Understanding the Person of the Spirit
Life in the Spirit, Part 1
John 14:15-16, 26
Jesus Christ is about to leave his disciples. He is about to go. He tells them in 14:1, “Let not your heart be troubled; I am going to leave you to prepare a place for you. I will come again to receive you unto myself.” I have to go right now, though.
The disciples had been walking with Jesus for three and a half years. They had been hanging with Him for over three years, seen His miracles, heard His words—and all of a sudden they hear “I gotta go!” “You mean we committed our lives to You, walked with You, talked with You, prayed with You, and You gotta go? We have a problem. You can’t leave us after 3 years!”
I remember when Walt was a little boy in Virginia and the first couple of times we left Him with a sitter so that Mom and Dad can have some alone time. It was difficult. He would cry and make a fuss. We would try to explain to him that we had to go. Now, we told Walt about a babysitter, but he didn’t know anything about a babysitter. He didn’t know who this babysitter was; all he knew was that momma and daddy were going. So he would get all upset and cry.
That is about how the disciples feel. Jesus has been with them, but they are only 3 years old! They had only been walking with Him for three years. They don’t understand why in the world does He have to leave. Jesus explains, “I have to leave to get you a place ready for eternity. But I will come again.” But He doesn’t tell them when. All He tells them is that “I’ll be back.”
That leads Jesus into one of the most powerful discussions in the Bible, because He begins talking about them about the Holy Spirit.
Today I want to talk about the Holy Spirit’s person. There is something you need to understand before we
jump into this. Verse 15:
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.”
John 14:15-16
Please notice: He doesn’t say He is going to Ask the Father for the Helper,” (verse 16) until you come to grips with verse 15—“Keep My commandments.” You don’t get Holy Spirit help until Jesus gets divine obedience. You don’t get Holy Spirit help (verse 16) until you have come to grips with verse 15—obedience.
This is very important because a lot of people have misconstrued the Holy Spirit. They think the Holy Spirit is that thing that made them shout or feel good on Sunday. They think the Holy Spirit is that thing that made them cry. They think the Holy Spirit is that thing that was rumbling and tumbling in their stomach as the praise team sang or the preacher preached. That is not necessarily so. It may have been your pizza!
The Holy Spirit is only engaged in a context of obedience. It doesn’t matter how loud you cry or how many pews you jump— if there is no obedience, the Holy Spirit is not engaged. Now, He may be in your life but you don’t feel Him. Why? Because Jesus says, “Only in the context of obedience is there the prayer for the Holy Spirit.” So what we’ve got are people who are excited on Sunday because they think they met the Holy Spirit, while they live any old way they want to live between Monday and Saturday, and still claim a Holy Spirit experience! No! The Holy Spirit is only engaged in a context of obedience. If there has not been the commitment to obey, then there hasn’t been the realization of the Holy Spirit. They may have had an emotional experience. What a lot of people do is substitute emotion for the Holy Spirit. They think because they felt it, it must have been the Holy Spirit. No, because the devil can make you feel stuff too! The only way to differentiate whether it’s the devil or the Holy Spirit is whether you’re living in a context of obedience! That’s the only way.
His name is “Holy Spirit.” He is called that in verse 26.
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
John 14:26
1. He is Spirit.
That means non-material. That is very important that you understand that when we talk about the Holy Spirit, that we are talking about Someone that you cannot grab with your hands. It is for that reason that Jesus
says in verse 17:
He is the Holy Spirit; the world cannot receive him or know Him… John 14:17a
We are talking about someone that is somewhat amorphous because He is beyond the senses, although He is very real. We are talking about a concept that is hard to grab, because we are talking about a Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is Spirit, but the Bible also says that God is spirit. Therefore, His spirit is non-material. That means that if you are ever going to understand the concepts that I am going through, you are going to have
to be a spiritual being.
2. His name is Holy
Holy means ‘set apart from sin.’ That is why when you are saved and you are not living right, the Holy Spirit goes nuts inside. When you’re not living right, you don’t have to tell you, He tells you, because that’s His name. He is Holy. Whenever He is introduced to anything unholy, He goes bananas and drives nails in your conscience. That’s why, in order for you to keep on sinning, you have to skip over your conscience, because He doesn’t let you rest. If you can live any old way and never feel anything, then you’re problem may not be that the Holy Spirit’s not working, you’re problem may be ‘You don’t have the Holy Spirit’ period—you may not be saved.
