Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

General Principles

Letter to a Prisoner

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Remember the prisoners…. Hebrews 13:3

He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6 So we may boldly say:

“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?”

Hebrews 13:5-6

Dear T….,

I was glad to hear that D… & E… were in such regular contact with you. I know they have been helping you in your new situation. I trust that you have also been aware of the Holy Spirit’s tangible help during the times when no one else can be there for you.

I was sorry to hear about your father’s passing also. The Bible says that God is the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). I know that you know God. The Spirit of His Son dwells in you and you can cry out “Abba, Father” to Him and He will hear and answer you. In all your troubles He has and will comfort you.

In this letter I want to remind you of the things you already know so that you can remember how much Jesus has loved you and how He has shown that love towards you and will show it to you again. He has given you the Holy Spirit in your heart as a kind of down payment on the future he has planned for you with Him in heaven (Ephesians 1:14).

Jesus has gone to prepare a place for you among the many magnificent dwelling places that His Father has created for us in heaven (John 14:2-3). When you feel God’s presence with you in your prison cell that is a kind of foretaste of the future you will share with Him and the rest of us who are in His body. Feeling His presence is a great joy and privilege. However, even when we don’t feel the warmth and comfort of the Holy Spirit in us and around us, we can still remain confident that He has not left us. Once we become a son through His grace and because of Calvary, we never stop being a son. Once you were a slave to sin but then God met you and you became a son of God through the action of the Holy Spirit in your heart. A slave does not remain in a house forever but a son does (John 8:34-36).

These things that I have written to you are not my own words but those that God has inspired through the Bible. Now that you have a lot of time on your hands you should bury yourself in God’s word and meditate, think deeply, about these things (Colossians. 3:16). As you do this things will work out and you will begin to see the hand of God in all that is happening to you (Psalm 1, Joshua 1:8).

I hope to write again as God leads. D… and E… keep us up to date with your progress and news. I expect you will have heard by now about the good news concerning B…. Our God is very merciful and gracious.

May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to continually shine upon you.

Your brother in Christ

Brendan.

Autobiographical, General Principles, good news

Different View Points

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The role of the Holy Spirit

Grasping God’s Word Assignment 12-1

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3:16 (NIV)

A learned intellectual interprets John 3:16

A man with 2 Ph.Ds specialising in NT studies who has not believed and encountered God in the Spirit would have a cognitive understanding of the passage.  He might discuss it in this way:

“The passage says that “God” loved the world so much that he gave his “son” for it.  According to this passage by John the mechanism for living for eternity is to believe in “the son”, i.e. the man Jesus.  I would say that it is true that anyone who has the Christian faith can be deluded into thinking they will live forever and that that is not a bad thing.  For most people, having the hope that they will live forever should keep them happy through difficult times.  It is noticeable that the Christian gospel has a great effect in poor countries where the consolations of this life are far less and the hope for an eternal life of happiness most required.

Jesus was a man, an extraordinary man, but simply believing in him could not make someone live forever and, obviously, doesn’t since all people die.  Though I can see how people who do believe in him must be consoled in difficulty, I cannot see how doing so could possibly make people live forever.

Anyway the idea that God, if he exists in the form described in the NT, would have a son is foolishness and the whole idea expressed in this passage is also foolishness if interpreted in a literal sense.  But the message in this passage is one of the best means there is for pacifying and comforting people in trouble with no other hope, as so many are in this world,.”

A mature believer interprets John 3:16

This is how a mature believer (like me) might interpret it:

“When I met God on the back of a bus travelling from Mullingar to Galway on May 7th 1980, one of the first things He did was convict me of the truth of all the Scriptures including this one.  I believe that God is and that He is good.  I believe He has a Son, Jesus Christ my Lord and Saviour, whom He sent to earth, who came of His own volition and who died a horrible death so that my sins might be taken out of the way and so I can have eternal life.

The life to come is not an extension of the time frame of this present body I am in but a new life in a new eternal body which is maintained by the Spirit of God Himself.

I continue to believe and act accordingly since I have the Spirit of God in me leading me into all truth.

I continually remember Jesus’ death and resurrection and continue to believe and receive eternal life, the deposit of which starts in this life with the Holy Spirit within me.  I don’t just have a cognitive understanding of this passage but a fully engaged, continuing life experience with the author of it.”

A 9 year old child interprets John 3:16 having just given her life to Jesus

“Daddy, Jesus died for me!”

church, Discipleship Series, General Principles

The Safeguards of the Christian Faith

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Faith is a gift – or so the Bible says in Ephesians 2:8 – and faith is substance and assurance (Hebrews 11:1). So those with faith might not require much else. They believe in Jesus having, like me, that assurance in their hearts where they can hear and feel the Holy Spirit. The other side of that though is that they can be deceived. So God has put in place two other things to help, the Scripture and the Church. So we have three things which keep us on the straight and narrow so to speak.

Here is a check for the church or group you are in:

Do they honour the personal in dwelling Spirit of God in you (1 John 4:2) and do they honour the Scripture ?

Some big groups do not: churches with a clergy say you cannot know God safely unless you are guided by clergy.  Some would rather you did not read the Scripture at all but let it be read and interpreted to you through the same clergy.

Sound familiar? So they remove two safeguards and leave you with only one. And what if that turns out to be corrupt?