In the beginning, for each of us, we become aware of Christ, in the beauty of his extraordinary love, in His life and death on the cross. We are arrested, as we became aware of the enormity of that love, convinced by the Spirit it is the everlasting love of the eternal God. We thus find the reality of conviction, then surrender, and faith is born.
As our hearts respond to Jesus, the Holy Spirit is given to us by God to be our mentor in the Christian life, to nurture the reality of God’s presence and power in our lives – to lead us on to victory, building, increasing our faith, enabling us to be witnesses of the reality of faith in the gospel, venturing into more and more lives, to the glory of God.
In passing, we know that the presence and power of the gospel are made constantly real to us in all the Holy Spirit’s fruits, as our hearts are at rest in Christ. Each is love’s response to the different challenges we face, the good and the bad, so to speak – e.g. sometimes joy, sometimes patience – whatever, always led and fortified by the Holy Spirit. The fruits in our lives are our evidence, confirming in us that we belong to God and are consciously realised, each in its own way. But, they are all ‘one’, being all integral parts of the love of God, shed abroad in our hearts. If one is missing they all are. being all different aspects of the love of God, given to us in the ministry of the Holy Spirit If incomplete, the peace has gone, by turning back from active belief in Jesus. It is by consistency of belief in Him, which leads us on in the abundant life which is His gift to us in the gospel. And as we are real in Him, people can see it and we can be active witnesses, as General Booth said: '...preach the gospel at all times, sometimes words being necessary’!
We must heed the ‘inner voice’ of the Holy Spirit. If our love is true, all responses will be of God, in whom we will have confidence, and fear will take flight. But, If not God’s peace will desert us and everything will be wrong. Pretence can never work and our hearts will be making that clear. Then we must begin again, ‘looking unto Jesus’ for the forgiveness which is always available to the repentant.
Let us stand firm against the sometimes occurring, false accusations which are satanic in origin, being non-specific and having no basis of actual personal failure. Then it’s time to redirect that false spirit to its home in hell, using the authority that we have in Christ to do that.
The Spirit leads us into activity from the heart - with belief and action, uniquely appropriate to us, building faith. Then we have fresh dreams of the Spirit, leading us on further. Our faith increases (like the trading of the five and the two ‘talents’ of the parable.) We find the Rock under our feet and we can go forth in confidence and joy. (A small, neglected, hidden faith, like the buried ‘talent’ will fail, shrinking, shrivelled in a fearful heart.)
A cessation of belief, failure to trust and obey, can wreck our ‘new life’, but Isaiah 35: 8 -10, speaks of our new life as the ‘highway’ reminding us that we, of simple faith, can do it, and Heb. 10: 35 exhorts us onward, while v 39, has confidence in us that, as believers who have experienced the New Life, we will keep on. Encouragement is something we can all do, and all do with, from time to time.
The leadership of the Spirit can be scary, pointing us to new and untravelled paths, exciting too, but depending on our faith. These are high stakes. We have an important part to play in the life of all with whom we meet and have contact. In Christ we are a lifeline. Jesus really started something (!), delegating the onward work to the Holy Spirit, to work with us, with the comment: ‘all things are possible to him who believes’.
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