The Holy Spirit Is Our Regenerator
Meet the Holy Spirit, who can do it all. He is the Spirit of God. He has limitless power and wisdom, yet He willingly comes to live inside any person who believes in Jesus Christ. And that means we have access to His amazing power. As I pondered the work of the Holy Spirit in Scripture and in my own life, I identified seven distinct roles He plays.
Jesus told Nicodemus that we are born again by the Holy Spirit. “Truly, truly, I say to you,” Jesus said in John 3:5, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” True conversion is the most supernatural thing we will ever experience. When a person puts his faith in Christ for salvation, it is the Spirit who opens the heart and imparts divine life.
He then indwells us, giving us the confidence that we are now children of God. None of us would be Christians today if it were not for the regenerating power of the Spirit.
And if you have ever led someone to faith in Christ, you know it is truly the most amazing miracle God can perform. If you are praying for someone to repent and give his heart to Jesus, do not minimize the role the Holy Spirit plays in this process.
How does this miracle happen? We typically tell new Christians that Jesus came into their hearts at the moment they repented of their sins. But again our language limits the grandeur of a true conversion.
When the Holy Spirit enters the life of a repentant believer, He literally breathes new life into the dead! Just as the prophet Ezekiel watched dry skeletons stand up, grow new flesh, and breathe again (Ezek. 37), people who are dead in sin are resurrected to a new life when they believe in Jesus Christ for the first time.
Never forget the raw power of conversion. Of all the manifestations of the Holy Spirit available to us, conversion is the most precious—and the most powerful. Never minimize the Holy Spirit’s power to transform a sinner.
The Holy Spirit Is Our Empowerer
Jesus told His early followers that when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, they would be “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). That sounds noisy and disruptive. It sounds like something that would shake the world! Wherever the Spirit goes, He changes people into radicals. He gives them the power to preach boldly, heal sick people, even raise the dead.
Hundreds of years before the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the early church on the Day of Pentecost, the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel, newly anointed as a priest, got a free preview of how God would send the Holy Spirit to empower His people.
The preview came in the form of a Technicolor-like vision that included a stormy wind; a cloud that glowed with fire; flashes of lightning; and strange, four-faced cherubim empowered by God’s divine energy.
What God was sharing with Ezekiel was the miracle of Pentecost, when God would clothe His people with power from on high. The early disciples would not only hear the sound of a rushing wind and see flames of fire descend on every believer’s head but also be infused with untamable qualities: supernatural strength, fierce courage, uncanny boldness, and an unusual ability to see into the invisible realm of God’s mysteries.
I am not suggesting that He brings disorder or chaos. God is not the author of confusion. But too often the American church has tried to confine the Holy Spirit, muzzle Him, constrain Him, or shoot Him with a tranquilizer gun so we can maintain control.
I fear that in some cases we have begged this wild Spirit of God to stay away from us so we can play our tame version of church without His unexpected interruptions. If we are honest, we will admit that the church has become so weak, timid, and compromised with the world that we do not even remotely resemble the powerful Christians in the first century who bravely preached the gospel, worked miracles, and even gave their lives in martyrdom to serve Christ.
Yet the promise remains for us: any Christian daring enough to invite the Spirit to empower him can experience all the manifestations of power that operated in the early church.
The Holy Spirit Is Our Guide
The Spirit has access to all the wisdom and knowledge of God. When we abide in Him, He leads us continually into truth—causing us to grow and mature spiritually. He is our teacher (1 John 2:27), and those who depend on Him will know where to go and what to do because they are following His heavenly directions.
Romans 8:14 tells us: “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” If you are a child of God, you have access to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
He is the best guide ever because He has all the information you need from the past, the present, and the future. I am old enough to remember when people did not have GPS software on their phones (or on anything else!). We actually had to keep maps in the glove boxes of our cars—folded maps made of paper! We’d use them to figure out how to get to a new address. Looking back on those old days of studying maps (and asking for directions at gas stations), I wonder how any of us found our destinations.