Jesus, assuming that they are going to keep His commandments, begins with a study of the Holy Spirit. If you have committed your life to Christ, the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in your life—you’re now born
again, you’re now saved.
3. The Holy Spirit is a Person.
Jesus says in verse 16:
“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.”
John 14:16
By the way, how long is forever? Forever. If you are a Christian, the Holy Spirit resides in you forever. Period. He ain’t leaving.
Let’s look at the distinction of the Holy Spirit being a power and being a person. That is an important distinction. A lot of people look at the Holy Spirit as an ‘It’, meaning a power; a force. You remember Star Wars, don’t you? An energy field. George Lucas got it totally wrong; nothing could be further from the truth. The Holy Spirit is not a power, He is a person. But He’s a very powerful person!
If the Holy Spirit was simply a power, then you want more of it. And that’s what you hear some Christians when they talk, “I want more power. More power.” As soon as you hear that, you know that they see the Holy Spirit as an it, as a power to be manipulated, not a person.
Don’t get me wrong—He is powerful, but He is not power. That is what Simon the magician ran into in Acts 8:9-24. He saw the Holy Spirit come down on the disciples, and he said, “I want some of that! How much does it cost!” I would like to purchase me some Holy Spirit; I want to buy me some power. Give me some power.” Peter looked at Simon the Magician and said, “Your money perish with you,” because the Holy Spirit is not up for sale.
Watch it! Watch every time you turn on the TV and somebody is offering to sell you some water from the Jordan river, or someone is selling prayer cloths, or a blessed handkerchief—what they’re offering you is a symbol of power. But God is not offering you symbols of power. God is offering you a powerful person—the Holy Spirit. What is the difference between the Holy Spirit being power and the Holy Spirit being a person? I’ll tell you what it is. If He’s power, you want more of it. But if He’s a person, He wants more of you. That’s
why Acts 13:2 says:
The Holy Spirit said, “Dedicate Barnabas and Saul for the special work I have for them.”
Acts 13:2
We have this thing wrong. We go to the Holy Spirit saying, “Give us more power!” The Holy Spirit comes to us and says, “Give me more availability!” God does not give power to non-available Christians. Nor does He give power to help us do our thing.
That is the problem with a lot of our prayers. We get on our knees, and this is what we say: “Lord, this is what I have planned today. Help me make more money. Help me run a successful business. Help me get a better car. Help me get a better life. Help me to get over my sickness. Help me, help me, help me!” What you’re asking for is a power. But that’s not what God is offering. God says, “No. Let’s talk about My will be done, and My kingdom come. This is what I want you to do today. This is where I want you to go today. This is the Holy Spirit’s agenda. Now, are you available?” If you don’t solve the availability question, you can forget the power play. Because Christianity is not power religion, it is personal religion. It is a relationship with a person, not a co-opting of power.
Now don’t get me wrong—if you get the Person right, you get the power, but you don’t get the power before you get the Person. That is where a lot of these denominations are all mixed up. They invite you to “Come to this church, come to this religion, and get this experience of power.” They want to inject you with this powerful experience and make you go through all of this mumbo jumbo and ecstatic nonsense because what they want to inject is power, but what they don’t understand that we’re dealing with a person.
You say, “Okay. I can’t get power without the Person. What do I need to understand about the Person so I
can get the power?” Let’s move on.
4. He is a Helper
“He will give you another Helper.” John 14:16
Jesus calls the Holy Spirit “a Helper.” The word in the Greek is very powerful. This word helper in our language is a very week term, but it is one of the best we can come up with in the English language. Let’s go to the Greek to see if we can understand it better.
The word translated helper is the Greek word paraklhtoß (parakletos). The word paraklete is used a number of times in the New Testament and is translated a number of different ways. Depending on what version you’re reading out of, it is translated differently. The NASB translates it helper. The NLT translates it counselor. The Message translates it friend. The King James and the Amplified Bible translates it comforter. In 1 John 2:1, it is translated as advocate. Why is it translated all these different ways? Because we don’t have one English word that capsulizes all the Greek word means, so the translators of the Bible chooses the best word for which they feels fits the context. It would take a whole string of English words to explain to us what a paraklhtoß is.
Let me explain what Jesus meant when He said, “I have to leave, but I am leaving behind a paraklhtoß.” A Helper.
