Sometimes it seems that around Pentecost Christians suddenly remember that The Holy Spirit exists and yet the scriptures are quite clear that the Holy Spirit has come to indwell both the individual believer and the Church of God. Sometimes in our excitement about his power we reduce him to being a power and do not relate to him as a person. I want to look at one or two major strands of Biblical teaching about the Holy Spirit.

Firstly no one comes to Christ without the inward work of the Holy Spirit, it is he who convinces us of our sin and shows us the only way of salvation is through the work of the Lord Jesus. The story of Pentecost proves this as it is after the empowering of the Spirit that people respond to the gospel, As Peter preaches people are convinced of their sin and come to Christ.

Secondly, If we are to abide in Christ we will need the constant work of the Holy Spirit within, teaching us,guiding us and producing his fruit within us (see John 15 and Galatians 5:13-25). Francis Schaeffer used to say “We must do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way” and the only way to do that is by depending upon God to work in us by his Spirit.

Thirdly we rely upon him for our gifting chapters such as Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12-14 show us that each believer is given gifts to exercise for the benefit of the body of Christ. There are a diversity of gifts and all are needed, we tend to seek the more prominent gifts but we must value the gifts of encouragement and service just as highly as we do the teaching and prophetic gifts.

It is the Holy Spirit who brings fresh life to the Church of God, and it is his role to empower believers to serve the Lord. Many of us long to see the Church revived and sometimes we think that if we had just the right technique we could achieve a revival, but this is deceptive the only person who can revive the Church is the Holy Spirit. Scripture tells us to be open to the Spirit of God, and the Holy spirit himself has inspired the scriptures so that we can test everything to see if it of him. Let us open our hearts to the Lord who is the Spirit.