Every born-again believer can live with power through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ said to the disciples in John 14:26(ESV), “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” God’s gift to us in the person of Jesus Christ is so vast and limitless that it cannot be quantified, for he is the gift that keeps on giving, and it will take us an eternity to enjoy all that he is. Christ is indeed the ‘unspeakable gift’, and he took our sins to the cross and died for them. Equal in power and truth is the gift of the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ made available to the believer. As those that have been called and set apart by God, we have the awesome privilege to walk in, by, and with the Spirit every moment of each day!
Christ died on the cross and ascended so that we could have the Holy Spirit in us! Without receiving the Holy Spirit and him dwelling within us, we could not have the kind of relationship with God that He wanted, and we could not live with power during our sojourn on earth. God’s Will was to have a family, and we’re it. We’re His children, and Jesus Christ is the blueprint of our design. God tells us in Philippians 2:13 that He is working in us through the indwelling Holy Spirit to will and do of His good pleasure. So, indeed the Spirit is our desperately needed Helper.
Have you ever paused and sat down to contemplate what it must have been like to walk and talk with Jesus Christ on the daily? He’s the Bright and Morning Star, the One that John 1:1-4 tells us was in the beginning with God; all things were made by him, and in him is life, the light of all humanity. Darkness is a terrible thing. It is death, ignorance, depravity, and rebellion against the light. It’s the dark abyss of ever falling and failing that is trapped by a prison of the same. God allowed His beloved Son to enter a trapped world and save it. He brought the light. Christ is our sunshine, beaming ever so bright and pure, and transferring us from death to life. Think of his wonderous power and love, and the mercy and grace that God has shown us to know and experience it for ourselves.
How blessed the disciples were to bask in his light during his time on earth, and they were beyond grieved to hear that he would be returning to the throne from which he came. He was not unaware of their sadness, but he had to go for God’s great promise of the Holy Spirit to be fulfilled. In John 16:5-7(NLT), he told them, “5 Now I am going back to the One who sent me. But none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 Your hearts are filled with sadness because I have told you these things. 7 But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go away. When I go away, I will send the Helper to you. If I do not go away, the Helper will not come.” By the Words of our Master Jesus in this passage, we can clearly see the importance of having the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Helper, in our lives. He shows us how much we need the Spirit in order to walk powerfully in Christ and carry on the ministry that our Lord and Savior began.
Many of us have dreams, and because we have dared to dreamed, we’ve known disappointment, devastation even, but that doesn’t invalidate the dream unless we allow it. The dream, if it is the desire of our hearts, was planted in our DNA by our Heavenly Father long before we entered our mother’s womb. He gives us the desires of our hearts and brings them to fruition, but the Spirit is the One to lead us according to God’s divine plan. Often, we get ahead of the Spirit’s guidance, and this is where disappointment enters the picture.
When things turn out completely opposite of what we’ve dreamed, it’s an indication we need to turn to the One that made the dream and us too. We need to come wholly into His glorious light and recognize that detours can lead us to the truth of our strength in Christ. On the journey from disappointment to fulfillment, we can be awakened to the reality that we are fully known, fully equipped, fully loved, and fully empowered by God because of what Christ accomplished for us.
God’s love propels our lives and our dreams. It’s our fuel. It’s our everything. For so long so many of us have been leading our lives by what our feelings tell us. If we get up in the morning feeling down, we allow that to dictate our entire day. We believe what society and everyone else says instead of believing what God says in His Word. So, we must make a switch. Rather than depending on the flesh or our five senses, we need to walk in the Spirit. We need to understand that the love of God must be demonstrated with the generosity, compassion, kindness, and forgiveness of Christ.
On destiny’s journey, we find that sometimes our lack of spiritual knowledge and our failure to discern according to the wisdom of God’s Word has greatly impeded us. Things like gossip, putting others down, resentment, bitterness, jealousy, anger, impatience, and pettiness can block us, because these attitudes and behaviors are the opposite of God’s love. Our destinies belong to Him, and we can’t follow love’s path with the heavies of negativity in our hearts. So, when we find that we’re not living the dream, but far from it, God has a remedy. We must pray as the psalmist did in Psalm 139:23-24(ESV), “23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
Holy Spirit power is revealed when we humble ourselves in self-reflection and allow him to increase. When we cease to only view life through physical eyes and begin to see it and people through the eyes of the Spirit, we can know truly that we are changed. It is crucial that we own the truth that we can come out of disappointment, out of devastation and grief, and into the marvelous light of Christ. Through his Spirit, we can walk in that light every moment of every day. When you commit yourself to God in this way, you will soon realize that you are indeed fulfilling your destiny, and that you, yourself, are the dream you’ve always wanted. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
New Century Version (NCV)
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV) is adapted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.
“The Dream You’ve Always Wanted”, written for Springfield Fellowship © 2023. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.