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Reading: Matthew 21:12-17, Mark 11:15-19, Luke 19:45-48, 

“And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” Matthew 21:12-13

I have seen and heard that this event could have happened on Sunday or Monday of Holy Week. The most important thing is it is a significant event that took place during this Holy Week. So it definitely bears studying. When I read the book of Matthew it appeared it happened on Sunday following the Triumphal Entry. However, in Mark it reads as if it was Monday. 

Jesus enters the temple and begins to drive people out of the temple who were buying and selling goods. God intended for the temple to be a place of prayer, a place where we go to cleanse our hearts. The temple of the Old Testament was the place where the people came to get atonement for their sins. Yet somehow over time, it had become a place where people could sell their goods and merchandise. Where was the breakdown? When did things change from the house of prayer to a marketplace. No doubt Jesus knew before He entered the temple that this was taking place, it was no surprise to Him when He stepped foot inside. However, He takes this time to get angry, to point out to the people that this was not the intended use for the temple. Jesus words “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” In Mark, the quote of Jesus was more complete and lines up more directly with the reference to Isaiah 56:7. “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.?” (Mark 11:17) This area of the temple was for all people, Jews and Gentiles alike. And it was as far as the Gentiles could go inside the temple. Because of the activity going on in the temple, there was no way that the people could come in and pray.

It is also important to note that he was just as angry at those who were buying as He was at those who were selling. It matters the state of our hearts when we go to the house of God. Yes, the leaders of our churches as well as the Jewish leaders of the day bear a load of maintaining a holy reverence in our churches. However, Jesus didn’t look at the buyers as innocent. The same goes for today. I have heard someone say to me once that they left a church because they were not being “fed”. And it may have been true, it is not my place to judge. However, it is also our responsibility to be sure that our hearts are in a place to be fed when we enter the church doors. The buyers are just as guilty as the sellers. Let’s examine our hearts today. Let’s look and see the state of our hearts as we study this Holy Week. The cool thing about studying the scriptures is He has a word for each of us that will meet us right where we are. As you read the scriptures use this as a guide but ask Him what He wants to teach you today. What He wants to teach you this week. 

Reading: Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-10, Luke 19:28-40 and John 12:12-14

The Triumphal Entry 

“And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ You shall say this: The Lord has need of it.’” So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. As he was drawing near-already on the way down the Mount of Olives-the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’ And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher rebuke your disciples.’ He answered ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.’” Luke 19:28-40

Through most of Jesus earthly ministry we see Him not particularly desiring attention and the drawing of a crowd. He drew crowds but it was because of His teaching and His humble spirit. Not because he desired any pomp and circumstance. Yet this time, He knew would be His last entry into Jerusalem before the cross. He was headed for Jerusalem and as He got closer He sent those disciples ahead to get this donkey for Him to ride into town. Take note here, He got a colt, a young donkey that had never had anyone sit on it before. The disciples threw their cloaks on its back and Jesus climbed on it and rode into town. The multitude of disciples and followers began singing His praises and shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” 

I wonder what Jesus was thinking as He rode into Jerusalem that day. As He was seeing the faces in the crowd was He memorizing them knowing He would see these same faces shouting “crucify Him” in the coming days. Or was He just enjoying the moment, knowing what was coming. I love that Jesus gave us this glimpse of His enjoying the praises of His people. I love that He told those Pharisees “if these were silent, the very stones would cry out!” I love praising Him. I love lifting my hands in worship! I love that I can sing Hosanna and Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! And though I know that I will fail Him in the week ahead. I love that He accepts my praise just like He did His crowd of followers on that day riding into Jerusalem. I won’t let the stones cry out in my place! Praise Him today! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! (v.13)

“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 groaning too deep for words,” Romans 8:26

There is so much more that the Holy Spirit does for us. We have just talked about a few of the things these past couple of weeks. But this one may be my very favorite of all. You see this one, if no other, this one is the one that says in so many ways that the Holy Spirit, He’s got your back. I know if you are like me, you don’t always know what to pray. Sometimes the situation or the circumstance that is in front of us is just so overwhelming that this is when we get to just call on the Holy Spirit and say take this from me. Surely I am not the only one who at times has no idea how to even pray that a situation will turn out. 

