What is your definition of the Holy Spirit? According to that definition how does it interact with us?
I’ve been sitting on those questions now for months. I’m still not sure I can do the answer any justice. But I miss writing, so I’m going to try.
I think when it gets right down to it, we all pretty much have to admit there is something outside the universe that created and sustains it. Now you might deny it with your lips and even convince yourself that you believe it’s not true, but to do so, you have to deny the weight of the evidence to the contrary. So let’s just go ahead and call this thing outside the universe God.
And quite frankly, it seems clear to me, given the weight of the evidence, that the God of the bible is this creator and sustainer of the universe. And it seems clear to me from the evidence that Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem around 2000 years ago, who was put to death on a cross, and who was raised from the dead… it seems clear to me that this man is who he says he is, both God and man, who was and is and is to come.
I do not call this faith. This my friends is fact. It is truth. If I believe it’s true, that does not make it more true. If I believe it’s not true, that does not take away one bit of its truth. You can believe that we never landed on the moon, that it was all filmed in a sound stage, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t land on the moon, it just means you’re really good at sticking your head in the sand.
So if we pull our heads out of the sand, we must admit that the God of the bible is in fact the God of the universe, and Jesus Christ is his son. Now, it would have been pretty weird if Christ stuck around for the past 2000 years. A 2000 year old man would just be creepy. But it took him 30 years or so just to get us to listen to him. He clearly still had things he wanted to teach us.
I don’t think anyone could, in good conscience, debate that we have a soul. There may be some disagreement about what the soul is and how it’s a part of us, but there’s too much evidence that I am more than a pile of atoms for it to be much of an issue. It doesn’t particularly surprise me then to find out that Christ too has a Spirit. If he is after all human, then I should expect nothing less.
What is surprising though is that this spirit is not just part of his humanity, but also part of his divinity. But I suppose that shouldn’t be so surprising, since Christ being both man and God is not a superficial mixing of man parts and God parts, but a trait that runs to his deepest core. Every part and parcel of his existence is both God and man.
But to top it off, His spirit is His to send where he wishes, independent of his body. That’s pretty tough to accept. However, the weight of the evidence is overwhelming. Let’s stop for a second and look once again at who I am, and who God is.
I am broken. I am far from perfect. God is by definition perfect. It stands to reason, and is confirmed by his word, that nothing impure or imperfect can enter the presence of God. It would detract from his perfection to surround himself with the imperfect.
But I want to enter the presence of God. I want to know this being that created everything, that created me. I want to see my maker.
No matter how hard I try, I cannot, of my own accord, make myself righteous. I cannot clean myself enough to stand before God. Any “good” I may do is immediately negated by my next action, and if I were to really come clean, any “good” I do is motivated only by my own selfish desires, which pretty much eliminates the “good” anyway. The only sure thing besides death and taxes is my rejection of God.
So nothing impure can come before God. I want to come before God. I cannot make myself pure. I am consistently rejecting the very God I seek an audience with. I reject him so much that unless someone or something is constantly with me, perhaps even to the point of being inside me, enabling me to do so, I cannot cling to the hope that of the gift of righteousness that Christ’s death and resurrection deliver. Frankly, I need God to be near God.
And this is the role of the Holy Spirit. To be with us, to teach us, to guide us, to draw us to the truth of Christ and produce within us from the inside out a being of purity and righteousness, a perfect new creation worthy of communion with the one true God. This worth is not of my own merit or design, but solely of, by, through, and for God alone.
Here’s the crazy part… it’s not that God is the creator and sustainer of the universe. It’s not that He is the creator and sustainer of me. It’s not that He would become a man. It’s not that he would die or come back from the dead. It’s not that he would send his spirit to lead us to this truth. The crazy part, the part I won’t ever understand, and I pray I will never forget… the crazy part is He wants me back. Not as a created toy, not as a slave. But as a child… a child so prized, so loved, that he would die to win me back.
You know, if you were to take this to your local pastor, he’d probably have me kicked out of the church. Not because I’m necessarily committing heresy, but because I’m pretending to package up the Holy Spirit and deliver him on a silver platter. Who is the Holy Spirit? Any answer I can give betrays the beautiful mystery of just how big God really is. I can’t put the Holy Spirit in a box and give Him to you. God, however, can… sans box of course.
What does he do? Any answer I can give betrays the beautiful mystery of just how big God really is. The best I can say is that because He is with me, I get to be with my Daddy. I don’t know that I care about too much more that that. I don’t want to define him. I don’t want to put him in a pretty little box with a bow on top. I just want to be with my Daddy. And I want you to know he died to win you back too.
Posted with : The Way