Let me first explain about how the word is misunderstood. Some people have the idea that what this paraklete does is consoles us. He takes us and pats us on our back when the world beats us up. When things are not going right, and we’re al depressed, He says, “I am so sorry you feel this way.” That is not what the word means.
The Greek word paraklete meant ‘one called along side to enable.’ Jesus says, “I have to leave you now, but I am going to send to you ‘One called along side you to enable you.’” If you are a Christian, the person of the Holy Spirit has been placed in your life to enable. To enable what? To enable you to do and be all that God has saved you to do and be. That’s what He is enabling you to do! He is not just there to make you feel better when you’re down. He’s not there just to put a smile on your face when you’re frowning. He is there to enable you to do what God has called you to do. To put it in common day English, “He’s been placed here to give you some backbone. He’s been placed here to give you some guts.” He been placed here to give you the ability to stop making excuses for your failure. He’s been placed here to give you spiritual victory. If all you are doing is hiding in some spiritual corner saying, “I hope I get out under my circumstances”, that’s not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gets you up on your feet and lets you ride above the circumstances. The Holy Spirit has been called to enable you, to give you guts.
If you can shout ‘Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” on Sunday, but Monday, when you go to work and you run away from your faith because you don’t want anybody to know you’re a Christian, the Holy Spirit hasn’t done a thing for you. Because what He does is give you a backbone to stand!
If you’re afraid for anybody to know that you’re saved, if you’re afraid for anybody to know that you’re sold out for Jesus Christ, if you’re afraid to pray in public, if you’re afraid to take a stand, don’t tell me about how good God has been to you—the Holy Spirit hasn’t done a thing for you, because His job is to give you guts! As long as you’re running away from being a public pronouncer of the faith, then the Holy Spirit isn’t at work. The Holy Spirit gives you a spine. The reason why you can pull it off at church is that you don’t need a spine; all you need are feelings. You can pull it off in church because there is no one who challenges you. The reason why you have problems pulling it off Monday through Saturday is because you don’t have a spiritual backbone. The Holy Spirit gives you guts.
You ask, “Where in the Bible do you see this?” You remember Peter, don’t you? Peter was like a lot of Christians—he wanted to live the Christian life in the flesh. He thought by the power of positive thinking, be successful under God. So he came to Jesus one day under the energy of the flesh and said, “I will never deny you. The whole world could turn against you, but you can count on Pete. I am your main man! Count on me!” Jesus looked at him and said, “Before the next rooster crows, you’ll deny me three times.” After Jesus was arrested, people started coming to Peter and said, “Weren’t you the one with Him?” Peter said, “I don’t know the man.” “But I have seen you with Him!” Peter again said, “I told you, I don’t know this guy!” “But I have seen you with Jesus!” Peter cussed and said, “I told you, I don’t @$%* know this man!” He started cussing. He did what a lot of us do: we hear a good sermon and think we can pull it off by ourselves. We need a Helper. We need somebody who will give you the guts to be able to stand up.
But then we come to Acts 2. Jesus said, “After the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you shall be My witnesses.” The Holy Spirit came upon them in the upper room on the day of Pentecost, and turned them upside down. People watching from the streets said, “These folks are drunk!” But Peter stood up and said, “Just one cotton-picking minute. We are not drunk; it is only 9:00 in the morning. This is what Joel the prophet spoke about when he declared ‘The Spirit of God would come, and He is the reflection of the Christ who came, whom you crucified, whom God has raised Him from the dead, and made Lord and King! And unless you repent, you will likewise perish!”
What happened to the man? He had a paraklete. The Holy Spirit had empowered him, so now he had guts. If you really want to know if the Holy Spirit is empowering your life, tell me about your guts. Tell me about how you represent Him when the enemies are looking at you in the face. Tell me how you stand up for Him on your job. Tell me how you don’t sink down to your level when they try to pull you down. Tell me how you overcome their dirty jokes with your righteous comments. Then we can talk Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a person who wants availability before He can work in and through us to accomplish God’s program. He is not a power-pack that you wear to generate your agenda.
Holy Spirit gets blamed for stuff that He has absolutely nothing to do with, because what He does is gives you a spine. Reminds me of the boy who kept being beat up at school by this big bully. He came home crying. Dad said, “Why don’t you try fighting him this time.” So the son went back to school, and tried fighting him, and got all beat up. He couldn’t do it in the flesh by himself. The next day as the son was walking to school, the bully jumped out from behind the schoolyard fence, took one look, and ran the other way. What happened? What was different this day? The Father walked the son to school! The son now had guts and a backbone, not because he had the strength to beat the bully, but because he had the right person come alongside to help. That is what the Holy Spirit does—He comes alongside to help. He takes the obedient Christian sold out to Christ and gives him guts.
