The Work of the Holy Spirit in a Believer

 

“Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak; and shall show you things to come.” -  John 16: 13.

When a believer is filled with the Holy Spirit there are marvelous things He will begin to do in such a life. The prophets of old like Elijah, Elisha, Moses, Samuel, David, etc. were able to do exploit by this same Spirit of the Lord. This same Spirit is known as the Spirit of Christ in the New Testament as clearly stated in the Scriptural passages below:

“Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.” (1 Peter 1:10-12)  

“But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” (Romans 8:9)

The Lord God Almighty had made it that human soul should operate in the realm of His Spirit which first brought it to being; but the Devil hijacked the arrangement through the introduction of sin which brought about the interference of the flesh. This flesh will ultimately perish in the earth (soil) after death while the human spirit at departure takes along the soul; the spirit goes directly to God while the soul starts its journey to its eternal abode: heaven or hell. Therefore, if you have the Spirit of Christ, your soul belongs to God and so, heaven is for you. If you had never had a good relationship with the Spirit of God while alive, how would you fellowship with the Father of all spirits yonder in heaven? This means that our hope of eternal abode in heaven depends on whether we are being indwelt and controlled by the Holy Spirit or not.

Here are some functions of the Holy Spirit just to mention a few:

1.      He is our comforter (John 14:26; 15:26)

2.      He is our sure guide into all truth and is the revealer of God’s mind (John 16:13)

3.      He is the great Teacher and does remind us all the truth pertaining to Godliness (John 14:26; 15:26).

4.      He is the restorer and transformer of things into a normal and delightsome state (Isaiah 32:15ff)

5.      He is our power from above without whom it will be difficult to do the will of God. (Isaiah 32:15; Act 1:8).

6.      He is our Helper, standby, strengthener and arbitrator between God and man. (Romans 8: 26; 1 Cor. 14: 4).

7.      He is the one who transforms us to become the sons and daughters of God, making us supernatural (John 1:12; 14: 12).

8.      He endows obedient believers with His gifts and manifests His sweetness to the world through His genuine and trustworthy believers by the operations of His fruit and its seeds. (1Corinthians 12; Galatians 5:22).

9.      He resides in true and consistently obedient believers as His own temple.  (1Corint. 6:9-11, 15-20).

10.  He helps believers to constantly have the Kingdom of Heaven in view in the right perspective.

11.  He is our seal of salvation and our transport to heaven if truly in Christ Jesus to the end.

The work of the Holy Spirit is inexhaustible but can be better explained in the lives of the beneficiaries. We cannot dismiss the working power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the prophets of old as well as many men of God in the nineteenth and twentieth century like Kenneth E. Hagin, Oral Robberts, Apostle Joseph Ayodele Babalola, Prophet Moses Orimolade, Archbishop Benson Idahosa, etc. God still have those of His among us that are still on the battlefield with evidence of the working power of His Spirit in them like Pastor E.A Adeboye, Pastor W.F. Kumuyi, Bishop David Oyedepo, and many others all over the world. This power is still available to all who will give their lives to Jesus and abide by the principles of eternal life He stands for. The Acts of the Apostles 2: 38-39 says that:

“Then Peter said unto them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”

We just have to clarify and differentiate between the Conscience and the Holy Spirit in the life of man. Every human being is endowed with conscience but not every man has the Spirit of God in him. Every typical human being has sacred, spirit-deep, intermittent cravings/yearnings for God. This is because the human spirit is the groove where the Spirit of God supposes to occupy in man. This craving is therefore for the occupation of the Spirit of truth; the Holy Spirit of righteousness in man’s spirit. That is why the ‘craving’ always promptly detests our wrongdoings because the nature of man at creation was the reflection of God’s righteousness which was brought about by His initial breath of life in man. This craving is what we now know as the ‘Conscience’; the voice of our human spirit.

Conscience seeks to enforce God’s righteousness by pricking us and instantaneously/spontaneously condemning wrongdoings in our spirits and when consistently disobeyed or disallowed it gradually fades into extinction in such a life. A person with dormant, extinct or dead conscience becomes inhuman, callous, and will have no rightful ‘human feelings’ again. Someone like that can do anything to others without any restrain or recourse. If a man can obey/follow its promptings, such a person will be of very good ‘morals’ and have some level of ‘right standings’. Both the conscience and the Holy Spirit can be quenched, put to silence or rendered ‘ineffective’ in one’s life. I think it will be right at this juncture to note some differences between the workings of our conscience and the Holy Spirit.

Differences between Conscience and the Holy Spirit

1.      Conscience is an integral part of the human spirit while the Holy Spirit is the life of God Himself and the third person in the TRINITY as well as the divine powerhouse of God’s attributes of holiness in a man so filled by Him.

2.      The Conscience works on/in the present circumstances while the Holy Spirit deals with the present, past and future (see John 14: 26; 15:26 and 16:13).

