I celebrated a special anniversary recently (March 3rd, to be exact). It was the anniversary of when I became a Christian. To be short, I will simply say that my path to Christ was full of confusion, wishy-washiness, and so on. The day it happened, I was out by myself, trying to find some sort of clue from God to see what I needed to do with my life. There was one problem; I kept trying to find things which sounded appealing to my own ears. However, God had another plan in mind. There was a light breeze (I was inside, mind you) that kept blowing the pages of my Bible over to a passage in the book of James(4:7-10). After reading this and having it on my heart, I was in a group worship time, and I felt the same breeze hit the back on my neck, and I felt like I had a hand on my shoulder, and I dropped to my knees, submitting my life to Christ and becoming a Christian. Fast forward a year and a month, and I was stepping into a cold lake, in the middle of the night submitting to God in being baptized. As I came out of the lake, I remember a wind coming and causing the bonfire on shore to shoot up (it did this every time a person was baptized that night, in fact). Since that time, there have been uncountable amounts of time where I’ve been in prayer, worship, meditation, fasting, reading of scripture, etc, and this same familiar, comforting wind has descended upon me.
So what is this wind? This post will be discussing the Spirit as Comforter.
As I mentioned in my introduction to this series, one of the words used for the Holy Spirit in Greek is Pneuma(πνεύμα). It literally means breath. As a friend of mine pointed out to me, when God gave life to man in Genesis, He breathed it into his nostrils. This, I believe, is to be interpreted as showing intimacy between the created and Creator. This is, after all, why man was created. God made everything for His glory, but made man to also be intimately in love with Him. This is, in fact, the ultimate form of worship. With this in mind, we need to realize and remember that God is one who is intimately connected with that which He loves most: us.
This is one of the primary roles of the Holy Spirit, as outlined in the Gospel of John. For example:
John 14:16 “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper(or advocate/comforter), to be with you forever,”
John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
John 15:26 "But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.
John 16:7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
John portrays Jesus speaking of the Holy Spirit as one who helps, comforts, and advocates for the believer. So what does this mean for you and me? I mentioned in the opening how I felt a calm breeze in many of the important events of my life. For me, this is the comfort. Some days I am really stressed about life, and I pray or cry out to God, and suddenly a wind hits my face, and then I feel the pouring of the Spirit flow over my head, down my body. It brings complete peace and calmness. It gives me hope and strength. It whispers into my heart that everything is fine, for Jesus is still alive, sitting on His throne, and because of this I have the hope of Life. When I am lonely, the Spirit comforts my heart, and helps me through the pain. When I am scared, I am given strength. When I have questions, I am helped by being given answers. When I doubt, I am given faith. The Spirit is a guaranteed promise to me, by my Savior. He even went as far as to say that it would be MORE beneficial for HIM to leave and send the Spirit.
I think this is often over looked, and we tragically fall in the traps of the world.
Why?
We don’t realize the potential of what the Spirit is offering us. How can we enjoy a deeper, fuller relationship with God, if we don’t realize that He is offering it? Furthermore, it is BECAUSE He offers the Spirit to comfort us, that we can honestly say that what we have is more than religion, but is rather a deep and intimate connection with God! After all, if I were married and didn’t comfort my wife when she was sick, hurt, depressed, upset, scared, etc… how long would our marriage last? Not very long at all. In fact, it’d be hard to even see me getting married if I didn’t promote comfort towards my significant other. In the same manner, we say God is love, right? We always talk about how He loves us, and wants a relationship with us, and all that. So why don’t we live it and believe it? I think it grieves the Spirit when we face the troubles of life, and He is there waiting to comfort us, and instead we seek refuge in things of this world, people, or whatever it may be.
So my advice is this, and I think it is sound advice; use the gift that you are given. You don’t need drugs or alcohol, sex or sin at all. You don’t need to live in fear or doubt or depression. You don’t have to deal with things on your own, or even go through a 12 step self help group. All you need to do is pray for the Holy Spirit to comfort you. He is waiting this very moment to pour the love and mercy of God over your body, mind, and soul.
Blessings.
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