Seventh-Day Adventist Church

January 2, 2021

We are living at a time in history as never before when the Holy Spirit is working and moving in a special way. Are we taking advantage of it? Are we asking Him to fill us and our families? Are we asking Him to fill our church? Are we insisting that we be filled and fit? Jesus promised the disciples that the Holy Spirit would come. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would abide with you and would be in you (John 14.16,19). Jesus promised that He would send “another Helper” (John 14). “Helper” in the Greek literally means “one alongside.” The Holy Spirit runs beside each of us and is actually God with us. But Jesus didn’t say that the Holy Spirit would merely be with us, as Jesus was with the disciples, but the Spirit is to be in us. Jesus brought up the subject of the Spirit several times on the evening of the Passover. The Spirit would teach all things and bring them to memory (John 14:26). The Spirit would bear witness of Jesus, and we would thus ourselves bear witness (John 15:26, 27). The Spirit would guide us into all truth and let us know what is to come (John 16:13). Jesus leaving was an advantage because then the Holy Spirit would come (John 16:7). Jesus expected to be closer to us after His departure because He could dwell in all of us and was not limited to being in only one place at a time like when He was here physically. But none of this could happen before Calvary. The reason is that we needed to see the full sacrifice of Christ for our lives. We needed to see how much love God has for us and once seeing and grasping the love of God we would repent, accept Jesus as our substitute, confess our sins, and be open for the filling of the Holy Spirit. How much does God love us? (See Desire of Ages, pp. 755, 756. “Ask, and it shall be given you...”  Matthew 7:7).