The Holy Spirit is like your internal GPS, except that He never gets confused or offers wrong information. But if you want to know the Holy Spirit’s guidance, you must learn to discern His voice and His subtle nudging
Meet the Holy Spirit, who can do it all. He is the Spirit of God. He has limitless power and wisdom, yet He willingly comes to live inside any person who believes in Jesus Christ. And that means we have access to His amazing power. As I pondered the work of the Holy Spirit in Scripture and in my own life, I identified seven distinct roles He plays.
Jesus told Nicodemus that we are born again by the Holy Spirit. “Truly, truly, I say to you,” Jesus said in John 3:5, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” True conversion is the most supernatural thing we will ever experience. When a person puts his faith in Christ for salvation, it is the Spirit who opens the heart and imparts divine life.
He then indwells us, giving us the confidence that we are now children of God. None of us would be Christians today if it were not for the regenerating power of the Spirit.
And if you have ever led someone to faith in Christ, you know it is truly the most amazing miracle God can perform. If you are praying for someone to repent and give his heart to Jesus, do not minimize the role the Holy Spirit plays in this process.
How does this miracle happen? We typically tell new Christians that Jesus came into their hearts at the moment they repented of their sins. But again our language limits the grandeur of a true conversion.
When the Holy Spirit enters the life of a repentant believer, He literally breathes new life into the dead! Just as the prophet Ezekiel watched dry skeletons stand up, grow new flesh, and breathe again (Ezek. 37), people who are dead in sin are resurrected to a new life when they believe in Jesus Christ for the first time.
Never forget the raw power of conversion. Of all the manifestations of the Holy Spirit available to us, conversion is the most precious—and the most powerful. Never minimize the Holy Spirit’s power to transform a sinner.
The Holy Spirit Is Our Empowerer
Jesus told His early followers that when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, they would be “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). That sounds noisy and disruptive. It sounds like something that would shake the world! Wherever the Spirit goes, He changes people into radicals. He gives them the power to preach boldly, heal sick people, even raise the dead.
Hundreds of years before the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the early church on the Day of Pentecost, the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel, newly anointed as a priest, got a free preview of how God would send the Holy Spirit to empower His people.
The preview came in the form of a Technicolor-like vision that included a stormy wind; a cloud that glowed with fire; flashes of lightning; and strange, four-faced cherubim empowered by God’s divine energy.
What God was sharing with Ezekiel was the miracle of Pentecost, when God would clothe His people with power from on high. The early disciples would not only hear the sound of a rushing wind and see flames of fire descend on every believer’s head but also be infused with untamable qualities: supernatural strength, fierce courage, uncanny boldness, and an unusual ability to see into the invisible realm of God’s mysteries.
I am not suggesting that He brings disorder or chaos. God is not the author of confusion. But too often the American church has tried to confine the Holy Spirit, muzzle Him, constrain Him, or shoot Him with a tranquilizer gun so we can maintain control.
I fear that in some cases we have begged this wild Spirit of God to stay away from us so we can play our tame version of church without His unexpected interruptions. If we are honest, we will admit that the church has become so weak, timid, and compromised with the world that we do not even remotely resemble the powerful Christians in the first century who bravely preached the gospel, worked miracles, and even gave their lives in martyrdom to serve Christ.
Yet the promise remains for us: any Christian daring enough to invite the Spirit to empower him can experience all the manifestations of power that operated in the early church.
The Holy Spirit Is Our Guide
The Spirit has access to all the wisdom and knowledge of God. When we abide in Him, He leads us continually into truth—causing us to grow and mature spiritually. He is our teacher (1 John 2:27), and those who depend on Him will know where to go and what to do because they are following His heavenly directions.
Romans 8:14 tells us: “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” If you are a child of God, you have access to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
He is the best guide ever because He has all the information you need from the past, the present, and the future. I am old enough to remember when people did not have GPS software on their phones (or on anything else!). We actually had to keep maps in the glove boxes of our cars—folded maps made of paper! We’d use them to figure out how to get to a new address. Looking back on those old days of studying maps (and asking for directions at gas stations), I wonder how any of us found our destinations.
The Holy Spirit is like your internal GPS, except that He never gets confused or offers wrong information. But if you want to know the Holy Spirit’s guidance, you must learn to discern His voice and His subtle nudging
