in the first few chapters of 1 Corinthians, it has little to do about our eloquence of speech or theological “jargon”. or religious observances. He bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the heart—the spirit in us. Proverbs 20:27 says:

The human spirit is a lamp of Adonai; it searches one’s inmost being.

We can enjoy life to the full without getting hung up on religion or going the opposite direction always seeking some kind of outlet that is temporal, but when there is a Divine encounter, that is totally different.

You never forget it and treasure the moment for life. We have been taken out of one kingdom and planted into a totally different one—the kingdom of  God. We are the same people of course, but now have a clearly defined destiny or path to follow and our ultimate destination is Heaven. I’ve been there and nothing on this earth can compare with it.

One day I shall be there and hope you will also, but until then we are on a journey.

Anyone who has heard of the story “Pilgrim’s Progress” will know that we meet other people in all kinds of situations and circumstances and encounter the storms and tempests of life. We are not immune from them. We have to deal with all kinds of things in life on our journey and often find that we need help.

It starts at an early age when we go to school, grow up and leave school, find a job and launch out into life. Consider that in every job we have, we have to learn something. We need to learn how to drive a car, or a truck and learn the trade we choose to embark on, but the learning process in our lives never changes

no matter who we are and what we do, there is always more and this is what Paul spoke of many times in Ephesians,Philippians and Colossians. I suggest you read his prayer for us in Ephesians chapter one. Most people who say that they are Christians have no idea of what he was talking about.

No matter what we do in life, we always need help. Thankfully God has given us a user manual—His word. Few read it. For many it is a “religious book” that is hard to understand and that is the problem. We will never be able to understand it and I shall tell you why.

It is inspired by the Holy Ghost. That’s why. Men wrote it of course, but as Paul told Timothy, when they put pen to paper, the  Holy Spirit inspired them. In simple terms, if we want to know what the one who inspired the words really meant, ask Him!

The word of God is not a religious book, but is treated as such many times. This is why there is so much argument and debate and meaningless dribble. Many theologians argue and debate issues from the human or natural viewpoint and their material is usually lifeless and uninspiring. They tear other believers apart because in their opinion they are “contending for the faith”but they are only contending.  You can recognize many of them just by looking at their faces–lifeless and serious, angry, sad and very legalistic.

Most people are not interested in such an approach because they want answers that work. If you are dying of thirst and hunger, you do not want a philosophical discourse—you want water and bread. Who cares if the drink came in a glass or in a wooden bowl? Water is water. Who cares if the wine you drink came from the grapes picked on eastern slope of a hill, or on a flat portion of land on Friday morning? It’s wine! Who cares if you have to turn the vessel around three times in a clockwise direction for some silly tradition (some traditions when biblically based are good of course)?

People around the world in their millions are walking away from such religious approaches because they are discovering that the things of God are real and that, despite cessationalist teachings, are still very much valid and needed in the here and now.

The Holy Spirit never changes.

He is eternal.  Hebrews 9:14 states that “Christ . . . through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God.”

The meaning of that word  “eternal”  is far broader than just something that lasts an extremely long time. It denotes something which is above and beyond the limitations of time—something that comprehends the past, the present and the future simultaneously.

When Jesus offered Himself on the cross,  His sacrifice was not limited to the time at which He died. It encompassed the sins of all men of all ages—past, present and future. It included the sins that we were to commit centuries later and still commit today.

The word eternal, derived from the word aion has a fathomless depth of meaning.  It is a measurement of time and occurs in a variety of expressions, such as forever, now and forever, unto the ages of the ages, now and forever. See  Hebrews 7:24, Jude 25 and Galatians 1:5.

The eternal Holy Spirit encompasses them all, stretching from the measureless past and on into the measureless future.

God is endlessly worshiped in heaven as: Lord God Almighty, who [eternally] was and is and is to come!

God knows all things

Closely related to the eternal nature of the Holy Spirit is His omniscience. In 1 John 3:20 the apostle confronts us with a profound, yet simple revelation: God knows all things. There is nothing that God does not know. From the tiniest insect in the earth to the farthest star in space, there is nothing that God does not completely know.

God knows things about us that we do not know about ourselves. Jesus said in Matthew 10:30 that the hairs on our heads are numbered. The Greek word arithmeō may sound familiar to you. What is more interesting is that when one falls out, God knows which one it was. This alone reveals how much He is interested in each of us as an individual.

