Bible Understanding Live By The Holy Spirit

1.) Scripture
1 Corinthians 2:10‭-‬12
But it was to us that God made known his secret by means of his Spirit. The Spirit searches everything, even the hidden depths of God's purposes. It is only the spirit within people that knows all about them; in the same way, only God's Spirit knows all about God. We have not received this world's spirit; instead, we have received the Spirit sent by God, so that we may know all that God has given us.

John 1:1‭-‬3
In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God. From the very beginning the Word was with God. Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him.

Romans 8:9‭-‬11
But you do not live as your human nature tells you to; instead, you live as the Spirit tells you to — if, in fact, God's Spirit lives in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ lives in you, the Spirit is life for you because you have been put right with God, even though your bodies are going to die because of sin. If the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from death, lives in you, then he who raised Christ from death will also give life to your mortal bodies by the presence of his Spirit in you.

John 17:26
I made you known to them, and I will continue to do so, in order that the love you have for me may be in them, and so that I also may be in them.”

The Spirit is God’s Delight
The Holy Spirit is God. The person who indwells us, leads us, and purifies us is no one less than God, the Holy Spirit. The simple evidence for this is the frequent designation “Spirit of God.” The Spirit is “of God” not because God created him, but because he shares God’s nature and comes forth eternally from God (see 1 Corinthians 2:10–12).
If the Son of God is equally eternal with the Father, as John 1:1–3 makes clear that he is, then so is the Holy Spirit equally eternal with them both, because, according to Romans 8:9–11, the Spirit of Christ is one and the same with the Spirit of God. If this were not so, we would have to imagine that there was a time when the Son had no Spirit and the Father had no Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is essential to the relationship between the Father and the Son. He is, to use Handley C.G. Moule’s words, “the Result, the Bond, the Vehicle, of their everlasting mutual delight and love” (Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, p. 28).

As far back into eternity as God the Father has loved the Son, there has been an infinite Holy Spirit of love and delight between them, who is himself a divine Person. Therefore, as Jesus prays for the church in John 17:26, he asks his Father for nothing less than the Holy Spirit when he says, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
The most glorious of all truths that we will discover in these 7 devotionals is that when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, he comes not merely as the Spirit of the Son, nor merely as the Spirit of the Father, but as the Spirit of infinite love between the Father and the Son, so that we may love the Father with the very love of the Son, and love the Son with the very love of the Father.

2.) Scripture
Psalms 119:142
Your righteousness will last for ever, and your law is always true.

Hebrews 6:18
There are these two things, then, that cannot change and about which God cannot lie. So we who have found safety with him are greatly encouraged to hold firmly to the hope placed before us.

1 Thessalonians 2:13
And there is another reason why we always give thanks to God. When we brought you God's message, you heard it and accepted it, not as a message from human beings but as God's message, which indeed it is. For God is at work in you who believe.

Isaiah 55:10‭-‬11
“My word is like the snow and the rain that come down from the sky to water the earth. They make the crops grow and provide seed for sowing and food to eat.  So also will be the word that I speak — it will not fail to do what I plan for it; it will do everything I send it to do.

Psalms 12:6
The promises of the LORD can be trusted; they are as genuine as silver refined seven times in the furnace.

John 17:17
Dedicate them to yourself by means of the truth; your word is truth.

The Spirit Guides Us
Time after time the Scriptures help us make sense out of life’s puzzles: failing marriages, rebellious children, drug addiction, warring nations, the return of leaves in spring, the insatiable longings of our hearts, the fear of death, the coming into being of children, the universality of praise and blame, the prevalence of pride, and the admiration of self-denial.
The Bible confirms its divine origin again and again as it makes sense out of our experience in the real world and points the way to harmony. I hope, therefore, that one of the doctrines which we cherish enough to die for (and live for!) is that the Holy Spirit is the divine author of all Scripture.

O, that we had all day to talk about the wonderful implications of this doctrine! The eternal Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love and delight between the Father and the Son, is the author of Scripture.

