Without the Holy Spirit’s help we can’t understand God any more than a chicken can understand a human being. We need the Holy Spirit’s help to both illuminate our minds and calibrate our hearts to understand him, to relate to him, and to know...
It is typical in the church calendar for preachers to start sermon series on the Holy Spirit after Easter. This is because Pentecost chronologically follows Easter. Jesus is crucified, is buried, resurrects, ascends to heaven, then sends the Holy...
Another passage under consideration as we prepare for Holy Week is Matthew 27:46, which records Jesus saying while on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Not a few preachers and other interpreters of the Bible have concluded that...
One of the passages that comes into focus as we approach Holy Week is Isaiah 52:13–53:12. This is the poem of the suffering servant which foretold Jesus’ substitutionary death. One of the things that often gets overlooked in the passage is the...
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his...
Jesus went through hell for you to be free. Accept the gift this lenten season. During the season of lent we reflect on the suffering of Christ that led to his death, burial, and ultimately his resurrection and ascension. Christians traditionally...
The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force. The Holy Spirit is a person. As a person the Holy Spirit has a will, emotion, and intelligence. He can be angered, frustrated, grieved (Eph. 4:30). He can also be pleased and satisfied (Acts...
Isaiah 43:18 says, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” In a similar vein, Paul says, “Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own;...
Often times when we think of sanctification we think in terms of a condition or status. As the Holy Spirit progressively sanctifies our hearts, we become more and more clean, or Christ-like. This is certainly true. At the heart...
Sanctification (i.e., the process of being conformed to the character of Christ) is a paradox. It is a paradox in two ways. First, in the process of becoming more and more like Jesus, by some mystery the believer simultaneously becomes more fully...