For as long as it takes we are going to study the gospel of
John chapters fourteen to seventeen. Some of it will be what I have already
written and some will be new. Therefore it may sometimes appear that I leave
off in the middle of a topic to be continued, since I have reached my daily
word count limit. We will also return to placing a blog posting daily for the
time being.
In order to follow this you ought to have read from the first
posting in the series – John 14 (One).
“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 14:17).
I was about to skip this
passage since I didn’t intend to teach about these chapters verse by verse,
when the Lord opened my spirit to something very interesting. Jesus said that
the disciples knew the Holy Spirit because He lives with them and will
be in them. Note that at the time Jesus that said this the Holy
Spirit was, according to Jesus, already with
them and would have been in them at a
future date. What is the difference between the ‘with’ and the ‘in’
in this passage? The Holy Spirit lived in Jesus since the day He was baptised with
the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus was with the disciples and they saw the Holy
Spirit in action through Him and believed, Jesus stated that they have known
the Holy Spirit for He was with them
through Jesus. The reason why the World can neither see nor know the Holy
Spirit is simply because they will see Him in action but refuse to believe.
Jesus however also stated that the Holy Spirit “will be
in you”. What we see here is that even though the disciples had been with Jesus
for almost three years, they had not been baptised with the Holy Spirit yet and
therefore did not have the Holy Spirit living in them. This is the reason why they were weak and hid in a room
after His crucifixion and even after His ascension. At the time of our passage
they were not even born again yet. It seemed that they were only born again at
the moment recorded in John 16:30-31: “‘Now we can see that you know all things
and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe
that you came from God.’
‘You believe at last!’ Jesus answered.” This was the
moment when faith entered their hearts and they thus got born again. It was
only after they were baptised with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2) that they received
power to preach the gospel (Acts
1:8) and confirmed it with love and miracles. A practical example was
Peter who, at the time of Jesus’ arrest had been born again, but still had no
love or courage, which is why he selfishly and fearfully denied that he knew
Jesus. After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, however, we read in Acts
chapter 2 and several other chapters that this same weak man acted with
tremendous courage and boldness.
We get exactly the same situation today. Many believers
believe in the Lord Jesus and are saved (Mark 16:16, Romans 10:9), but
experience no power. They feel too fearful to preach the Gospel, have no
confidence to pray for the sick, do not act with the power of the Word of
Knowledge and Wisdom and in general do not walk in the Spirit but in the flesh
- acting on the prompting of the mind rather than that of the Spirit. These
people only live with the Holy Spirit.
However, when we are born again and baptised with the Holy Spirit, we have the
Holy Spirit with all His gifts and power living in us. All that power, love, knowledge and wisdom are then
available to us to enable us to effectively build the Kingdom of God there
where we are called to.
How do you get baptised with the Holy Spirit? Either
ask the Father yourself to give you the Holy Spirit as Jesus offered in Luke
11:13: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to
those who ask him!” Otherwise you can ask someone to lay the hands on you (Acts
19:2-6).
Holy Spirit, please come and live in me and fill me
with your presence and everything that comes along as promised in the Word of God.
Thank you Lord that
your Word went out from your mouth, via your servant’s pen, and it will not
return to you empty, but will accomplish what you desire and achieve the
purpose for which you sent it.
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