“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
Several years ago, I attended a breakfast at my church. I really wanted to sleep-in that morning, but something told me to get up and go.
It never registered with me that it was the Spirit that was telling me to get out of bed, but I realized afterwards that God had something to say that morning that he wanted me to hear. I now wonder how many times I might have missed out on an important message from the Lord because I didn’t recognize his voice.
My church had invited a member of a cult to give his testimony after breakfast. He spoke for over an hour and kept me on the edge of my seat. God had delivered him from more than the bondage of a cult. He was also supernaturally delivered from a life of drug abuse and adultery as well.
He admitted us that after he became a Christian, he continued to live in an adulterous relationship with his ex-wife. But the Lord spoke to him one night just before he climbed into bed with her.
“Have you ever stood in a room and thought someone was looking at you?” he asked us. “Well, that’s the feeling I had that night as I looked at her in the bed. Someone else was in that room with me. I finally realized that I had the Spirit of God dwelling in me. Both of us were looking at that bed.”
For the first time in his new life, he understood what it meant when he asked Jesus to come live in his heart. His whole perspective about his adulterous relationship changed when he remembered what the Bible says about our relationship with the Lord. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:17)
J. B. Phillips once wrote, “Every time we say, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit,’ we mean that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.” That’s exactly what that former cult member was trying to tell us.
All of us are able to experience the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit has the ability to be present in every place at the same time. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” (Psalms 139:7)
When Jesus walked among us, he was not able to be everywhere at the same time. But when he ascended to heaven, he promised that he would always be with us. And so he is, through the power of the Holy Spirit. In fact, Jesus and the Father dwell in us through the Holy Spirit.
Paul once said, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” (Colossians 2:9-10) But it was Jesus who tied it all together when he said, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26)
The Holy Spirit can and will change our lives if we allow him. But remember, apart from Jesus we will never experience the fullness of life that God promises. That’s what prompted another Christian writer to observe, “If you have the Spirit without the Word, you blow up. If you have the Word without the Spirit, you dry up. If you have both the Word and the Spirit, you grow up.”
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