Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

Ruth’s Truth

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A cruel, degenerative disease twisted the old woman’s back into a question mark and she shuffled through her final years looking toward the ground.  But she saw the drug-fueled goings on next door, heard the loud rock and roll, the late night parties. Ruth (not her real name) went out of her way to be a good neighbor and developed a real friendship that blasted through presumed age and culture gaps.  I know this because I was the guy next door.

Several years went by before my wife and I each encountered the truth about Jesus, gave Him our trust, and came to life by His Spirit.  Ruth noticed.  She may have been forced to physically look down, but she knew how to look up.  One day, in a quiet and gentle way, she let on that she had been praying for us, all those years, every day.

I’m guessing Ruth knew this part of John’s first letter:

If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life.  (1 John 5:16a)

When Ruth looked across the alley and saw me, she saw her brother.  She knew we were stumbling around in the dark, trying to find a way to make darkness more tolerable.  She prayed, and God turned on the lights.  He gave us life.

When you see someone stumbling around in sin, recognize him as your brother.  Don’t judge, pray.  Be like Ruth.

Gimme a Scroll Bar!

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Were you surprised the government couldn’t run a website as well as Amazon does?  Not me.  The first time I filed my taxes online, I remember you had to click on a big button that said SUBMIT!  Submit, indeed…   But once I pushed the button, the screen went blank and nothing seemed to be happening.  For a long, long time.  Freaked me out, because I wasn’t sure if they got my return or not.  I wondered if I should shut off the computer and try again or if that would ruin everything.  There was no way for me to know because nobody at the IRS thought to program in a little scroll bar – you know that little green, line thingy that shows you the download progress when you order a new app or song?  it lets you know everything is okay.  Don’t panic; just wait.   That scroll bar has probably done more for mental health than psychiatry has.  It’s nice to have some real time feedback to let you know that everything is proceeding in the right way.

There is a “scroll bar” for Jesus.  Think about it:  How can you be sure, once you have put your faith in Jesus, that anything has changed?  How can you know that by believing in Jesus you really do have eternal life?   John said you can know in three ways:  First, you can know because Jesus came all the way down to where you are – all the way down to stand in the waters of baptism  (See “All the Way – Part 1″).  Secondly, you can know because Jesus went all the way to the Cross – giving His life, spending His blood – which no one would do unless it was going to work (See “All the Way – Part 2” and “What’s Love (or Justice) Got to do with It?“).

But you can know in a third way, too.  God gives us a scroll bar, too – something to let us know everything is okay – don’t panic.  God gives us real time evidence that we have been connected to Him forever.

This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.  (1 John 5:6 )

The Spirit shows us day by day, in real time, that we are alive in Christ.  He is like a scroll bar.  Obviously, He is a lot more than just evidence that everything is working, but the fact that He testifies – continuously – is important.  We don’t need to wonder if trusting Jesus is really effective.  We don’t need to wonder if we have eternal life.  The Spirit shows us.

Here’s the rest of what John said:

For there are three that testify:  the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.   We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.   Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.   And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.  I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.  (1 John 5:7-13)

That’s the truth.  It comes with a “scroll bar.”

What’s Love (and Justice) Got to do with It?

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Why did you get so mad? The judge said the kid was a victim of “affluenza” – too much money and not enough parental discipline.  Sure, he killed four people and injured two others.  Sure, he was driving drunk. Sure it wasn’t his first offence.   But, hey, it’s not his fault because he was too wealthy to know better, right?  No jail time; just a residential treatment facility for the very privileged few…

What makes this outrageous is that justice was not served.  We are wired to seek justice.  Justice is good; injustice makes us deeply cranky.  Animals don’t seem to care about justice.  But humans have been designed by God to reflect His being.  You already know God is love.  But God is also Just.   Consider what He told Moses:

And he [God] passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.   Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished;…”  (Exodus 34:6-7a)

How can God be loving and forgiving, if He also must not leave the guilty unpunished?  Like a good parent, that’s how.   But these statements about God’s character become more puzzling when we consider that His justice is perfect.  Perfect  justice must equate punishment with the impact and consequence of the offence.  Pure justice demands a death penalty for causing  death.  Since sin causes spiritual death (God told Adam that on the day he disobeyed he would die), the just penalty for sin must be death.  Here’s the riddle:  How can God forgive us and love us, if first He has to kill us, to fulfill justice?

The solution to this riddle remained a mystery until 700 B.C., when Isaiah revealed how God would accomplish it.  He would send His “Son” to undergo the penalty required by perfect justice on our behalf.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.  (Isaiah 53:5)

Jesus gave His life to pay our penalty.  He became the Solution to the riddle of God’s love and justice.  He went “all the way” to rescue us.  John explained that Jesus “came by water” (He identified with us in baptism) and “by blood” (He paid in death so that we could be reconciled with God).

