Misconceptions of the Holy SpiritPosted by Phil on March 2nd, 2010
Francis Chan recently wrote a book called “Forgotten God” and it’s all about the Holy Spirit. the Spirit is the part of the trinity that we often leave alone b/c we’re not exactly sure who the Holy Spirit is. if given the choice between Jesus and the Holy Spirit, almost all of us would choose Jesus.
the Bible talks about speaking in tongues and gifts of healing, but if you’ve ever seen it today, it seems pretty scary. it seems that on the liberal end, the Spirit has been turned into a power or energy. in response, on the conservative end, we can almost neglect that the Holy Spirit is God.
Jesus tells his disciples in John 16:7, that it is better for him to go so that the Spirit can come. he promises the Holy Spirit that will counsel, teach, remind, and give peace.
a lot of times, we try really, really hard to be good Christian. as churches, we make a lot of effort to get people to come and tell them about God. we are promised that the Spirit will never leave us, but he can let us get along without him. every believer has the gift of the Holy Spirit, but we need to learn to recognize and respond to him…to ask God to reveal himself to us.
it starts with asking. asking God that we can know him. that we can be used by him. we can try really hard on our own…and we can even do some good things trying. but the life God intended for us is one that allows the Spirit to use us.
that’s the goal of the next several weeks. to take the next steps in understanding and recognizing the Spirit of God. if you can, take time to read John 14-16. 3 chapters talking about the promised Holy Spirit.