You know about superman? Superman was a very timid guy until he got to the telephone booth. Bad people would be pushing Clark Kent around, messing with him and picking on him. And Clark is bumbling and fumbling around—but don’t get him to a telephone booth! You get Clark Kent to a telephone booth, he unhooks that tie, takes off that shirt, and all of a sudden, he transcends the problem. Because in that telephone booth, he becomes a transformed person, because the real him bursts forth.
That is what God does when you submit yourself to the authority of the Holy Spirit, you can pull of the weakness of the flesh and open up the big ‘C’—Christian. You no longer have to be intimidated by the enemies of this world order. God has called you to rise above the circumstances.
Some of you struggle. You make New Year’s resolutions. You read books about positive thinking. You try to quit smoking, and you still fall flat on your face. Why? Because the flesh is not constructed to serve God.
Paul says this in Romans 7:18:
For I know that in my flesh nothing good dwells in me… Romans 7:18
You cannot through shear determination satisfy the demands of a holy God. But that’s okay, because He has given you a person that can. He gives you guts.
Some of you men aren’t being the spiritual leaders of your home because you don’t have guts. I am talking about spiritual guts—the ability to lead and to love God’s way, reading the Bible with your family and your children. That takes guts.
Let’s look at Him even closer.
“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper...” John 14:16
5. He is another Helper
He says ‘another helper.’ The disciples had been with Jesus for three years, and Jesus had helped them. He had helped them overcome their frustrations, helped them live victoriously, helped them through problems, storms, sickness, death threats. And now Jesus is saying, “I am leaving.” So the natural question the disciples have is, “Who is going to help us? When we run into trouble with the Jewish leaders, who is going to help us? When we run into rejection, who is going to help us? When sin overcomes us, who is going to help us?’ Jesus says, “Don’t worry. I am going to send you another Helper.”
Let’s talk about the word another. In the Greek language there are 2 words that mean another. One word is alloß (allos), and that means another. The other word is e?te÷roß (heteros), and that means another. Here’s the fundamental difference. Heteros means ‘another of a different kind.’ Allos means, ‘another of the same kind.’ Jesus said, “I will leave you an allos helper—another of the same kind.”
It is the difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Heterosexuality is another human being of a different kind. Homosexuality is another of a same kind. That is the difference Jesus uses here. He says, “I am not just going to leave you any old body; I know you have been used to me. I know you have been used to God in flesh. I know you have been used to somebody you can call down heaven and heaven jumps. You have been used to somebody who is equal to the Father. You are used to somebody who can turn 2 fish minnows into Moby Dick sandwiches. You are used to somebody who can make a way out of no way. I know you don’t want to settle for nothing less. That’s why even though I won’t be here, I am going to send you another of the same kind. I am going to send you God in the Spirit.”
That leads us into another understanding into the word paraklhtoß (parakletos) as it relates to another.
In 1 John 2:1, Jesus is called an advocate.
I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
1 John 2:1
That word advocate is the word paraklete again, but it is referring to Jesus, not the Holy Spirit. The concept of advocate is the concept of a lawyer. What does a lawyer do? He is one who represents you. He stands alongside of you, in order to defend you against those who would prosecute you. Jesus is our attorney. Jesus says to His disciples in John 14, “I know that you are used to me defending you, but don’t worry. I am going to leave you with another lawyer of the same kind.
Now, when you’re used to a Perry Mason never loosing a case, you don’t want nobody else! You don’t want somebody who has won a few and lost a few; you want somebody ‘of the same kind.’
Let me explain to you about a law firm. It is a powerful thing to be apart of a firm. Do you know why? Because sometimes dealing with legal matters, stuff can get complicated and overpowering and technical. One lawyer can major in one kind of law. But when things get too large or too technical, all the lawyer has to do is to pick up the phone and ring another office in the firm. Because in the next office, there is another lawyer who majored in another expertise of the law. And in the next office was another partner who majored in another facet of the law. So it doesn’t matter what you’re legal needs where because there is a partner in the firm who has the expertise to cover anything that might come up or meet any needs you might have.