I realize that this explanation may not fully satisfy.  We understand it somewhat, but wrestle with the idea of someone dying in our place.  If that describes how you feel, look back at “All the Way – Part 2” for more on that…

Just Like Candles

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As beautiful as it is, a candle-lighting service also contains a powerful, instructive imagery.  We sit in the dark with cold, unlit candles. Our candles cannot make themselves burn; they must wait until the main candle is lit.  From that one, the flame is passed, one to another, until the whole room is filled with light.  When someone extends  their burning candle toward mine, its heat soon lights my wick.  Now heat and light emanates from my candle, allowing me to offer that flame to my neighbor.   I cannot do so until I have received the light.

Think of that imagery, and chew on this:

We love because he first loved us.  (1 John 4:19)

God’s kind of self-sacrificial love (agape love) does not exist in us when we are disconnected from His Spirit.  We love those who love us, we love others when it benefits us in some way.  But we know nothing of the type of love Jesus extended to us.  As Paul wrote in Romans:

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  (Romans 5:7-8)

But if by faith, we accept His love, then we begin to love.  We love, like a candle that shines because it was lit.   It is not something we do out of obedience but something we do because our makeup has been changed.  His Spirit is alive in us.

We love because He first loved us.  

As we extend that love toward others, occasionally they, too, will receive the love of God and come to life.  That’s what John means when he says God’s love is made complete in us.  He gives it to us that we might give it to others.

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.  (1 John 4:12)

Just like candles…

The Main Thing

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The teacher said, “Label these maps,” and I did that.  But some of the girls went overboard, trying to impress the teacher with how good they were.  So they colored their maps, too.  I’m still mad about it because it made me and my buddies look bad.  Got all the countries labeled right and I still got a lousy grade.

Pharisees in Jesus’ day colored their maps, too, so to speak.  They went overboard, keeping all the religious rules with strict detail.  Tried to impress God and made everybody else look like a putz.  Now, one of those Pharisee guys was also a head official in the Jewish ruling council.  Double toady.  But he got curious about Jesus, and went to see Him secretly, late at night.  He thought Jesus would be impressed with how good he was.  But Jesus flunked him, said he’d never make it, not the way he was.

Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again [literally – “born from above“].’  The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”  (John 3:5-8  my added note)

It’s not about how hard you try to keep the rules.  The main thing is the Spirit of God, living in your soul.  How does that happen?  The Spirit gives birth to the Spirit.  It happens when you accept Jesus’ offer of complete forgiveness and reconciliation with God.  Then He gives you the Spirit.  Alive.  Inside.   Because this is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus, God and Jesus take up residence in your soul.  His words, not mine:

…I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. … On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.  …   “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.   (Excerpts taken from John 14:16-23 –  Read the whole thing; it’s amazing!)

Being a Christian is not about “do this” and “don’t do that.”  It’s about surrendering to Jesus and receiving His Spirit, His eternal life.  That’s the main thing.   That is why John said:

 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  (1 John 4:13-16 )

How about you?  Do you know what John said he knew?  Do you have God’s Spirit living in you?  If not, consider this:  If you believe that Jesus was telling the truth, that Jesus really is Who He said He was, and that He really can connect you to God by His Spirit, then ask Him.  Sincerely ask Him for His gift.  You will likely have a few other things you want to say as well – but those are between you and Him.  Ask Him for the Spirit.  You will be amazed…

Foxhole Radio

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A razor blade and a pencil!  Prisoners of war in WWII who could scrape together a razor blade and a pencil were able to construct simple radios, allowing them to hear the truth about allied advances.  Their captors lied to them about who was winning the war in order to discourage them and manipulate them into doing self-destructive things.  But hearing the truth through these “foxhole radios,” many prisoners found the strength to resist.

You and I have been “prisoners” in this world, kept in the dark and lied to by Satan, in an attempt to control us and cause us to do self-destructive things.  We don’t need a razor blade or a pencil; we need God’s Holy Spirit to “guide [us] into all truth” John 16:13.  Jesus gives this Spirit to all those who fully trust Him.

