The Gift of the Spirit

The Bible is God's Word, His guide, His instruction book for us to follow.  It contains all truth....and it tells us some things about God Himself.  It tells us about His Spirit; now there is a complicated subject.

The Spirit of God is something that we might never understand fully in this life.  God does reveal some things, but He also must know that matters of the Spirit are difficult for us mere humans to comprehend.  But we will address one aspect of the Spirit in this article.

Acts 2:38 tells of an account where Peter and the apostles have just told the Jewish people there in Jerusalem that they killed the Christ, the Son of God.  They are upset and say to the apostles, "What shall we do?"  Peter says, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."  This gift is the Spirit.  We don't know from this account just what this means, but it is clear that the Spirit was being given to these people.

In Acts 3:19, the instruction is: "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."  Comparing these two passages gives the idea that the gift of the Spirit brings times of refreshing from God.

We can perhaps add some understanding by looking at the teaching of Galatians chapter 3, one of my favorite chapters in the Bible.  I like this one because it compares three phases of the Bible.  The first is the "promise" that God gave to Abraham in Genesis 3 that one day a descendant (Jesus) would bless all people of the world.  Later in the Old Testament God gave the Jewish people the "Law," a special law for them to follow.  Following that is "faith" in Jesus Christ...in fulfillment of the Promise that was given to Abraham.  I suggest reading all of Galatians 3, but here is an excerpt: (Paul is speaking to the Galatian Christians): "This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of faith?"  In this passage He mentions the fact that they received the Spirit when they became Christians.  In those days receiving the Spirit often came with the ability to do miracles.  That is not true today.  But we still have the gift of the Spirit; we have the Spirit of God within us.  Let us rejoice in that....and try to live as Christ lived.

Thanks for reading.  I hope your week is great.