4th May April 2011

John 16:1-16 – The Work of the Holy Spirit

• “ rooted revelation”
• Jesus tells His disciples about the role of the Holy Spirit.
• The Holy Spirit brings revelation; He teaches truth, guides, council, comforts, strengthens and reveals what is to come.
• Those filled with the Holy Spirit can be full of wisdom, honest, counselors, conforters, those who empower others and prophets.
• On the other hand …
• often they are not.
• Why?
• “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.”
• The Holy Spirit and Jesus do not operate separately from the Father.
• But we often do.
• I have often seen Christians dissemble God like you might do a car engine or some other form of mechanical device.
• Both the Father, Holy Spirit and Son are needed for us to grow and grow others. We cannot ignore one and embrace the other.
• One of the first bits of great advice I ever received growing in my Pentecostal church as a new Christian was this; The Holy Spirit will never tell you to do something that contradicts God’s Word [meaning the Bible[.
• It was good [if not quite complete] advice.
• How many followers of Jesus and followers of His Spirit do we know who don’t study their Bible?
• Is that you?
• As much as we love Jesus, we will be like a sail boat that catches the wind but has no rudder.
• Particularly in a society that influences our faith far more than we realize, we are susceptible to going with the Spirit but ignoring the laws and principles set in place by God.
• A great, powerful, full life is evidence by consistent growth.
• Rooted revelation will bring just that.
• But dissemble God and we will be busy jumping from one spiritual project to another and God will be limited by what He can build into us.
• Open your ears to His Spirit, your heart to His son and your mind to His Word.
• Praying today that I will do the same!