HOLY SPIRIT

By Rick Mathes

Acts 1:5 for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

When the Lord returned to His former glory the Holy Spirit rolled up His sleeves and went to work. The following is a brief list of some of the Holy Spirit’s efforts to tune you in and focus on the Lord’s pleasure in living and acting out His purposes that touch you.

• Strive:              contend, combat, fight, attempt, struggle, insist on
• Convince:        persuade, emphasize, comfort, be irresistible, influence
• Quicken:          raise up, revive, being around, resurrect, revitalize
• Seal:                validate, confirm, ratify, certify, document, surety
• Reveal:            be transparent, show through, transmit light, brighten
• Witness:          testify, vouch, attest, inform, verify, validate
• Intercede:        mediate, arbitrate, umpire, intervene, negotiate
• Calling:            conscience, honor, duty, conviction, belief, reason
• Ordain:            predestined, appointed, foreordained, intended, degreed
• Commission:   deputized, empowered, responsible, intended, assigned
• Invite:              entice, allure, attract, influence, prevail upon, induce
• Lead:               direct, manage, spearhead, excel, predominate, win
• Comfort:          pacify, placate, appease, lull, reassure, set at ease
• Overcome:      prevail, influence, master, conquer, dominate

The Holy Spirit was sent to us to reveal the risen Christ to us that we might live and abide in Him until He returns. At that time He will make us like Him and we will know Him as He really is. This is accomplished through such witnesses as John the Baptist together with those the Holy Spirit moved upon to open the Word of God for us: the Rhema. The Father testifies of the Son through the Holy Spirit as a breeze fills the sails or a boat or lifts a kite or turns a windmill that produces electric power: dynamite.

The Old Testament testified to Jesus Christ through the hovering and mothering of the Holy Spirit like a hen with its clucks. A mother hen has a general cluck that says, “I’m right here if you need me.” And there is the special cluck that warns, “Get under my wings! Danger is near!”