Scripture Reading: Romans 8:9-11

I used to think that the Holy Spirit was like a light inside my heart.  But one day, God helped me to understand that the Holy Spirit is not a substance, but a person―a person who wanted to live and act and move in my life.  As Jesus said:

“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. … All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. … I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth” (John 14:16-17, 25-26, and 16:12-13a).

The Holy Spirit really is a person, not just some spiritual substance that flows through your body.

I realized this most clearly when I was worshipping God in the middle of a large sanctuary with hundreds of other people.  As I was singing, I was thinking about the beauty of Jesus and how great it could be if I could really see Him with my own eyes.  Far away at the front of the sanctuary there was a stained glass window with a picture of Jesus on it.

While everyone else was still standing and singing, I just sat down in my seat and closed my eyes.  I began to picture what Jesus would look like in my mind―something like that far-away image of Him in the stained glass window.  But suddenly, with my eyes still closed, I pictured two eyes directly in front of mine!  They were so close that I couldn’t look at both eyes at the same time.  I had to look back and forth between them, as you might do when looking close into the eyes of someone you loved.

With my own eyes still closed, I felt that His eyes were coming closer and closer to mine―so close, in fact, that I had to back up in my seat.  But when they finally came as close as they possibly could without touching me, the two eyes disappeared.  I wondered where they had gone.  At the same time, I sensed that they hadn’t left me at all.  Instead, I realized they had somehow passed right through me and began to turn around inside my head.

I felt my own eyes refocusing, as if Jesus Himself wanted to look through my eyes.  I could picture His arm going down inside my arm as if He were putting my arm on like a sleeve.  His hand went down inside my hand as if putting on a glove.  I could imagine His feet going down into my legs, one at a time, like He was putting on a pair of jeans.  His feet slid down into my feet as if putting on a pair of shoes.

My mind began to be flooded with Scriptures about how the Spirit of God really does lives inside us, like the ones I mentioned earlier.  I began to understand that He wanted to take up residence within me, live inside me and carry out His will through me—at least to the extent that I allowed Him free reign to do so.  I invited Him in and asked Him to push all of me out, so that I could be filled with Him as full as possible, from head to toe and from fingertip to fingertip.

I felt like God was telling me that when I was ready to open my eyes again, He wanted to look through my eyes and help me see the world as He sees it.  He wanted to use my hands to do what He wanted them to do.  He wanted me to walk where He would walk.  He wanted me to hear my ears what He would hear, speak with my mouth what He would speak, and feel with my heart what He would feel with His.

When I finally did open my eyes, I did see the world differently.  I realized that the Spirit of God wasn’t just a light inside my heart.  He was a person―a person who had literally come to take up residence inside my mortal body, giving life to it, as well as power, wisdom and direction.  As Paul said in Romans chapter 8:

“You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you” (Romans 8:9-11).

These verses have incredible power if you’ll take them to heart.

I saw their power displayed most clearly when my wife Lana was pregnant with our second child.  Lana was having some abnormal bleeding early on in the pregnancy, so she went in for a test.  They drew her blood on two different days and checked the level of her hormones.  If the baby was OK, her hormones would be doubling every day.  But if the baby wasn’t OK, then her hormones wouldn’t be rising, but going down instead.  When we got the results, we found that her hormones were dropping rapidly.

The doctor told us this could only mean one of three things:  1) either the baby had died and was about to miscarry on its own, or 2) the baby had lodged in Lana’s fallopian tubes instead of her womb, and if the baby wasn’t removed, it would burst the tubes and die, possibly killing Lana at the same time.  The third option was that the test was wrong.

The only way the doctor would be able to tell for sure was to do an interior ultrasound, which we scheduled for the next day.  That night, before the ultrasound, Lana called a friend to pray for her.  The friend suggested she read Romans chapter 8.  As Lana read these ancient words of the apostle Paul, she was struck in a new way by verse 11:

“And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you” (Romans 8:11).

She realized that if the Spirit of God was living inside her, the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead could raise this baby from the dead, too.  We both began to call upon God’s Spirit fervently, and asked others to do the same.

The next day, we went to the hospital for the interior ultrasound.  The nurse called Lana into the room and I sat in the waiting room outside.  After a long and emotional wait, the nurse called me in.  I saw Lana laying on the hospital bed.  She was crying.  The nurse took me over to the ultrasound machine and pointed to a black dot in the middle of it.  She said, “Do you see that dot on the screen?”

I could see it, the black dot that was our baby.  I was about to burst into tears myself when the nurse said, “Do you see how it’s beating?  That’s your baby’s heartbeat!”

Lana wasn’t crying because the baby had died!  She was crying because the baby was alive!  But that couldn’t be!  Lana’s hormones were dropping so rapidly.  I realized there weren’t just three options, but four, because the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead was now living inside Lana’s mortal body as well!  We felt like we had just witnessed the “dunamis” power of God, God’s dynamite that, when ignited by faith, causes miracles to happen!

Lana went on to carry the baby to full term and give birth to a completely healthy little boy―a little boy who is now nineteen years old and full of faith himself, believing that the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead can do all kinds of miracles in the world today.

The Holy Spirit is not just some ethereal substance that flows in and out of your life.  He is a person, a person who carries with Him the power of God, and who has taken up residence within you, if you belong to Christ.  The Holy Spirit wants to work in your life in powerful ways, too.  He wants you to call upon Him  and His power by faith.

Whether you’re battling with life or death, or battling with a sin that’s overwhelming you, God’s Spirit can give you power to win those battles.  If you’re struggling with reading the word of God or struggling to understand how it applies to your life, God’s Spirit can help to guide you into all truth.  If you’re trying to mend a broken relationship, or wondering how to go on with life having lost someone who was precious to you, God’s Spirit, the Counselor and Comforter, can bring you a wisdom and a peace that passes all understanding.

If you want to renew your mind today, renew your thinking about the Holy Spirit.  When you see Him as a person, rather than a substance, it will change the way you talk with Him—and what you can expect of Him.

I know a pastor who says that he always gets super-excited when he sees God’s Spirit moving in even a small way in an audience where he is speaking and ministering.  He gets excited because He knows that since God’s Spirit is a person, that means that if part of Him shows up, then all of Him is there!

If you belong to Christ, then you don’t just have a little bit of the Holy Spirit living inside of you, but the whole of Him living inside of you―the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead.

Call on God’s Holy Spirit today and invite Him to do His powerful work in your life right now.

Will you pray with me?

Father, thank You for sending Your Holy Spirit to live inside us when we belong to Christ.  We call upon Him now to bring life to our mortal bodies, both here on earth, and in heaven forever.  Raise to life those things in our lives which seem like they might be dead, so that we can be filled again with the abundant life that You have in store for us instead.  We pray this in the strong name of Jesus, Amen.

Questions for Reflection

1. Read Romans 8:9-11.  How have you pictured the Holy Spirit who lives in you, if you belong to Christ and He lives within you?  

2. What difference would it make in your life to picture Him as a person, rather than a substance?

3. Are there some particular areas of your life where you could really use the Spirit’s power right now?  Why not talk to Him right now and invite Him, by faith, to do His life-changing power in your life?

4. If you don’t belong to Christ, and don’t have the Spirit of God living within you, why not invite Him into your life today?  Turn away from any sin in your life and ask Jesus to forgive you, then invite His Holy Spirit to take up residence within you, giving you His power to do His work in your life.