3.      The Conscience works like a policeman, pricking one whenever he/she lays hands on anything wrong. Conscience will not give warnings before or giving you a way out but will just let you know you are wrong while the Holy Spirit, who knows the beginning and the end, can guide you into all truth; instructing you against impending wrongdoings (sin) and telling you things to come (John 16: 13). If you mistakenly/unwittingly fall into sin, the Holy Spirit will convict you unto godly sorrow (which works genuine repentance in you) and then make sure you are fully restored and reconciled to God by talking it over with Him.

4.      With conscience, you are still an ordinary ‘human being’ (carnal) because it cannot give you power over sin but it is just to ‘arrest’ you on the spot; while the Holy Spirit can make you live without sinning if you obey Him. One with conscience can still be living on this earth without being of God whereas without this ’Spirit of Christ’, you are none of His (Romans 8:9).

5.      Every human being has conscience (if one has not killed it), but a genuinely born-again Christian has both the conscience and the Holy Spirit working in him/her. What a double blessing!

6.      The Holy Spirit makes you “that” complete and ‘original’ man God intended/conceived at creation, making you to become a ‘god’ in human body while the Conscience tries to bring you to the realization of your missing link with the righteousness of God’s Spirit. 

 WHAT ARE GOD’S OBJECTIVES FOR BAPTISING BELIEVERS WITH/IN THE HOLY GHOST?

These objectives are the salient things you have to know and as well agree with before you vie for His Baptism. We have to understand that there is Holy Spirit (unction) within and baptism in the Spirit or the Holy Spirit upon. After one gives his life to Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ starts working with him. The Holy Spirit begins to instruct and direct such a son of God. Romans 8:14-16 says:

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bearest witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”

1 John 2: 20 & 27 also says:

“But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. 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”   

The unction within is given to enhance your personal relationship with Christ and to adequately make you a ‘wonder’ both to yourself as well as those in your circle of influence whereas, the Holy Spirit upon do ignite the power of God that breaks boundaries far beyond your circle of influence through His gifts, signs and wonders in the life of a believer in Christ. The Holy Spirit within you readily transforms you character-wise for people to know and confirm you as a true son of God as well as making you more of a friend of God. Therefore a Christian should seek to be equipped and endued with the duo. However, for the provision of this indwelling Spirit within the lives of His children, God’s aim and objectives among others are:

1.      To transform the believer’s life and character in the direction of His righteousness so that he/she will no more live after the flesh but after the Spirit (Galatians 5:16; Romans 8:4 & 10) as well as bearing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) that differentiate us from the world.

2.      To help our infirmities especially in our communication with God (Jude 20; Romans 8:26-27)

3.      To remind us and train us the way of righteousness (John 14:26; 1 John 2:20 & 27)

4.      To make us manifest to the world as the sons of God they are eagerly longing for (Romans 8:19-21)

All these will progressively happen as a believer yields to God’s word, the leading and promptings of His Spirit in him as well as having some heart-to-heart communications with the Lord in prayers and meditations. Along with this, a believer should also thirst for the Holy Ghost upon which is known as the baptism with/in the Holy Spirit. Isaiah 32:15-16 says:

“Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field.   …..”

God also have His aims and objectives for giving us this. We just want to dwell on those laid out in Acts 1: 8 which say: 

“But you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth”.

From the above passage, these objectives are:

1.      To receive power

2.      To be His witness.

The Lord Jesus knows very well that there are many people filled with the evil spirits among those to whom you and I would be asked to witness Him unto. That is why He has made an adequate provision for us to ever overcome them through His power that should be working in us. He however had it in His mind when He was leaving this world that we should continue His work till He comes. He said that we should occupy His place till He comes so that “unto the principalities and powers (all other efforts that calls themselves ‘power’) in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God” (Ephesians 3:10). That is, we (His body, the Church) have to teach them lessons through the power of God i.e. by His Spirit who should reside in and on us. Again, in Luke 10:19 He had made a great provision for us being His own through the power of the Holy Spirit as Jesus said

 “Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you”.

This is a very great guaranteed and adequately overflowing insurance and assurance! When you are preaching Christ, you should not be surprised to have some testimonies of the futile efforts of both the evil spirits and their agents over you because Christ Jesus is in and with you. Though, Jesus Christ is the bone of contentions and agitations in the religious circles of the world, but with the alighting of the Holy Spirit upon you, you have more than enough strength to conquer.

In the same vein, you cannot effectively be a witness of an event you are not privy to. Despite we not being there when Jesus was here on earth, yet He had accorded us with the same blessings as those that were with Him at that time as He said “blessed are those that have not seen me but yet believe”. Read John 17 for His prayers for all that has and would still give their lives to Him. Receiving Jesus Christ into one’s life gives you power to become a son of God while the genuine baptism of the Holy Spirit empowers one to withstand the wiles, wits and efforts of the satanic kingdom. Daniel 11:32b says “but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits”. Telling a previously known or unknown demonic person about Christ requires the power of the Holy Spirit; that is why Jesus commanded His disciples first to get filled with the Holy Ghost inside out before witnessing. Therefore, every believer in Him must be baptized with the Spirit in order to have the strength and boldness to manifest as the real sons of God the world has been earnestly waiting for (Romans 8:19-20).