|
Musings on Faith #26 The Holy Spirit - Part II | |
|
Because I was out of the State on a short vacation, last week’s Musings on Faith was written by a good friend of mine, Mr. Lee Vail. I have talked to him about this and we may "swap out" with Lee again in the future. I found his article to be very relevant to the present age, and hope you all enjoyed and profited from it, as I did.
My intention last week was to follow up on my last Musings, regarding the Holy Spirit. I had discussed then my wonder that so many Christians gave short shrift to the Holy Spirit. If you read closely you will see that the Holy Spirit is not a ghost, nor an "it", but a He, being literally God in us. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us, and to commune with our own individual spirit. We are made of body, mind, heart, soul and spirit. God speaks to us in many ways, sometimes through His Word, sometimes directly, as we pray to Him (and even sometimes when we are not praying), but often through the indwelling Holy Spirit, speaking to our spirit, through which we receive messages to our soul, mind and heart. This is the "still, small voice" we so often hear referred to. The Holy Spirit is there to guide us, and to help us not to stray from the righteous path in our walk with God. The problem comes, however, when we hear but fail to heed His warnings and encouragements. When we are venturing in the wrong direction in some aspect of our |
(Continued) life, the Holy Spirit will cry out a warning which we will feel, physically and psychologically, deep within our beings. He will generally only speak once in any given situation. It is then up to us to respond in obedience and faith. Unfortunately, we too often allow the fleshly side of us to prevail. We will hear the Holy Spirit’s call of warning or of direction, but we will stubbornly continue down that fleshly path to sin. It may be in doing something we should not, but often in not doing something we should. I will never forget one event in my life, years ago, which illustrated this so vividly to me. I was driving home from work one day when the Holy Spirit told me, in a very strong and commanding way, to stop and visit an old friend who had been ill for many months. Sometimes I have ignored that call, but on that particular occasion, I could not, so compelling was the call. I stopped and visited this man and we had a long and wonderful visit, talking about many different topics. He was obviously gratified by my visit, and I was immensely blessed by it, and by having obeyed the Holy Spirit. The next day, I learned that my friend has passed away the previous night in his sleep. The message is: Do not ignore the calling of the Holy Spirit! Yours in Christ, Tom Woodard |
|
Go to Index Musings on Faith  | |