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Saturday, 23 September 2017

1.6 Under the Guidance of the Holy Spirit ...

"For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.”
2 Corinthians‬ ‭5:1-5‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

As Jesus Christ said it would be, we are dependent on the convicting and guiding of the Holy Spirit, to understand the will and the way of God as revealed in the Bible (John 16.13-15). We can do nothing of worth for God without the enabling purity, presence and power of the Holy Spirit at work among us. As the Holy Spirit ignites life in all Creation (Genesis 1.2), that life is renewed and intensified as the Spirit of God comes and resides in you, sealing you with the imprint of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1.13); a fountain of life springing up within you (John 4.14), flowing out as living water from your heart (John 7.38).

As the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus, who was full of the Spirit (Luke 3.22; John 1.33), so we need Him also to come upon us (Acts 1.8, 11.15) so that we may properly discern, agree and act together in Jesus’ name. In this manner, the Holy Spirit will lead us in Holy ways: into convictions and practices that mark us out as belonging to our Heavenly Father, ambassadors in Jesus’ name of the truly loving, redeeming and reconciling God.

Father, I thank you for the personal reality of the Holy Spirit, who comes like the wind and living water, to irrigate parched souls and soften brittle hearts. Come, Holy Spirit. Fill me and move through us, the body of Christ, to carry the presence and power of God’s Kingdom into the lives of those who are lost and confused around us. Let flowers bloom again in the desert. In Jesus’ name, Amen.