Or maybe there is a person that you have prayed for and maybe even some of the prayers you have prayed have come true but the results were still not exactly how you thought they would play out. That’s the time to say Holy Spirit take this one, intercede for me and pray for what ought to be instead of what I THINK ought to be. 

I can’t tell you the number of times in my prayers, I will start to pray “Lord, I need this to happen this particular way and I want it to play out like this …” And then I will back up and say “Lord, you’ve got this, please just handle it however You see fit.” And I give it over to the Holy Spirit and you know what? He helps me in my weakness. He comforts me, and calms my soul and I can be assured that He takes what concerns me and He lays my requests down to the Father. I am all about some collective prayer and getting some prayer warriors together to pray for something that we need to happen. But, truly at the end of the day, having the Holy Spirit on my side to pray for me, in the big stuff going on, in the little stuff going on and anything and everything in between going on, is the most important prayer partner I could have. 

Because, you know when I leave it to Him, when I truly turn it over to Him, then I know that the one who is able will do it for His glory. 

“Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21 (NKJV)

I love how the NKJV puts it “exceedingly abundantly above”. Truly when I leave things up to Him and I pray for His will to be done rather than try to conform His will to my will it turns out “exceedingly abundantly above” what I could have ever dreamed up. I was visiting with a friend just last night and we both were sharing ways the Lord has worked things out for us, that were more than we could have dreamed. Now you know I am not saying all of this to say my life is perfect. Far from it, I still live and walk in this fallen world just like you do. But when I hand things over to the Lord and you ask the Holy Spirit to be my guide and to intercede for me I promise you He’s the best guide there is. And that He will guide in ways and the Lord will work for in ways that will blow your mind. 

So my friends, what’s troubling you today? Ask the Holy Spirit to intercede on your behalf and to help you in your weakness. What big thing do you have ahead of you? Ask the Holy Spirit to give you the strength to do it. What’s making you sad? Ask the Holy Spirit to comfort you. What person do you need to show love to that just might not be very lovable? Ask the Holy Spirit to love them through you. 

Thank you Jesus for leaving us with the Holy Spirit. Thank you for being my guide, my helper, my comforter, my confidant, my friend, my intercessor, my prayer partner, my everything I need! 

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13

In my book, HOPE is one of those things that I need as much as I need love. But what is hope? I mean really. We use it as flippantly sometimes as we use the word love. For example, I hope we win the game. I hope we get to go to the movies. I hope today is a good day. But the hope that I am talking about here is the hope that comes from the God of hope and that comes to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Hope is cultivated in us when we feel at peace with what is going on around us and when we can have joy in our circumstances, even when the circumstances don’t feel very peaceful or joyous. We don’t have hope only when things are already good.  No, quite the contrary, we need hope when things are uncertain more than ever. It’s recognizing that there can be better days ahead.   

In thinking about hope and how to explain the hope that we receive from the Holy Spirit, I did what I always do. I looked up the definition of the word. Webster says that hope is to cherish a desire with anticipation: to want something to happen or to be true. And while that is true, I think that the hope that we can have through the Holy Spirit is much deeper than that. 

To me the true meaning of hope is in knowing that God has me in His hands. It’s knowing that everything that happens to me is sifted through His hands. Even when it’s stuff that is not pleasant or is downright heartbreaking. Hope is the knowledge that I will survive it because He has my circumstances, He has the hurt and that He has me! And because He has me, I have HOPE. Hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a future that will not necessarily be free from pain or sadness or heartache but that will have Him in it and that because of Him I can feel joy and peace even when the stuff of life is hard or it hurts. 

Hope is knowing that God is working things out for my good, because I love Him. (Romans 8:28) Hope is what anchors my soul to Him. (Hebrews 6:19) Hope is knowing that God has good plans for my future. (Jeremiah 29:11) And …

“and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:5

The bottom line is this. If we have Him, we already have HOPE. First of all, we know that when we are spending eternity with Him, that we will have no more tears, pain and heartache. But it is also the knowledge and belief that things can be better here. There is a verse in Psalms that has always been a favorite of mine. While I usually use the ESV, I love the way this verse reads in the NIV. 