When God sent Jonah to Nineveh, He knew what would happen and knew and controlled  the growth of the plant that shaded Jonah and the action of the worm that caused the plant to wither. When God asks you to do something, He knows what you will do...

In 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 Paul speaks about the things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man. Then he continues—But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.

The Holy Spirit both plumbs the deepest depths and scales the highest heights of all that was, that is and that is to come. His knowledge is infinite.

It is in the light of this infinite knowledge that we must each be prepared to give an account of ourselves to God.

For we have the living Word of God, which is full of energy, and it pierces more sharply than a two-edged sword.
It will even penetrate to the very core of our being where soul and spirit, bone and marrow meet! It interprets and reveals the true thoughts and secret motives of our hearts. There is not one person who can hide their thoughts from God, for nothing that we do remains a secret, and nothing created is concealed, but everything is exposed and defenseless before his eyes, to whom we must render an account. Hebrews 4:11-12

The supernatural knowledge and wisdom of the Holy Spirit was manifested throughout the earthly ministry of Jesus. He saw Nathanael under the tree before the man met Him. He knew that Judas Iscariot would betray Him, yet chose him to be one of His disciples, even before Judas knew it himself. Pause and think for a moment about this. Judas could not carry out his plan until Jesus spoke a word that released him to do so.

At the Last Supper Jesus warned His disciples that one of them would betray Him. When questioned who it would be, Jesus dipped a portion of bread in the gravy and gave it to Judas.  Imagine the setting. It was not like the artistic rendition of the Last Supper portrays with everyone sitting at a large straight table. In all probability, they were reclining around a U-shaped setting and Judas was so close, Jesus could dip a piece of bread into the dish and pass it on. I think John was on one side and Judas on the other and could elaborate more if you ask.

It was the Betrayed, not the betrayer, who was in control.

When we comprehend the completeness of God’s knowledge and His foreknowledge, it gives us the assurance that no matter what happens, God is never taken by surprise. There is no such thing as an emergency in the kingdom of heaven.

Not merely does God know the end from the beginning, He Himself is both the Beginning and the End.

God knows those whom He has chosen to be with Him in eternity. This is not the “pre-destination theory” some people believe.

That teaching reveals we do not have a choice in the matter, ignoring the principle of having to make a choice. Why bother preaching if everything has been pre-destined? We are chosen ahead of time not to be saved, but to become like Jesus.

Because those whom He knew beforehand, He also ordained beforehandto be conformed to the likeness of His Son, for Him to be the first-born among many brothers. And whom He ordained beforehand, these He also called, and whom He called, these He also declared right. And whom He declared right, these He also esteemed. Romans 8:29-30

When we say that God is omnipresent we mean that He is present everywhere at the same time. In Jeremiah 23:23-24 God Himself affirms this:

Am I a God near at hand,” says the LORD, And not a God afar off?
Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?” says the LORD;
Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the LORD.

How can this be? We know that God is seated on His throne in heaven, with Jesus at His right hand. How then can He fill heaven and earth with His presence? In Psalm 139:7-12 David supplies an answer. First, he asks:

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?

How can this be? We know that God is seated on His throne in heaven, with Jesus at His right hand.

How then can He fill heaven and earth with His presence?

This reveals that it is through His Spirit that God makes Himself present everywhere at the same time. David fills in the details:

If I ascend into heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning,

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me,

And Your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me.” Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day;

The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

No matter where we may go, God is there by His Spirit—invisible, often imperceptible, but inescapable. For the unbeliever this may be a terrifying thought, but for the believer it is a comforting, strengthening assurance. No matter where we may find ourselves,

even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.

In the New Testament Jesus Himself gives us the assurance that He will never leave us or forsake us.

At times we may not be in any way conscious of His presence, but by His Holy Spirit He is there. Our surroundings may appear totally dark and foreboding, but “the darkness shall not hide from You . . .”

Each one of us needs to cultivate an inner sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that does not depend on the evidence of our physical senses. When our senses tell us nothing about His presence, or even when they seem to deny it, there should be an area in the inmost depths of our own spirit that maintains an uninterrupted awareness of the Holy Spirit’s presence. Then we shall more fully understand why He is given the title of the Comforter or the Helper in John 14.

There is no more appropriate way to close this letter than by thanking the Father and the Son for sending us the Holy Spirit. Will you join with me?

Robert