Basic Beliefs - June 2025

            Over the last several months we have looked at a few of our basic beliefs as Christians.  So far we have seen: God loves people, Faith in God’s Word, Salvation through Christ, The Power of love, and We are the body of Christ.  This month we will look at a truth that makes a difference in us every day of our lives.  It is the Work of the Holy Spirit.

            The ministry of the Holy Spirit affects us daily.  If we are not born again He is drawing us to Jesus. If we have accepted Jesus as Lord He is in us and working through us every day.

            As we just said, before we were born again it was the Holy Spirit who was drawing us to Christ.  He was convicting us of our sin.  He was revealing to us that we needed a savior.  But after we accept Jesus His work takes on a whole new form.

            At that moment of salvation it is the power of the Holy Spirit that makes us clean and brings regeneration to our heart.  We become a new creature in Christ Jesus as the Holy Spirit does His work. (2 Cor. 5:17)  He then comes to abide in us.

            Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”  He lives and dwells within us for many reasons.  He is there to be our Helper.

            Jesus said that it was important for Him to go away because when He did He would send us another Comforter. (John 16:7)  He goes on to tell us that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and He will guide us into all truth.  He said He would show us things to come.  (Verse 13)

            As the Spirit of Truth, He is also there to teach us everything we need to know.  In 1 John 2:27 the apostle of John gives us some insight into this.  “But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him.”  John calls the presence of the Holy Spirit within us the anointing.  This anointing lives in us to teach us.  John is not saying that we don’t need to listen to preaching. He is saying that the eternal things that we learn from God come from the Holy Spirit working through a man.

At the end of that verse John says something else that is significant.  He said, speaking of the anointing, “even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him.”  Here is his point.  The way that you live your life or the results that you have living, will be determined by what the Holy Spirit has taught you.  We may try to do things our way but God’s way is better.  The more we allow the Holy Spirit to show us His way the better our results will be.

There is so much that God has for us as believers and children of God.  Paul said that eye has not seen, nor ear heard the things God has prepared for us that love Him. (1 Corinthians 2:9)  But Paul goes on to say in the next verse, “But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.”  The Teacher of the Church, the Spirit of Truth, will teach us all we need to know.  Because of this, knowing the Holy Spirit intimately becomes vital to our Christian walk.

We have seen the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as believers this month.  Next month we will look at the power of the Holy Spirit working through us, in the lives of others.  We will see that He is there to fill us and help us to be witnesses to those we come in contact with.