“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” Psalms 27:13

I love that! To me the Psalmist is grasping where his hope lies when he says “I remain confident of this”. The hope that the Holy Spirit gives us is something we can remain confident in. This hope is not a wavering hope or a shallow hope but it is something we can be confident in. And I love that the Psalmist is not just placing his hope in what comes next. It’s not just in eternal life, but it is that he will see goodness from the Lord in the land of the living, while he is still on earth. 

Friends, I don’t know what you are facing today. I don’t know what hurts or heartaches may be in front of you. But I pray that you feel the HOPE anchoring your soul that only the Holy Spirit can bring. I pray that you know His hope! I pray you know that He is working your circumstances for good. I pray that we will remain confident in His goodness.  

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5

I have seen and studied this verse before to gain an understanding of what suffering will do for us in the long run and why we should rejoice in our sufferings. It’s not the suffering itself we rejoice in, but it’s what that suffering brings about in us. The endurance which produces our character which produces our hope. But there is an aspect to this passage that I think I had missed before today. We also can rejoice in our sufferings which leads us to hope BECAUSE of the love from God that is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. 

We can feel God’s love in our hearts because we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. That may not seem like a profound thought to you. Maybe it’s just my simple mind but think about it. Have you ever felt peace in a situation, or power in a situation or even hope in a situation that you couldn’t really explain? Have you ever felt loved in a situation that you really couldn’t explain? The explanation is the Holy Spirit. He is working in and through us and He is what pours Gods love into our hearts. 

I was talking with someone very close to me just last night who was so overwhelmed by what God is doing in their life and all we could do was sit in awe of the answered prayers. I don’t know why we do that, why do we sit in awe of God answering our prayers when we know that is who He is and what He does. I think it’s because it brings us to reality of how much He truly does love us. When we recognize God for who He is and we cultivate our relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit, is when we truly begin to realize how God pours his love into our hearts. This is not to say every answer will come exactly how we think it will come. But truthfully when I leave some of these things completely to God and I don’t ask for something to work out specifically, is when He answers me in a way that blows me away. I do believe in asking for some specifics, but I also believe there are times when we just ask God to BE GOD in the situation and handle it, because He will do it so much better than I can think or imagine. 

And my friends that is just one of the ways that I truly feel His love pouring into my heart. And when I feel His love pouring into me, I can’t help but want to pour His love out of me and to love Him more, and to love His people more! It is through the love that God pours into my heart that I can love His people, that I can love even unlovable people. We live in a broken world that needs God’s love and God can love even the unlovable people any way He chooses, but He chooses to love this dark world through His people. I believe that God pours His love into us so that we will pour out His love. So that a dark, lonely, broken world can SEE HIM. 

Today, I am going to ask God to show me someone who needs to see His love. I am going to ask the Holy Spirit to pour so much of God’s love into me that it will spill out of me onto people who need to see Him. Won’t you do the same? 

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” 1 Corinthians 12: 4-11

Have you ever looked at someone and admired them so much you wish you could do the things they do? I know I have! Boy, I can let that old ugly green eyed monster creep into my head at the drop of a hat. I actually used to be a lot worse about it than I am now. Not saying I have attained some level where I never do that, but I’m not as bad as I used to be. The fact is, we are all gifted by the Holy Spirit with attributes and characteristics that just seem almost to come naturally to us. 

Let’s think about and look at our church. I know that at my church we have different people who seem to fulfill different roles. I am sure that’s the same for your church as well. I know I have been guilty before of being a little jealous of someone else’s role. But the truth is, the Holy Spirit has gifted each and every one of us for our callings and when put together and working in harmony it is a beautiful thing for our churches. I love the way Paul breaks it down here. He says there are varieties of gifts, there are varieties of service, there are varieties of activities but they all come from the same God. And when they work together they are working for the common good, the common good for the kingdom, the common good for the church, (little c, the overall church), the common good for our Church (our own fellowship), the common good for our families and our own communities too. 