Therefore, it is true (Psalm 119:142) and altogether reliable (Hebrews 6:18).
It is powerful, working its purpose in our hearts (1 Thessalonians 2:13) and not returning empty to the One who sent it (Isaiah 55:10–11).
*It is pure, like silver refined in a furnace seven times (Psalm 12:6).
*It is sanctifying (John 17:17).
*It gives life (Psalm 119:37, 50, 93, 107; John 6:63; Matthew 4:4).
*It makes wise (Psalm 19:7; 119:99–100)
*It gives joy (Psalm 19:8; 119:16, 92, 111, 143, 174) and promises great reward (Psalm 19:11).
*It gives strength to the weak (Psalm 119:28) and comfort to the distraught (Psalm 119:76) and guidance to the perplexed (Psalm 119:105) and salvation to the lost (Psalm 119:155; 2 Timothy 3:15).

The wisdom of God in Scripture is inexhaustible. If this doctrine is true, then the implications are so profound and far-reaching that every part of our lives should be affected.

3.) Scripture
Isaiah 44:3
“I will give water to the thirsty land and make streams flow on the dry ground. I will pour out my spirit on your children and my blessing on your descendants.

The Spirit Conquers Fear
Do you know why it is easier to be nice to people on Friday than it is on Monday? Isn’t it because hope is like a river that flows into us from a bright future, fills up the reservoir of our joy, and then overflows in kindness to others?

On Friday rest and recreation are just around the corner, so close we can taste them. By hope we taste the power of the weekend to come. The little reservoir of our joy begins to fill. And if the weekend looks bright enough, our reservoir of joy will fill to the brim and start to spill over.

This spillover of joy onto other people is called love. So you are always nicer to people when you feel happy about your future. Hope fills you with joy, and joy spills over in smiles and kind words and helpful deeds. It happens before vacations, before birthdays, before Christmas, and for most people on Friday.

When we are drenched with the Spirit, we are drenched with the assurance that Mondays are made in heaven just like Fridays. Whatever seems fearful tomorrow does not need to be fearful if you are filled with the Spirit. Relations at home may be tense, health may be deteriorating, the boss may be planning your dismissal, tomorrow may bring a very threatening confrontation—whatever is making you anxious about tomorrow, open your heart to the outpouring of God’s Spirit; look to his word of promise and he will fill you with hope and conquer your fear.

When the Holy Spirit is poured out, not only are fears removed but longings are satisfied. The soul’s thirst for God is quenched—or at least we taste enough satisfaction in him to know where to spend the rest of our life drinking.

Our future can look bleak for two reasons: one is the prospect that misery is coming; the other is the prospect that happiness is not coming. And isn’t virtually all the work of the human heart exhausted by these two things: fearing future misery and thirsting for future happiness? If so, then Isaiah’s promise is just what we need: when the Spirit is poured out into our heart, fear is taken away and thirst is satisfied. I urge you, therefore, if you long for the touch of the Spirit of God upon your life, give yourself day and night to the reading of the Word.

4.) Scripture
Ephesians 1:1‭-‬23
From Paul, who by God's will is an apostle of Christ Jesus — To God's people in Ephesus, who are faithful in their life in union with Christ Jesus:  May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.  Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! For in our union with Christ he has blessed us by giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world. Even before the world was made, God had already chosen us to be his through our union with Christ, so that we would be holy and without fault before him. Because of his love God had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his sons and daughters — this was his pleasure and purpose. Let us praise God for his glorious grace, for the free gift he gave us in his dear Son! For by the blood of Christ we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven. How great is the grace of God, which he gave to us in such large measure! In all his wisdom and insight God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ. This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head.  All things are done according to God's plan and decision; and God chose us to be his own people in union with Christ because of his own purpose, based on what he had decided from the very beginning. Let us, then, who were the first to hope in Christ, praise God's glory!  And you also became God's people when you heard the true message, the Good News that brought you salvation. You believed in Christ, and God put his stamp of ownership on you by giving you the Holy Spirit he had promised. The Spirit is the guarantee that we shall receive what God has promised his people, and this assures us that God will give complete freedom to those who are his. Let us praise his glory!  For this reason, ever since I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks to God for you. I remember you in my prayers and ask the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, to give you the Spirit, who will make you wise and reveal God to you, so that you will know him. I ask that your minds may be opened to see his light, so that you will know what is the hope to which he has called you, how rich are the wonderful blessings he promises his people, and how very great is his power at work in us who believe. This power working in us is the same as the mighty strength which he used when he raised Christ from death and seated him at his right side in the heavenly world. Christ rules there above all heavenly rulers, authorities, powers, and Lords; he has a title superior to all titles of authority in this world and in the next. God put all things under Christ's feet and gave him to the church as supreme Lord over all things. The church is Christ's body, the completion of him who himself completes all things everywhere.

