The Holy Spirit Part 1

I have been through a bit of a desert season recently due to ill health and in this period I feel God has awakened in me a new passion to understand the Holy Spirit more in my life. Having spent some time off work and had lots of bed ridden moments I've had an opportunity to reflect on my relationship with God and also think about things.

I think this renewed interest in the things of the Spirit started in September. I was reading Luke chapters 1-4 and was particularly struck by how often the Holy Spirit was mentioned. Many of us associated the Holy Spirit exclusively with baptism of the Holy Spirit and with the spiritual gifts and think of Acts 2 or 1 Corinthians 14. As a consequence if we are afraid of these supernatural manifestations we can shy away from the Holy Spirit and fear can stop us receiving the Spirit in its fullness. But as I read Luke I was struck at the repeated mentions of the Holy Spirit and since then have been searching the scriptures, both old and new, and have a renewed awe for the role of the Holy Spirit in all scripture. But let us start with Luke.

Many of these verses will be familiar to you in Luke but they are worth a closer look. The angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah and prophesied that he would have a son John and that John would be “filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth” (1:15). The angel of the Lord appeared to Mary and said that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and she would give birth to the son of God (1:35). Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit when she heard Mary's greeting and the baby leaped in her womb (1:41). Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesised (1:67) after God loosened his tongue. Simeon in the temple had the “Holy Spirit upon him” (2:25) and it was the Holy Spirit who had revealed to him that he would not die before he had seen the Christ (2:26). When John later grew up and baptised people at the Jordan he said he baptised with water but prophesied that Jesus will “baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (3:16). Indeed when Jesus was baptised the Holy Spirit 'descended on him in bodily form like a dove' (3:2).

Later, Jesus himself “full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” (4:1-2). Then he returned to Galilee by the power of the Spirit (4:14) and taught in the synagogues. But as he read Isaiah in the temple and showed how the old testament prophecy was fulfilled in himself (“the spirit is upon me…to preach good news to the poor” 4:18), no one believed him and they drove him out of the town and tried to throw him off a cliff (4:29-30).

In these passages it was the references to the Spirit in chapter 4 which really blew me away. I don't know whether you like me assume that if we have 'desert-like times' that its because we are not following the Lord properly or doing something wrong in are walk with him. Well sometimes I think it can be this but this example of Jesus being filled with the Spirit and going into the desert shows us how the Spirit can also take people into desert like situations. Why might you ask would the Father do that???

…..Well all I know is that when I do have these times I want to go into them full of the Spirit like Jesus did. Unbeknown to me shortly after I read these verses I was lead into a desert time of illness and so thought of Luke and when I felt it was so hard to pray I just said "Holy Spirit help me!" and in this desert he has answered and the Holy Spirit has been speaking. He is speaking to us all the time, can you hear his quiet whisper?