Paul also breaks down some of the gifts that we see. He says some have the gift of faith, some the gift of wisdom, some will have the gift of healing and some the working of miracles or prophecy, or discernment. Paul says that all are empowered by the same Spirit and that it is the Spirit who decides who gets what gift. 

I think too, (and this is completely my thoughts), that our giftings can come and go. They can be for different seasons in life. I know that I have times that I felt one gift was stronger than at another time. For instance my faith, while it is strong most of the time, there are times that I feel I waiver. I feel I have a gift of words that come only from Him. If I am being totally honest most of the time that I set my computer in my lap to write these devotions, I have no clue what I am going to say. And as I write I truly feel that the Holy Spirit is giving me the words AS I write. If you had asked me 10 minutes before I wouldn’t have a clue what I was going to say. I know that I have had times where I felt I had a gifting for service in my church in a certain direction and then suddenly I will feel I am being pulled into another direction to serve. In my younger years of my faith journey I would often question those times and wonder if I had heard God correctly. I have learned to let myself follow where He is gifting me to serve and to realize that just because he may be gifting me for one area of service today that does not mean that will be my area of service forever. He may have another plan for me next month, or next year. I have also learned that when I cling to the gifting, I may be robbing someone else of their gifting. 

What gift has the Holy Spirit given you? Are you being gifted for a teaching role, or a leadership role? Whatever gifts He has given you or lain on your heart, you can be assured He is doing so to lead you into some service to Him. And the ways we serve Him are to serve His people and His church. If you aren’t sure, what gifts you’ve been given, spend some time in prayer today to ask Him. Ask Him what your gifts are and then ask Him how He wants you to serve Him with your gifts. Where can you serve, and what activities would He have you to be involved in? He gives us our gifts so that we can give our gifts away. 

We talked about the Holy Spirit last week. He was promised to us by Jesus. We talked about how He sanctifies us and how He transforms us. This week I want to study the ways He helps us to be who we are called to be. 

Have you ever felt that prompting in your heart to do something, maybe for someone, or to go do something specific and you just didn’t know why? There is a little story about an evangelist named Philip tucked away in the book of Acts that gives us some insight into how the Holy Spirit can work to direct our steps. 

“Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over and join this chariot.’ So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he said, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to come up and Sith with him.” Acts 8:26-31

Philip was so in tune with the Holy Spirit that he heard the Holy Spirit say to him to rise and go toward the south, and to what road and then he saw the Ethiopian studying and he felt the Holy Spirit tell him to go join this man’s chariot and eventually he was teaching the Ethiopian about Jesus. Now I know there are probably a lot of people who would say well that was in Bible times and would think this an outlandish story that may not happen today. Well I don’t have an exact story but I do have a story of someone who did something for me who was following the Holy Spirit’s prompting. 

Several years ago I was going through a particularly hard time, and I had a friend who was going through an even harder time. Our worlds had been rocked a bit. We had been stay at home moms together and had forged a friendship and she had had to return to work because of some circumstances in her world and I was keeping her children for her. One day after I had put all the children, hers and mine, down for a nap, I went to my sofa and I prayed for encouragement and strength. I was glad I could be doing this for my friend, but selfishly, I missed my friend too. I missed our old life where we would hang out while our children had play dates. Now our children were having their play dates all the time, but I was lonely for the friendship she and I had enjoyed. And, well, I was just tired. Well, I remember sitting on my sofa and having a little pity party and asking the Lord to help me. An hour or two later, there was a knock on my front door and as I opened the door, there was another friend there. She looked at me and she held up one paper bag and she said “I brought dinner for …” (our mutual friend, the one whose children I was keeping) and she held up the other hand which had another paper bag and she said and “I brought dinner for you too”. I think I started crying at that moment, and I told her how I had just an our or two earlier sat down and asked the Lord for some strength and some encouragement. This friend at my doorstep told me that just a couple of hours earlier she had a thought all of a sudden that she wanted to do something not only for our friend who was going through the tough time but that she wanted to do something for me too. I can still remember her smile and her saying to me. “I’m so glad I listened.” 

