Come, Holy Spirit; be Lord of all!

Scripture: “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever…” (John 14:16)

We hear much in church circles about the Holy Spirit. However, defining Him so we are experiencing the totality of what and who God has provided every believer to be their ‘Helper,’ is often overlooked. What is the Holy Spirit? Who is He? What difference does He make in the believer’s life?

We do not want to neglect or deny the deity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God in the present tense. We are living in the age of the Holy Spirit.  If we do not honor Him, the church will be empty of spiritual life; when we do honor Him our life will be full of God’s presence.

When we neglect Him, the fellowship of the church degenerates into a social fellowship with a mild religious flavor and the church becomes lukewarm. When we refuse to honor Him, many non-spiritual, unspiritual, and anti-spiritual features end up being brought into the church. When man refuses to receive God’s Spirit, he ends up creating all kinds of substitutes in order to try keeping his spirit up.

What is the Holy Spirit? There is matter and there is spirit. The difference between matter and spirit is that matter possesses weight, size, color and extension in space. It can be measured and weighed and has form. But the Holy Spirit is not material, so He does not have weight, or dimension, or shape or extension in space.  One power of Spirit is to penetrate matter and things and all substances. For example, your spirit dwells in your body somewhere and it penetrates your body without hurting the body. It is there penetrating because it is another form. When Jesus had risen from the dead and was no more mere matter, He came into a locked room through the wall somehow, and managed to penetrate into that room without unlocking the door. He could not do that prior to His death, but He did do that afterward. Spirit, then, is another kind of substance. It is different from material things and can penetrate personality. Your spirit can penetrate your personality. The Holy Spirit can penetrate your personality and your spirit. The Bible refers to this in 1 Corinthians 2:11,12. ¹¹For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹²We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 

The Holy Spirit is not enthusiasm. The Holy Spirit is not an ‘add-on.’ The Holy Spirit must be Lord of all, or He will not be Lord at all. The Holy Spirit is not courage, or energy, or the personification of all good qualities. He is a person just the same as you are a person. The Holy Spirit has substance but not material substance. He has individuality. He has will, intelligence, feelings, knowledge, sympathy, ability to love and see and think and hear and speak and desire and grieve and rejoice. He can communicate with you. And Jesus said about the Holy Spirit, “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. “  (John 15:26)

The Holy Spirit is God. The scripture give Him attributes that belong to  God. Omnipresence: ⁷    Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? (Psalm 139:7) The devil cannot claim omnipresence. The Psalmist attributed it to the Holy Spirit. In Job, we find that the Holy Spirit is given power to create. Job 26:13 “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” So the Spirit is Creator and He speaks life. He is indivisible from the Father and the Son. In addition, He is all God and exercises all the rights of God, and He is worthy of  our worship, love, and obedience. The beautiful thing about Him is being the Spirit of Jesus you will find Him exactly like Jesus, and Jesus is exactly like the Father. Jesus said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” “I will send you another Comforter/(Helper) and He will take the things of Me and demonstrate them to you.” (John 16:15)  We want the Holy Spirit restored to His rightful place in the church, and in individual lives today; it is the most important thing that could ever occur. “Come Holy Spirit, we need You…. Amen.”