The Helper
When you accept Jesus as your savior, He sends the Holy Spirit to live within you (John 14:17). At that moment, your spirit is made completely clean. Your spirit, which was dead when it was separate from God, becomes "the righteousness of God." Your spirit instantly becomes completely holy, otherwise God (the Holy Spirit) wouldn't dwell there.
Although the Holy Spirit is connected fully to our spirit, we don't feel holy, and we usually don't live holy right away. Although our spirit, which we can't feel much, is a new creation, our heart, where our mind, will, and emotions are, doesn't feel any different. You could live the rest of your life with a new Spirit and never ever feel or see the power of it in your actual life. This is so much less of a life than Jesus wants for me!
The trick to living and feeling different is this: I need turn to God in my spirit, the Holy Spirit, and begin to let my heart learn to "yield" to God.
When two cars come to an intersection with a yield sign, the one that is supposed to yield waits for the other car to go. A yield is different than a stop. A yield allows for movement of both cars, but it sets an order for how they cooperate.
When life brings us to a situation where someone just offended us, our heart says "strike back." But if we will turn to God in our spirit, and thank Him for the perfect love already inside of us and ask Him to move love mightily into our heart, then we suddenly have the power of God to love our enemy with our heart (mind, will, and even emotions). This is the most powerful way to begin experiencing the life of Jesus in your heart.
At first it seems strange or maybe even silly. Because we don't feel God living on the inside, it takes faith to try it out. The more we step into it, the more we build a history of "fellowshipping" with the Holy Spirit, and the more easily we are led by Him. When you build a history of experiencing God's presence and His power to change your mind, will, and emotions when you know they don't agree with Him, you start to gain the ability to live the way the Bible describes. Trying to live holy in your own strength for very long is impossible, it is only really possible by yielding to the Holy Spirit within you.
When God lives inside of you, all the resources of God are within you: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control, thankfulness, the wisdom of God, the deep things of God, insight, revelation, the ability to carry out God's plan for you (and so much more)...they are all there if we will learn to turn to the Spirit first!
We want to be led by our spirit, not by our heart (mind, will, and emotion). Jesus wants us to yield to the Spirit so we can have life more abundantly. The anxiety and worry we hang onto, the striving in our own strength to live rightly...Jesus wants us to lay these things down. He doesn't want us to overwork, He wants us to overflow. He wants us to speak to Him through His Spirit in us. Tell Him our fears and our worries and thank Him for the perfect resources that are within us, because God lives within our spirit.
The more we yield to the Spirit within us, the more our heart conforms to our spirit. It is a choice that becomes a habit. When this starts to happen, we begin to agree more and more with God, and what He says life is supposed to look like. Obedience to God starts to feel more natural and less difficult. The pattern of living and thinking like Jesus begins to take shape in our mind and emotions. Can you imagine having a life where obeying God felt most normal, rather than the opposite of what you felt like? Can you imagine actually "feeling" love for the annoying guy you have to deal with, or "feeling" generous, rather than having to choose generosity? How about feeling patient, rather than having to choose patience? The more we look to God in our spirit, and yield to Him, the more the pattern of life God said we should have is formed in our mind, will, and emotions.
2 Corinthians 3: 16 But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
Although the Holy Spirit is connected fully to our spirit, we don't feel holy, and we usually don't live holy right away. Although our spirit, which we can't feel much, is a new creation, our heart, where our mind, will, and emotions are, doesn't feel any different. You could live the rest of your life with a new Spirit and never ever feel or see the power of it in your actual life. This is so much less of a life than Jesus wants for me!
The trick to living and feeling different is this: I need turn to God in my spirit, the Holy Spirit, and begin to let my heart learn to "yield" to God.
When two cars come to an intersection with a yield sign, the one that is supposed to yield waits for the other car to go. A yield is different than a stop. A yield allows for movement of both cars, but it sets an order for how they cooperate.
When life brings us to a situation where someone just offended us, our heart says "strike back." But if we will turn to God in our spirit, and thank Him for the perfect love already inside of us and ask Him to move love mightily into our heart, then we suddenly have the power of God to love our enemy with our heart (mind, will, and even emotions). This is the most powerful way to begin experiencing the life of Jesus in your heart.
At first it seems strange or maybe even silly. Because we don't feel God living on the inside, it takes faith to try it out. The more we step into it, the more we build a history of "fellowshipping" with the Holy Spirit, and the more easily we are led by Him. When you build a history of experiencing God's presence and His power to change your mind, will, and emotions when you know they don't agree with Him, you start to gain the ability to live the way the Bible describes. Trying to live holy in your own strength for very long is impossible, it is only really possible by yielding to the Holy Spirit within you.
When God lives inside of you, all the resources of God are within you: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control, thankfulness, the wisdom of God, the deep things of God, insight, revelation, the ability to carry out God's plan for you (and so much more)...they are all there if we will learn to turn to the Spirit first!
We want to be led by our spirit, not by our heart (mind, will, and emotion). Jesus wants us to yield to the Spirit so we can have life more abundantly. The anxiety and worry we hang onto, the striving in our own strength to live rightly...Jesus wants us to lay these things down. He doesn't want us to overwork, He wants us to overflow. He wants us to speak to Him through His Spirit in us. Tell Him our fears and our worries and thank Him for the perfect resources that are within us, because God lives within our spirit.
The more we yield to the Spirit within us, the more our heart conforms to our spirit. It is a choice that becomes a habit. When this starts to happen, we begin to agree more and more with God, and what He says life is supposed to look like. Obedience to God starts to feel more natural and less difficult. The pattern of living and thinking like Jesus begins to take shape in our mind and emotions. Can you imagine having a life where obeying God felt most normal, rather than the opposite of what you felt like? Can you imagine actually "feeling" love for the annoying guy you have to deal with, or "feeling" generous, rather than having to choose generosity? How about feeling patient, rather than having to choose patience? The more we look to God in our spirit, and yield to Him, the more the pattern of life God said we should have is formed in our mind, will, and emotions.
2 Corinthians 3: 16 But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
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