I am sure I have had times that I have listened and I have had times that I missed it. I pray that I will spend enough time with Him that I will know His voice when He is prompting me to do for someone else. Much like Philip did and my friend at the doorstep. Because she listened, the Lord answered my prayer for encouragement, through a dinner in a paper bag. And you know what, I can still remember her sweet smile as I told her about my prayer that said to me that she received a blessing from being the blessing too. Oh may we always listen. 

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” 2 Corinthians 3:18

Paul is making a reference here to when Moses would meet with God face to face, his face shone so brightly that it would frighten the Israelites so Moses would actually put a veil over his face.  You will find the story in Exodus 34:29-35. Moses went up on Mount Sinai to meet with God, this was when Moses wrote the ten commandments that God had given him on the tablets. He had met with God and been alone with God for forty days and forty nights. He came down the mountain with the tablets and he didn’t know that his face shone because he had been with God. The Israelites were afraid to come near him because of how his face shone so brightly. So when Moses finished telling them what God had told him, he put a veil over his face (v. 33). After that, whenever he went in to speak with the Lord and to meet with him, he would remove the veil until he came out again. When he came out he would tell the Israelites what God had said and he would replace the veil. 

What Paul is saying here is the that we don’t need the veil anymore. You see Moses had to have the veil, because God’s glory shone all over him after meeting with God and the Israelites couldn’t handle it. Remember, not everyone had the opportunity to have the Spirit of God living inside of them. So it was huge that the Israelites could see God’s glory on Moses but it scared them too. We, on the other hand, have the Holy Spirit living inside of us so that we can meet with him in our prayer closets, prayer chairs, on our way to work, in our sitting down, in our going about our day. The veil has been removed for us. We get to gaze on God’s glory quite like Moses did in his day. And as we behold his glory, we are transformed into the likeness of Christ. 

Yesterday we studied the process of being sanctified. This goes hand in hand, I think. The Sanctification process increases our desire, our “want to” if you will, to spend time with Jesus. We are much the same way as Moses. Oh our faces may not literally shine with the glory of the Lord, but when you spend time with Him daily you will shine your light for Him in such a way that people will see God’s glory on you. And friends that is where and when we are transformed into the likeness of Christ. 

I think the key word here is time. It is the time we spend with Him that will transform us. It is the time spent with him, that will make us more into the image of Christ. And it is the time spent with Him that will cause us to shine for Him. 

“But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:11

Most of us as Christians can say in a heartbeat that we were washed in the blood. We are grateful for what Jesus did on the cross for us. Because many of us when we become Christians can look back at our former selves and we realize where we might have ended up if not for Jesus washing us in the blood. However, I know a lot of people, myself included, either do not have a full grasp on what it means to be sanctified or have trouble with seeing ourselves in that light. Sanctification is a big word and almost sounds too HOLY to be used in the same sentence with ~~ my name. 

So I did the first thing that I usually do when I want to understand a word. I looked it up. Sanctified means to set apart as or declare holy. See there it is it is to declare holy. I can’t think of myself as holy? Can I? This verse says so. This verse is in essence saying we were washed, declared holy, and justified. I looked up justified too. Justified means having, done for, or marked by a good or legitimate reason.

So we know that sanctified means to be set apart as holy, but what does it really mean for us? When we come to Jesus and we are washed in the blood, we receive the Holy Spirit who takes away the desire to sin. But can we honestly say that when we are washed in the blood that we have the TEMPTATION to sin taken away immediately? I know I couldn’t and still can’t. Because I have the Holy Spirit in my heart I can honestly tell you that in my heart of hearts my desire is to never sin again. But I CAN’T honestly tell you that I don’t struggle with some sin every day. As I said yesterday, some of the sins in me have changed over time. Some I have slayed and moved on and yet and still there are always others that are there in my human flesh. So we were washed in the blood which took away the desire to sin, but we still have the process of walking it out. That’s where being sanctified comes in. {At least that’s the way my feeble mind seems to be grasping this verse.) 

To be sanctified is the process in which we are walking out our salvation. It’s where the transformation comes in. When we became Christians, we became His. The Holy Spirit moved in and started unpacking but we are still humans. We still have fleshly desires and thoughts and habits and ideas that we have carried around for a long time. So when the Spirit moves in, we have to start the process of putting away those fleshly desires and begin to live according to the Spirit’s leading and not the leading of what our flesh wants. 

