Two-Thirds Is Not Enough

Now as I look back over the years, I am profoundly thankful that when I was most lacking in strength and courage, the Holy Spirit found the boat of my life in irons. He filled the sails of my soul and got me moving. Little did I know then where He would take me, the authentic confidence in His power He would give me, and the freedom from fear and anxiety He would provide me. Just thinking about that, I sense the fresh winds of the Holy Spirit stirring, gusting and then blowing with mighty force inside my own spirit. I long for nothing less for everyone here this evening.

A portrait of the late Thomas F. Torrance, my esteemed professor at New College, University of Edinburgh, hangs on the wall of my study. Most every day, I pause, look up at the great Torrance, and remember what he taught me about how Christ and the Holy Spirit work together in our lives: “The Spirit is so intimately one with Christ in His being and activity as the incarnate Son of God that He is, as it were, Christ’s Other Self, through whose presence in us Christ is present to us. The Spirit seals our adoption in Christ as children of God and unites us to Christ in such a way that we are made by grace to share in His filial relation to the Father. The Holy Spirit is the living and life-giving Spirit of God who actualizes the self-giving of God to us in His Son, and resonates and makes fruitful within us the priestly, atoning and intercessory activity of Christ on our behalf…It is through the incarnation and atonement effected by the conjoint activity of Christ and the Holy Spirit that God has opened the door for us to enter into His holy presence and know Him as HE REALLY IS IN HIMSELF IN HIS TRIUNE BEING. In this two way movement of atoning propitiation whereby God draws near to us and draws us near to Himself, the access to the Father given to us through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the communion of the Holy Spirit is such that we are enabled, quite astonishingly and beyond any worth or capacity of own, to participate, creaturely beings though we are, in the eternal communion and inner relations of knowing and loving within God Himself, and know Him there as one God in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

VI Getting HIM All Together

During the hours of this time at the Cove, we can get it all together—or more precisely, the subsistencies of God together—when we are willingly drawn into the interaction of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We have the security of the Father’s authority with His ultimate demands for holiness, righteousness and justice constantly before us. At the same time, we have Christ our Lord interceding for us, claiming His righteousness for us. And we have the Holy Spirit our Counselor, advising, warning, alerting, and empowering us.

In addition to claiming the love of the Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus, have you ever accepted the communion of the Holy Spirit? Have you ever yielded your life to Him in consistent daily counseling sessions in which He could guide, transform and empower your life? He will help you know God’s will; how to love and glorify Christ; how to deal with times when you don’t know how or what to pray; how to handle your yesterdays with liberating forgiveness; how to receive faith, hope and love each new day; how to survive in spiritual warfare; and how to press on with supernatural power. Have you ever spent time alone with the Holy Spirit as your Counselor? Try it right now.