The Love Challenge (Part 7)

We are discussing love from 1 John 4.

We have reached 1 John 4:13: "This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit." I want you to see the picture. The Bible says the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father 

We see it in 1 John 4:13 [above], and in

Matthew 10:19-20: But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time, you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Matthew 12:18 & 28:  “Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations.

V28: But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

John 15:26: When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.

Acts 2:17: In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

On several occasions, I used the following illustration to show how our relationship with the Holy Spirit works. The Bible says in Acts 17:28: ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ God is Spirit and is everywhere. We are in Him. Let's take a bowl of water and a small glass bottle with a screw-on lid. The water in the bowl represents the Holy Spirit, and the bottle represents a human being... you. If one closes the bottle, pushes it to the bottom of the water in the bowl and lets go, what will happen to it? The bottle will pop to the surface of the water, won't it? Why would that happen? It's because it's filled with air. What must happen to get it to stay at the bottom of the bowl of water? The air inside needs to be removed. So, let's take the cap off and put it back in the water. The air then bubbles out, and water, which replaces the air, fills it, allowing it to remain at the bottom. Now the water inside and outside of the bottle is one, and the bottle stays in the water.

The air in the bottle represents the sinful nature of humans, the carnal and godless behaviour that doesn't go along with the Lord. When a person is full of self, sin, and things belonging to the carnal nature, they don't want to be one with the Lord, having a relationship of obedience and submission to the Lord. They just want to get away from Him, hence the bottle popping out of the water when the cap is closed.

When a person, however, gets rid of all carnal things, i.e. the air inside the bottle that bubbles out when the cap is opened, the Holy Spirit fills such a person, and they become one with the Holy Spirit as presented by the water in the bowl and now in the bottle. Then the person wants to be in the Spirit. I have made a video of this illustration, which can be viewed here: https://bibbytes.blogspot.com/2022/05/where-is-god.html

I once asked the Lord how it is that He can be present with everyone at once. I then saw a vision which is difficult to describe. It is based on this passage in Acts 17:28 that I mentioned earlier: ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’

I saw people up to their waists in a cloud, almost like stage smoke. In front of each person, the cloud took the form of a person, interacting with the person standing in the cloud. So, we are all in the Lord (represented by the cloud in the vision), who is everywhere, and who manifests Himself as a person to whoever calls on Him.

The Lord is very real, and we need to stop treating Him from a distance as a religion. He is our Father who wants to cuddle us on His lap and will do anything for us, as we see in John 14:12-14: "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."

Because we live in the Father's Spirit and He in us, those who call on Him will be the love He is, and will manifest the same things Jesus did, so that the Lord's purposes may be accomplished on earth through obedient believers and His name be glorified.

To be continued