“For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” Romans 8:13-14

And this is when the Holy Spirit then starts the process of transforming us. His work is really just beginning. The whole point in walking out our salvation to sanctification is transformation. 

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Romans 8:29

Once we are washed in the blood, God sees us in the image of His Son. That is done, but we are still in our flesh as long as we are on this earth. Therefore, we have to be sanctified, we have to be set apart as holy, and because we are flesh, this sanctification is a process in us. It doesn’t change how God sees us. He sees us as Holy because when He looks at us He sees His son. But the world will still see us as the fleshly people that we are. But what they really need is to see Jesus in us, so our sanctification, our setting apart as Holy, is not so that God will see us different, it’s so the world will see us different. It seems to me that the whole point of this sanctification is so that we will be a light for the world to see. A light that will make them want what we have. 

Therefore, because we are washed in the blood, and because of being washed in the blood, we are sanctified, set apart as Holy, on the day we leave this fleshly body we are justified, we are marked for a good and legitimate reason to be ushered into His presence, not because of us, but because of the work of the Holy Spirit in us. 

“And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said ‘you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’” Acts 1:4-5 

Jesus was speaking with the Apostles. This was after His death and resurrection when He had appeared to the disciples and just before His ascension. His promise was, again, that they would receive the Holy Spirit as their guide and their helper and that He would be with them always. Up until this point they had learned from Jesus in the physical sense but they were about to have the Holy Spirit indwelling in them and they would learn from Him that way. And when they would have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit they would also have power from Him. Power to overcome what was in front of them, the power to witness, the power to live for Him. 

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8

Now here is the good news for us. We have the Holy Spirit too. The Holy Spirit was not just a promise for the disciples of Jesus day. If you are in Christ and Christ is in you, then you have the Holy Spirit and that means you have the power of the Holy Spirit living in you. 

“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” Romans 8:9-11

The best thing about being on this side of the cross, is that the Holy Spirit dwells in us once we give our lives over to Christ. That means that we have the power to overcome those fleshly desires and habits and things that are not for our good. Our bodies may be dead inside because of past sins or even today sins, but the Holy Spirit brings life to us because He gives us the power to overcome those past sins and even our today sins. I say “today sins” because we will all have sin in this fleshly body of ours until the day comes that we go home to glory. But with the Holy Spirit living in us we can recognize those sins, and repent of those sins and turn from them. That does not mean we will start being perfect and never sin again, but that we will always have the power to turn from them. What I mean is this, I can honestly say to you I have sin in my past that I don’t really have to worry about in me anymore. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, I have been able to turn from them and they are not a struggle anymore. That is not to say there are not more sins in my life that rear their ugly head that I may struggle with now. Nope! I am human and I have plenty that I still have to overcome. It just means that as I have grown and matured in my faith and have worked these things out with the Holy Spirit the sins I struggle with today are not the sins I struggled with in the past. It’s always going to be a process, but truthfully what a glorious process it is. As I learn from Him and love Him and know Him more and more, my faith has grown and I can discern His voice in my ear and I can feel His presence. 

You know many times I will say when studying Old Testament scripture that I don’t understand how they could not believe. They had things like burning bushes and pillars of fire. But you see one thing they did not have was the guarantee of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit in the Old Testament would sometimes rest on someone but could also be removed from someone. David prayed for God to not “remove” His spirit from him. (Psalm 51:11) The Spirit departed from Saul because of his disobedience. (1 Samuel 16:14) The Israelites could not have time with God themselves, they relied on Moses to communicate with God and to communicate with them. So when we judge them for all of the times they grumbled and complained, well we also need to remember they were following God, but they didn’t have His Spirit indwelling in them to give them the power that we have. I am so grateful to be able to have this relationship that I have with Him, through the Holy Spirit indwelling in me. He is with me always, He goes with me wherever I go, whatever I do. I am sure there have been times in my life where I didn’t necessarily listen for Him, or recognize His presence and I, so to speak, pushed Him into a corner of my heart. But He was there, from the first moment I asked Him into my heart he has always been there. It’s just up to me to listen to Him and to know His power in me.