Jesus said:

 “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.  (John 14:15-17)

Notice that the kind of trust Jesus responds to is the trust that is turned into action through obedience.  That is because Jesus’ commands tend to contradict the things the world tells us.  Who you trust is revealed by who you obey.  Also see in those verses that the Holy Spirit does not merely visit, He lives within the believer forever! This is the best part of the “Good News.”  If Jesus merely died for our sins, we would still be stuck in our same. sinful condition.  But by giving us the Holy Spirit, Jesus connects us to God in the way God designed for humans to operate.  Now we have access to the truth from within our souls, truth that contradicts the lies we are taught in the world.  (An example of a contradictory truth is Jesus’ teaching that the greatest person in a group is the one who takes the lowest position and serves the most.  Luke 22:26)

John has been living with this Spirit and knows how wonderful the difference is.  He also knows how deceptive and tempting the lies of the world are.  So John reassures believers with these words:

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them (deceiving spirits – in verse 3), because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.  (1 John 4:4-6)

The Spirit of God is our foxhole radio.  During the war, foxhole radios only helped the prisoners if they listened to them and believed what they were hearing.  You get the point…

Dead or Alive?

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If you get trained in CPR, they frequently say things like, “Don’t worry about tearing their clothes or breaking a rib; they are dead; they won’t care – that is, unless you can bring them back to life!   Puts the whole deal into perspective.  It really matters when you go from death to life.

Jesus knew that humans were not connected to the Holy Spirit and were dead – “dead” like a cell phone is dead without a cell signal. (For another analogy, see Who Can Fix It?)  But Jesus came with spiritual CPR.  He said,

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. (John 5:24)

Notice, that “eternal life” is not something given once a person dies, but is given at the moment of belief.  The crossover from death to life has already happened for those who believe. It is the Holy Spirit, living in their souls.  But this “new life” is given to people who had always assumed they were already alive!  But how can we be sure this new life is real?  How can we check?  On a phone, you make a call: if it goes through, you know your phone isn’t dead.  How can we know about eternal life?

John says:

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.  (1 John 3:14)

But what is “love?”  Anybody who has ever exchanged valentines in 3rd Grade knows that the word, love, is pretty loosey-goosey.  And everybody loves somebody in some kind of way.  But John doesn’t leave us wondering: He is talking about the kind of love that is the exact opposite of hate.

Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.   This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  (1 John 3:15-16)

Hate is a response designed to protect myself from someone who I think wants to take something away from me (could be money, girlfriend, fame, prestige, an aisle seat…).  Love, John says, is a response motivating me to give myself to someone because they have a need.  This isn’t 3rd Grade valentine love.  It’s not “I love you, I need you, I wa-aaaa-nt you…”  Not even close.  This is, “I will give myself up for you.”  Even if you hate me.

But let’s face it: we are not often in a situation where laying down our lives would make any difference for someone else.  So, John makes it practical, …  and threatening.  He says:

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?  Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  (1 John 3:17-18)

Are you dead or alive?  John says, consider your response when you see someone in need.  If we turn away, hoping someone else takes care of the need, or perhaps rationalizing why it would be wrong for us to help, then “how can the love of God be in [us]?”  Whose love?  God’s!  Where?  In us! This kind of self-sacrificial love is so contrary to our ordinary human impulse that, when we see it in ourselves, we know God is doing it, we know God’s Spirit lives in us.   God’s love doesn’t just say, “I love you;” it puts that love into action!

John is not claiming that everyone who believes in Jesus is  immediately transformed into the person Mother Teresa wished she could be.  John knows that receiving the Spirit does not make us suddenly perfect in every way.  However, if you habitually harbor an attitude of hatred toward someone, or if you habitually turn away with indifference from someone else’s need, you have good reason to question whether you have “passed from death to life.”

But, if you notice a change in your heart, and find yourself acting with self-sacrificial concern for others, the costly kind of love Jesus extended to us,

This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence  whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:19-20)

Just the Way it Is

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Lately I’ve heard a bunch of complaining from Christians because they are not respected in this world.  Some say they are hated and persecuted for their beliefs.  John says, “Duh! What else is new?”

John knew that Jesus saw people in two groups: those heading for eternal life and those heading for death.  There was no middle ground.  Here is an example:

But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.  I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be,a you will indeed die in your sins.” (John 8:23-24)

In this life we think we are making progress if we are going faster. But it doesn’t matter how well you are doing if you are heading the wrong direction, away from life and toward death.  The turning point comes when we believe in Who Jesus claimed to be (God).  

