Hope for the Week
“Your own personal Jesus. Someone to hear your prayers, someone who cares…. someone who’s there.” “Personal Jesus” – Depeche Mode 1989
We’ve all heard it more times than we can count. Someone referring to Jesus in some form as our personal savior. But, have we really stopped to give thought to what that actually means? As Christians, we all belong to the same triune God head. The same God the Father, the same Jesus, and the same Holy Spirit living inside of us, so how do we have a “personal savior?” “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.” John 14:16 - “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5. We have two promises here; first, the Holy Spirit we’ll be sent to indwell us at our salvation and secondly, the Holy Spirit will never leave us nor forsake us. Just as Jesus had personal relationships with His disciples while He was here, the Holy Spirit was sent to believers after His ascension to carry on that personal relationship until we are called home. Just as Jesus knew their thoughts, the Holy Spirit knows us on an intimate level. Romans 8:26 says: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” The Holy Spirit knows us so well that He will pray for us when we don’t know what to pray or even when we can’t pray. The Holy Spirit is what moves us to do the will of God, directing us on the things we should do. For example, have you ever had the feeling you should speak to someone about salvation, invite someone to church, or stop and pray for something? These feelings are prompts given by the Holy Spirit and shouldn’t be ignored. Following these prompts are key to being obedient to God. This is why having a strong prayer life and knowing the Word of God is so important. This will enable us to pick up on when we are being prompted, and we will have the knowledge to know how to respond to these prompts based on God’s word, because His character never changes. This is where it becomes personal. The Holy Spirit by living in us knows our innermost thoughts, dreams, fears, desires, and pain. Through the blood of Jesus, the Holy spirit takes this information and repairs the relationship with God the Father, allowing us to be the children of God that we were intended to be and to live out our lives within the will of God by His power and love. The next time you’re down, confused, sad, mad, lonely, or anything else that gets in the way of that abundant life, remember, you have a part of God living in you. A part of God that doesn’t act like a blanket with a “one size fits all manner,” but a part of the trinity that wants what’s best for YOU personally. So, draw near to God and He will draw near to you and that starts by realizing the power that lives in you in the form of the Holy Spirit.
Have a great week and God bless,