As believers, we are not orphans who are homeless without parents or family. We have an incredible parent, our loving Heavenly Father, who cares for us deeply and cares for us each moment of the day. We also have a wonderful family, consisting of brothers and sisters all over the world. And we have a marvelous home waiting for us in eternity.
The Holy Spirit makes a powerful difference in our lives and witnessing. Without the Holy Spirit we can’t do anything, but with Him, all things are possible.
When I began to practice loving by faith, I found that conflicts with other individuals seemed to disappear, often miraculously.
As a Christian abides in Christ, living in the fullness of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is developed and the Christian becomes more mature spiritually. The maturing of the fruit of the Spirit is a lifetime process that goes on continually as Christ-like characteristics are being formed in the life of the Christian. Some Christians give greater evidence of the fruit of the Spirit than do others because of a greater degree of yielding to His working.
The more we acknowledge ourselves to be dead to sin and surrender to our Lord Jesus Christ and His life within us, and the more we allow Him through the power of the Holy Spirit to live out His life through us, the more evident will be the fruit of the Spirit.
When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are filled with Jesus Christ. We no longer think of Christ as One who helps us do some kind of Christian task but, rather, Jesus Christ does the work in and through us. Christ does not want us to work for Him. He wants us to let Him do His work in and through us. This is the glorious experience that the apostle Paul knew, as he described in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (NIV).
In recent times, men like John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, Dwight L. Moody, Charles Spurgeon, G. Campbell Morgan, R. A. Torrey, Billy Graham, and scores of other Christian leaders who have been filled with the Holy Spirit have been greatly used to further the cause of Christ and His kingdom. However, the filling of the Holy Spirit is not limited to Christian leaders, but is available to every believer who meets God’s conditions. Read what some of these great people of God say about the importance of every Christian being filled with the Holy Spirit:
“I was unsure of how to go about this, and felt totally inadequate . . . But . . . God’s Spirit and God’s power did it, which made it clear that your life and faith is a response to God’s power, not some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.” – 1 Corinthians 2:2-5 (The Message)
We all get into situations that we feel unprepared for, too tired to do, totally unfocused to accomplish, or a number of other reasons we could fail at a task that is set before us. When we find ourselves in a situation like that we have two choices. We can either dig deep and rely on our own strength and wisdom or we can submit to God our inadequacies and weaknesses and rely on the Holy Spirit.