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  (John 3:16)

Jesus moves us from death to life because He gives us the Holy Spirit, connecting us eternally with the life of God.  Our human bodies die.  When given the life of the Spirit, our souls live forever.  Jesus said,

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.   (John 6:63)

The thief (Satan, the ruler of “the world”) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I (Jesus) have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  (John 10:10 – my added parenthetical notes)

When we believe, Jesus turns us away from death and toward life.  Our citizenship, our place of belonging, is transferred from “this world” to God’s family and His Kingdom.  Those who have the Spirit, take their cues and motivations from the Spirit.  Those who do not have the Spirit, take their cues and motivations from the ways of the world.  These two groups are moving in opposite directions and see things from two opposing viewpoints.  That is why John writes:

Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.  We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.   (1 John 3:13-14)

The “world” hates those who believe in Jesus?  Really?  That is what Jesus taught:

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. (John 15:18-19)

Gang members know, if they ever leave the gang to pursue a different lifestyle, with different rules and a different way of seeing the world, the rest of the gang will hate them.  May even try to kill them.  That’s what happens when you leave the gang of “the world” to follow Jesus.  No point complaining about it; it’s just the way it is.

Is This You?

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The tech guy was baffled about why my computer was having so much trouble.  Then he asked me how I shut it off.  When I told him I just hit the power switch, he reacted with alarm and disbelief.  “You kidding me?  You don’t sign off and let the system power down?”  “Nope, I just kill the switch.”   Apparently, if you don’t let the computer shut itself off, it scrambles up the memory thingy.  It has to do with how the computer is designed.   Who knew?  Not me.  I never read the manufacturer’s instructions.  But once I had been told what to do, and why, I stopped doing it wrong.

God’s creation is like that.  Use it properly, according to the “Manufacturer’s” design and instructions, and it works well.  But, ignore those instructions, violate it’s design, and it breaks.   In the Bible, the short word for not operating according to the Manufacturer’s design and instructions, is “sin.”  Sin isn’t doing something fun that embarrasses God, it’s doing something that fouls up His carefully designed creation.  Sin hurts me; that’s why God warns me not to keep doing it.  That is the message John was attempting to convey with these words:

Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.  (1 John 3:4  -NASB95)

That is quoted from the New American Standard Bible because the NIV, which I ordinarily use for quotes, leaves out the word, practices, and says “Everyone who sins.”  The word, practices, is in the original language and leaving it out is misleading.  John doesn’t mean anyone who happens to sin (which would include everyone) but rather, those who practice sin, who deliberately choose to ignore the Manufacturer’s instructions (who practice lawlessness).  

Computers are complicated enough that they come with built-in warning systems to alert us when we are about to do something dumb.  God’s creation is also complicated.  It is not possible for us to avoid misusing it without some kind of built-in guide and warning system.  That system is the Holy Spirit.  Jesus came to connect us to His Spirit, to make it possible for us to live in harmony with the design and instruction of the Manufacturer.

(If that statement confuses you, you can view the posts about the Holy Spirit by selecting that category on the right.  Or, read “Who Can Fix It?”)

That’s why John says:

But you know that he (Jesus) appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.  (1 John 3:5-6 )

Make sense?  I hope so; this is one of the most misunderstood passages of 1 John.

Stay Home

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It’s been mighty cold here in Colorado.  When I come home on subzero nights, I like to fix a warm mug of tea, kick off my boots and flop down into my easy chair.  I’m home.  Once I’m settled in, I’m secure.  I don’t have to keep checking to see if this really is my home, to see if I’m really still here, or to see if it is still here.  I live here.  To use the Bible word, I “remain” here (some Bible translations say “abide”).  This is my natural place of rest, my default position, the place in which I make my home.  That’s what the word “remain” means.

John writes:

See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.  And this is what he promised us—even eternal life.  (1 John 2:24-25)

“What you have heard from the beginning…” is the simple, uncomplicated truth about Jesus.  Jesus is the Son of God, Whose death has purchased the gift of eternal life for all those who will believe it and accept it.   John says, See that this simple truth “remains” in you, that it makes its home in you.  If it does, he says, your home will be in Jesus.  You will be at home in God.

If that sounds confusing, think of what happens when you move.  At first, your new house or apartment, isn’t really “home” yet; you are still getting used to it.  Gradually, as you allow it to become “home” in you, you find yourself “at home” in it, right?  John says, as Jesus’ simple truth begins to be at home in you, you will discover that you are “at home” in God.  This two-way relationship is reflected in Jesus’ teaching:

On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (John 14:20)

John writes to remind and reassure his brothers and sisters in Jesus because, right from the first, some people have tried to twist the message of Jesus, to complicate it and make it say what they want.  In doing so, they attempt to lead people astray. 

I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.  

 John says, Remember where your “home” is and stay home. By “staying home,” he says, you don’t need to worry about being led astray.  Why not?   Because you have the Holy Spirit to guide you.  He makes His home in you, and you in Him:

As for you, the anointing [the Holy Spirit] you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.  (1 John 2:26-27)

So, wherever you go, stay home.