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All of this I have told you, so that you will not fall away.”

John 16:1

The Lord knows that we are susceptible to doubts and fears. Just as a burning ember removed from the fire quickly cools, when we are left alone we lose our spiritual fervency. This is why the individual believer needs the church fellowship, and this is why the entire church fellowship needs the sustaining presence of the Spirit.

Specifically, the teaching of John 14-16 that the Lord gave his disciples would sustain them during the time His body was in the tomb, and during the ten days between His Ascension and the Coming of the Spirit. He told them these things that would happen to them later through the Spirit’s presence within and among them, so that they would not lose heart and fall away. Yet the words also explain another important function of the Spirit, that the Spirit sustains the people of God in their witness, in their life, and in their community.

We are mere flesh and blood, members of the race of Adam of whom God said, “The imaginations of their hearts run to evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5). The image of God that was stamped across the human race at creation has become so twisted and marred that often it is hardly recognizable. How can we follow Christ in ourselves? How can we learn of His truth in our heart of hearts? How can we provide a witness that will bring others into the fellowship of faith? How can we remain faithful when others fall away, when persecution or rejection comes, and when the problems of life seem to swallow us up?  

God had a plan from the beginning, that His Spirit would abide within us to sustain us in all of these areas. What a Friend and Counselor we have in Him! There will not be a single road we walk down in life without His presence, never a room we enter without Him being with us, never a temptation to come to us except that He is there, never a discouragement that He cannot lift from our hearts. He sustains us in our love for Him, for the Spirit bears witness in our hearts that we are His children. He enlivens our prayers, gives us hope in darkness, makes the bright days still brighter, opens our minds to understand and our hearts to receive.

As followers of Christ, we are more than just ourselves. We are sustained by His Spirit. Circumstances are no longer overwhelming for us, for God is within us and will enable us to stand.

Prayer:

Thank You, Lord, for Your sustaining presence in our lives. We give You the praise the the glory for our faith and our witness. Teach us to stand in Your strength and love, and not in our own efforts in the flesh. Amen.

Evening Devotionals endurance, Spirit of God, Spiritual Strength

But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’ When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.

John 15:25-26

Before the flood God said, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man” (Gen. 6:3). The Spirit of God sought to win people in that day to His wisdom and righteousness, but instead humanity sought its own will and angrily rejected God’s Spirit – striving with Him or fighting against Him. The result was a shortening of the average life span of people, because God saw that their hearts ran contrary to the witness of His Spirit.

In today’s world people likewise hate without reason the witness from heaven. Grace, as the Bible presents it, necessitates guilt, and that is where the offense comes. It is not, so much, that people are opposed to the forgiveness of God in Christ, or that they are offended by Christ’s death, rather it is in the thought that they needed forgiveness in the first place, that the Christian message of grace includes by necessity calling sin what it is.

The Spirit continues to strive with humanity and through the gospel give witness to the righteousness of God and the forgiveness He offers to all in Christ, as well as to the application of His Lordship in all areas of our lives. Even in the lives of believers, there is a bit of striving against the Spirit. The Old Man in each of us can push back against His urgings toward holiness, and that is exactly what we mustn’t do.

We believers have already accepted the fact that we are guilty and deserving of death and hell because of our sins, and have trusted in Christ, repenting of our sins. That was the once-for-all decision, but the Spirit still seems to strive with our stubbornness to surrender to Him every moment of every day, seeking to win us over. God has no illusions about what is in the heart of man. He knows what we are, that the inclinations of our hearts run toward evil all of the time (Genesis 6:5). So He sets about His work in our hearts, not to win us but to defeat us.

Victory is found when we admit our defeat, when we surrender, when we take up our cross and follow after Him. We then bear in the world the good news of His love and grace, a message that will often be rejected, angrily so, but that will also bring the aroma of life into the hearts of those who will, like us, stop and listen, turn and believe, and receive.

Prayer:

Lord, thank You for Your grace, that You did not leave us in our sin but You came to redeem us unto Yourself. Let us cease our striving and turn to You in surrender. Amen.

Evening Devotionals Spirit of God