Who is Holy Spirit
Long before we know that the Holy Spirit is the third member of the Trinity, we can see His work all through the scriptures. In the very beginning of creation, we see Him mentioned in Genesis 1:2, “…And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
John 1:1-3;14, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
We celebrate the fact that Jesus was there in the beginning with God creating the universe. But we often leave out that the Holy Spirit was there as well hovering over the face of the waters. I am not saying that people just disrespect or neglect the Holy Spirit on purpose. It’s just that people don’t understand who He is. He is an ever-present person who does not get any of the credit. We talk about Jesus being selfless and what He has done. We talk about the Father loving us and sending His Only Son to die for us – how even after we sinned and did evil things, the Father loved us. But we never talk about the sacrifice that Holy Spirit made to ensure our salvation.
He left heaven where there is no sin so that He can come and dwell here with us. A place where He is constantly rejected and ridiculed. When ignorant people are talking about the trinity, they say the Father, as presented in the Old Testament, was just angry all the time; and Jesus is the cool guy; but Holy Spirit is the crazy one. After we get Jesus as our Lord and savior, The Holy Spirit comes and dwells in us. The Father and The Son are in Heaven, but Holy Spirit is the one here on earth. We are His temple. The purpose of this teaching is not to bring down the Father or the Son but to bring God the Holy Spirit up to the same level we hold God the Father and God the Son.
His work
As we read in Genesis 1:2, we see the Holy Spirit was already there in the beginning. Before any word of creation was spoken, the Holy Spirit was already there anticipating the word to be spoken and Him manifesting it. The work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the words of the Father and the works of the Son. In 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, we see the distinct roles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father oversees Operations/Activities – v6. He is overall, and through all, and in you all(Ephesians 4:6). He set the offices in 1 Corinthians 12:27-28 and gives the grace. The Son oversees Administrations/ministries – v5. Jesus appoints certain people to different offices (Ephesians 4:11; 1 Corinthians 12:27-30). The Holy Spirit oversees gifts (the manifestations) – v4. The Spirit gives gifts to every person (v7). He is the equipper.
How we interact with Him
John 14:15-18, “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever — the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”
Our relationship with the Holy Spirit involves Him abiding in us, us knowing Him, and us hearing Him. The first way for us to interact with Holy Spirit is Him abiding in us. The Greek word for abide is meno. This means to continue to be present & to be held, kept, continually. My definition of abide is to be conscious of. Our relationship with the Holy Spirit is for us to be conscious of Him. We are conscious of Him because one of His assignments is to teach us and to lead us into all truth (John 14:26). When we are Holy Spirit conscious, we will be easily led by Him into all things that God the Father has planned for us.
The second way for us to interact with Holy Spirit is by knowing Him. The Greek word ‘know’ is ginōskō. It has a lot of meanings but one that sticks out to me is the Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. When Jesus says that the world doesn’t know Him, He is saying that the world isn’t intimate with Him. The world hasn’t borne itself to Him. But for us who are believers, we know Him because we are intimate with Him. We have opened ourselves to Him. We have let Him in to our deepest and darkest secrets. We have trusted Him with things that we would never have told anybody. We have told Him these things because we are in love with Him. That is what Jesus is telling us about the Holy Spirit. When we are intimate with Him, He becomes intimate with us, and He reveals to us the Father’s heart.
The third way for us to interact with Holy Spirit is by hearing Him. Once you know Him through scriptures, you will identify His voice. God Holy Spirit is always communicating with us; we must train our ears to hear Him. John 10:27, “27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” Jesus tells us, His sheep hears His voice. That is a promise that we can take to the bank because Jesus said it. The biggest struggle that a lot of us face is we believe we do not hear His voice. The truth of the matter is that we do hear His voice, we just do not recognize it is Him. What we must learn to do is to tune into Holy Spirit frequency and we will hear His voice. The best way to tune into His frequency is by immersing ourselves in scriptures. The scriptures will help us hear His voice.
Understanding how He works and how we interact with Him, will significantly boost our Christian walk. We need to be Holy Spirit conscious, and we also need to be intimate with Him, especially with our hearts. We also need to be in awe of Him. Because we have God the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. He has become one with us.