Well, guess what? We’ve got a law firm called, “God, God, and God.” Those three come together and can handle any issue. We have a legal firm in the Trinity, so when something comes to the Holy Spirit, and that’s not what He focuses in on, He can throw it to the Son. And if that’s not what the Son focuses in on, He can throw it
to the Father. There is nothing that this firm cannot handle.
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
John 14:26
Notice this: “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name.” You have all three persons of the Trinity law firm. Now we have to talk about the Trinity for a moment, because the Holy Spirit is one member of the firm; he’s not the firm, He’s only a member of it.
The firm is called the God-Head. In the God-head are 3 co-equal persons; only 1 God. Only one firm, but three distinct parts.
God the Father is the one who determines the agenda. The Bible says God does everything after the counsel of His own will . He makes the decisions about where we are going to go. He is the visionary, He is the determiner, and He sets the direction.
God the Son. His job is to express the direction. He is the visible expression. That is why the Bible calls Jesus the ‘Word of God .’
The Holy Spirit? His job is implementation. His job is to make sure the plan from the Father, expressed by the Son, is implemented by the Spirit. All three members are equal partners, but not all have the same job description—different functions . We have 1 firm—the trinity, or the God-head, with 3 partners—Father, Son, and Spirit, each one having a particular expertise. The father has the vision, the Son has the expression, and the Holy Spirit, the implementation.
If you come to the Spirit about the direction, He is going to refer you to the office of the Father because He is the one who handles those affairs. If you go to the Father about the expression, He is going to refer you to the office of the Son who became flesh reveals the Father—for the Word became flesh. If you want to know how to pull it all off since the Son is no longer available (when you ring His office, He seems to be out, since He’s gone to prepare a place for us), He is going to refer you to the Spirit, since its His job is to superintend this stuff until He comes back. Every member of the firm are all working with one another, since these three operate in harmony at all times EXCEPT when Jesus died on the cross for our sins.
That is a paradigm of all of life. That is how the church works. You have a leader who is responsible for the vision—the Pastor. You have elders who are responsible for the declaration and training of the Word of God down throughout the church, and then you have deacons who are responsible for implementing in the life of the church, yet it is one entity—the church.
In a family, you have a husband who is responsible for the direction of the home. A wife who is to communicate that within the home. Children who are to make sure that is expressed in the operation of the home, yet it is one entity—the family.
In our government, we have the Executive branch that determines where we need to go, the Legislative branch that is the expression of that leadership and vision, and you have the Judicial branch that implements the laws.
It is the Holy Spirit’s job to make all of this happen. If the Holy Spirit is not at work in your heart or in your life, none of this stuff that God tells you to do can happen. It won’t happen. I don’t care how much you
know about Jesus, if you’re not in touch with the Holy Spirit, it won’t work for you. Why? Look at verse 26:
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
John 14:26
The Characteristics of Personhood of the Holy Spirit
Our big emphasis today is that the Holy Spirit is a Person. The first thing that the Holy Spirit has
The Holy Spirit has emotions.
If you are a person, you have feelings. Let me explain this. Suppose I was in a car wreck, and they had to amputate both arms and both legs. But I was alive. Would I still be a person? Of course, because body parts does not a person make. You can be limbless and still be a person as long as your alive. You have intellect, emotions,
and will. Well, the Holy Spirit has intellect, emotions, and will.
The Holy Spirit is touched by our weaknesses… Romans 8:26
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God… Ephesians 4:30
The New Living Translation says “do not bring sorrow”. Today’s English Version says, “don’t make Him sad;”
The Holy Spirit can get upset. Secondly…
The Holy Spirit has intellect.
“The Holy Spirit will teach you all things… John 14:26
In order to teach, you have to have intellect. He will teach you. The first thing that the Holy Spirit does is explain stuff. If you leave here today saying, “I understood something today I never knew about the Holy Spirit,” that means He taught you something. That is why you come to hear the Word of God. You come to hear the Word of
God to learn. He teaches you. But that’s not all He does. It says…
“The Holy Spirit will teach you everything and make you remember all that I have told you.”
John 14:26
You hear 52 sermons a year. You don’t remember all that stuff. In fact, most of you will forget the content of this sermon by Friday no matter how many notes you take. You’ll remember a point, or a story, or a thought, but you won’t remember all the things you need to remember, because it is just too much data. No matter how brilliant you are (and you should study to learn to understand), but you won’t recall it all. That’s okay. You should try to learn and memorize scripture, but even after you have done that, you won’t know how to recall it when you need it.