Acts 14:22
They strengthened the believers and encouraged them to remain true to the faith. “We must pass through many troubles to enter the Kingdom of God,” they taught.

The Spirit Makes Us Secure
In him...you...were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. —Ephesians 1:13-14
God’s great desire for his people is that we feel secure in his love and in his power. Everything else in life may be unstable—our health, our family, our job, our education, our society, our world. At any of these levels you may feel as if you are out on a ledge forty stories up in an unpredictable wind. You feel yourself losing balance and falling, and every brick you grab pulls out of its mortar.

Since God does all things for the praise of his glory, and since believing his Word magnifies that glory, God takes decisive steps to secure for himself the magnification of his glory forever: he seals the believer with the Holy Spirit, and guarantees that we will come to our inheritance praising his glory.

God is so passionately committed to having a people for his own possession who live forever for the praise of his glory that he is not about to let our eternal destiny depend on our native powers of willing or doing. He commissions his Holy Spirit to enter our lives and to make us secure forever.
God sends the Holy Spirit as a preserving seal to lock in our faith, as an authenticating seal to validate our sonship, and as a protecting seal to keep out destructive forces. The point is that God wants us to feel secure and safe in his love and power.

In Ephesians 1:14, God is saying, “My great desire for those who believe in me is that you feel secure in my love. I have chosen you before the foundation of the world. I have predestined you to be my children forever. I have redeemed you by the blood of my Son. And I have put my Spirit in you as a seal and a guarantee. Therefore, you will receive the inheritance and praise the glory of my grace forever and ever.
And I tell you this here in Ephesians 1 because I want you to feel secure in my love and my power. I don’t promise you an easy life. In fact, through many tribulations you must enter the kingdom (Acts 14:22). Let me say it again: I have chosen you. I have predestined you; I have redeemed you; I have sealed you by my Spirit. Your inheritance is sure, because I am passionately committed to magnify the glory of my grace in your salvation.”

5.) Scripture
1 Peter 4:14
Happy are you if you are insulted because you are Christ's followers; this means that the glorious Spirit, the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

2 Timothy 4:16‭-‬17
No one stood by me the first time I defended myself; all deserted me. May God not count it against them! But the Lord stayed with me and gave me strength, so that I was able to proclaim the full message for all the Gentiles to hear; and I was rescued from being sentenced to death.

The Spirit Helps Us Die
If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. —1 Peter 4:14

Corrie ten Boom tells how she worried as a girl whether she would be able to stand against the Germans if she was threatened. She felt so weak when she thought about what might happen. Her father, I think it was, gave her a great illustration. He said, “When you are going to take a journey on the train, do I give you your ticket three weeks early or just as you get on the train?” She answered, “As I get on the train.” “So God will give you the special strength you need to be strong in the face of death just when you need it, not before.”
I believe 1 Peter 4:14 promises that in the hour of greatest trial God comes to his children to give them courage and faith which they did not know they were capable of. The Holy Spirit will help you die.

Good tradition tells us that Paul was beheaded by Nero. Paul’s last letter was probably 2 Timothy. His trial had already begun. Picture the old soldier, battle scarred for his Commander, in custody in Rome. He is called before the court. Everyone knows his days are numbered. He’s a marked man. So none of his friends stand by him. He makes his defense. The decision is made to hear him once again—then the end. He goes back to his quarters and writes these words to Timothy (2 Timothy 4:16–17), “At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me.”
I pray that you will remember these words: The Spirit will help you die. He will stand by you when there is no one else. He will sustain your faith. He will give you glimpses of glory. He will cause you to magnify Christ in your death. Courage which you never thought was possible will be yours. The Spirit of glory and of God will rest upon you and carry you home.