R.T Kendall - 40 Days With the Holy Spirit. A Journey to Experience His Presence in a Fresh New Way

Day 2
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A PERSON

T HE SECOND MOST important truth about the Holy Spirit is that He is a person in the Godhead. Jesus told us to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Paul closed one of his letters with this benediction: May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Cor. 13:14). Peter began his first letter with the words chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood (1 Pet. 1:2).

In the early second century Tertullian (c. 160c. 225) coined a phrase in Latintrinitas, from which we get the word trinity. He also referred to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as personasafter which the church referred to the persons of the Godhead. The doctrine of the Trinity has been orthodox teaching for the Christian church for two thousand years. Dont try to figure out this teaching! Just believe it. You dont try to figure out electricity; you just use it. The Trinity is given to us not to understand fully but fully to believe.

Therefore Trinity is a word that does not attempt to explain but merely to identify the persons in the Godhead. That said, the Father and the Son are each seen as He. The Holy Spirit is also to be understood as He. It is sad that the King James Version referred to the Holy Spirit as it in Romans 8:26the Spirit itself. Modern versions have corrected this, translating the Greek the Spirit himself.

Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as he (John 14:16; 16:8) and introduced Him as allon parakletosthe literal Greek translation being another one [allon] who comes alongside [parakletos]. It is impossible to translate parakletos with one word, though it has been variously translated as comforter, advocate, counselor, or helper. All these describe exactly what Jesus was; He was a person who had come alongside the Twelve for some three years. The disciples knew Jesus at a natural level. They knew what He looked like; they knew the color of His eyes, the sound of His voice. He had been physically real to them for those three years; they saw Him, heard Him, and touched Him (1 John 1:1). Jesus was a real person.

Although invisible to us, the Holy Spirit likewise is a real person.

Therefore never think of the Holy Spirit as an it, an attitude, or an influence. He is a person and has very definite ways. Call those ways peculiar, eccentric, or unique if you like; He has His ways. You may not like His ways. But get over it! He is the only Holy Spirit you have! He wont adjust to you; you must adjust to Him.

The Holy Spirit Himself spoke of ancient Israel as not knowing Gods ways (Heb. 3:710). God was grieved because His own covenant people did not know His ways. They should have known them. But they didnt. God has His own ways and wants us to know them. And so too it is when it comes to the person of the Holy Spirit. He wants us to know His ways. As we will see below, the Spirit can be grieved, He can be quenched, and He can be blasphemed.

The Holy Spirit can also have joy. In Romans 14:17 Paul talked about joy in the Holy Spirit (emphasis added), whereas he referred to the joy of the Holy Spirit in 1 Thessalonians 1:6 (ESV, emphasis added). It is His own joy. This joy is not necessarily what we feel; it is what He feels. And yet sometimes He invites us to feel what He feels! It is called gladness in Acts 2:28 (ESV). That is exactly what I experienced years ago driving in my car, an event to which I will return later.

We need therefore to learn the difference between feeling happy because of circumstances and feeling the very joy of the LORD (Neh. 8:10). There is certainly nothing wrong with our feeling happy because things are working out for us. Indeed, there was great joy in that city when many who had been paralyzed were healed (Acts 8:78). The good news about Gentiles being converted made the disciples very glad (Acts 15:3). But the highest level of joy on this planet is when we are allowed to experience the very joy of the Spiritfeeling what He feels. Peter pointed out that his readers had not seen Jesus Himself but that they nonetheless experienced Him. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an expressible and glorious joy (1 Pet. 1:8). For when the person of the Holy Spirit lets us feel His joy, it is truly inexpressible.

For further study: Nehemiah 8:10; John 14:1621; 1 Corinthians 12:46; Ephesians 4:46; Hebrews 3:711; Jude 2021

Holy Spirit, I welcome You afresh into myheart. Let me experience Your person andYour joy in ever-increasing measure. InJesuss name, amen.

Day 3
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS ETERNAL

W HO MADE GOD? is the question we all cannot help but ask. I remember asking my mother this question when I was a child. I wasnt happy with her answer: Nobody made God; He always was. The reason we arent happy with the answer is that we prefer to think logically. Logic often seeks to remove the need for faith. What makes faith faith is that we simply accept that God always was and had no beginning. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for but without tangible evidence (Heb. 11:1). There are basically two worldviews when it comes to faith: (1) the secular atheist view: I will believe it when I see it, or seeing is believing; and (2) the biblical view: believing God without seeing the proof. The Bible makes no attempt to prove the existence of God. The word of God begins, simply, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1).

So it is with the eternal existence of God. I choose to believe the Biblethe infallible word of God. I happen to believe totally that the Bible is true. This is because of the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has persuaded me that the Bible is true. The Bible says that God is eternal: The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms (Deut. 33:27). The apostle John had a vision of the living creatures in heaven that worship God day and night:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.

REVELATION 4:8

And so the Holy Spiritlike the Father and the Sonis eternal. This means none of the persons of the Trinity had a beginning. There is a subtle but important distinction between eternal and everlasting. Eternal means no beginning as well as no end. Everlasting means no end. For example, the angels are everlasting but not eternal; they had a beginning because they were created. Both the Father and the Son are eternalno beginning, no end. The WordJesuswas in the beginning with God (John 1:2). Paul wrote, For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Col. 1:1617).

Like the Father and the Son, then, the Holy Spirit is not only everlasting but also eternal; He had no beginningbecause He is God. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Heb. 9:14, emphasis added). The Father, the Son, and the Spirit existed in eternity before God chose to create the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1). Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God (Ps. 90:2). As I stated above, God the Father is eternal, and so is the Holy Spirit. When Paul said that in the fullness of time God sent his Son (Gal. 4:4), it is because the Father already had a Son. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son. He was the Word until the moment He became flesh (John 1:14). After then He could be called the God-man. The Lord Jesus Christ did not begin in Bethlehem but at His conception in Nazareth the moment the Word entered the womb of the Virgin Mary.