You know how computers are, don’t you? Once you get the stuff stored, all you have to do is press the button. And if you hit the right button, it will show back up on the screen, because it has been stored.
Remember David?
I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Psalms 119:11
What he is saying to us is this: Once the Spirit teaches you, He has put it into the computer of your mind. Now you go out and Wednesday, you forget all about the sermon about the Holy Spirit, but it has been put in your computer. If you’re living an obedient Christian life, and you run into a situation where the Spirit of God is needed to be your Helper, the buttons are automatically pushed; the right answers are recalled and put up on the screen of your consciousness, and in order for you to mess up now, you have to turn the machine off. Now that is a lot of times what we do. The Holy Spirit says, “This is what you should do” and we say, “I don’t want to bother with that now.” So we turn off the machine. But once its put in and you’re living an obedient life, the Spirit of God automatically brings these things to your remembrance.
That is how we got our Bible. We got all this stuff. How did they remember all this stuff? John wrote the Gospel of John 40 years after Jesus died. The other Gospel writers remembered what Jesus said years after He spoke it. How did they remember all that? They didn’t record all those conversations down. Well, Jesus explains how—the Holy Spirit brought it to their memory. The Spirit made them remember so that they could accurately write it down exactly what God wanted written down and not miss a beat because the Holy Spirit does not miss any information. So He brought it to their memory.
What God did with the Apostles in writing the Bible, God does for us today using the Bible. As we learn the Bible and we hit the various situations in life, He brings these things to our memory.
God has given you a Helper if you are available to be helped. Have you ever met anyone who don’t want help? You may be one of those people. “I can do it myself!” Well you can’t live the Christian life by yourself, I’ll guarantee it. You can do a lot yourself, but living the Christian life isn’t one of them.
That is why you often hear believers say, “I can do this. I can’t live with this man. I can’t make this marriage work. I can’t handle these kids. I can’t deal with drugs. I can’t deal with alcohol. I can’t beat the cigarettes. I can’t change the way I talk. I can’t control my temper. I can’t stop being angry. I can’t stop being racist—I have been raised this way. I can’t stop doing my sexual immoral habits—this is the way men are. I can’t read my Bible—I don’t like to read. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”
And you’re right; unless you get a Helper. I agree with you 100%. You can’t. But the question is not ‘whether you can’t’, it is ‘can he?’ Then the question is, ‘Are you allowing Him to help you?’ If you are allowing Him to be your Helper, then you can do what you though you couldn’t, because He supernaturally empowers you.
A young woodsman came into a store one day to buy a new axe. He manually chopped down trees. He saw an advertisement on the counter a chainsaw. The advertisement said, “Will cut down ten times the trees that can be cut by a hand axe.”
Well, the woodsman seeing this for the first time got very excited, and he bo0ught the chain saw. He came back a week later fiery upset. He said to the salesman, “You told me that this chainsaw would cut down ten times the amount of trees in a week that I cut could cut down using my axe. I have been using this chainsaw all week long, and I still haven’t cut down my first tree. I want my money back.” Well the salesman couldn’t understand this. He took the chainsaw, looked it over, checked it. Checked the oil and the gas. Flipped the switch. Pulled the cord, and all of a sudden the chainsaw begins to roar, and the woodsman said, “What’s that noise?”
You see, he didn’t understand. You don’t get a chainsaw to still chop down the tree itself. You get a chainsaw to allow its power to go to work on your behalf. The chainsaw has already got the power—He just needs you to be available to use it.
The Holy Spirit wasn’t given to you so that you could still do it yourself. If you could do it yourself, you wouldn’t need the holy Spirit. He has already been energized. He already has the power. He already has the expertise. All He needs to know is He’s been turned on in your hands. Then He can start chopping down some trees you’ve been working on for years. He can get rid of some addictions you have been working on for years. He goes, “Rrrrrrr” and cuts straight through them. Why? Because He already has the power. You don’t need more power, or new power, you need to engage the right Person. When you engage the right Person, you can take care of that marriage, take care of that habit, take care of that problem, because the power is in the Person of the Holy Spirit. You already have all the power you need.
You don’t need more of the Holy Spirit. You have 100% of the Person of the Holy Spirit when you became a Christian. You don’t need more of Him, you need to give Him more of you.
You don’t need more of the Holy Spirit, you need to give Him more of you.
