Holy Spirit - Wisdom For Work

Over the past two weeks we have looked at what it means to receive the Holy Spirit and to live a life filled with the Holy Spirit. This week we are looking at how the Holy Spirit provides wisdom for our work.

The Holy Spirit offers you the wisdom, leadership skills and discernment you need for your work. The Holy Spirit rejoiced as God created this world and created all the principles of physics, chemistry, geology, engineering, mathematics, accounting, creativity, art or leadership that you use in your job. The Spirit delights to share this knowledge with you so that you can be known, like Daniel as a person who has the insight, intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods (Dan 5:11) in your workplace.

The wisdom of the Holy Spirit extends to the trades and all the things you create with your hands. Just as the Holy Spirit filled the craftsmen who built the first tabernacle (Ex 35:30-35), the Holy Spirit today continues to offer to fill you with the ability to create with your hands so that God is glorified and worshipped. In the same way that the Holy Spirit filled David with the wisdom to design Solomon’s temple (1 Chr 28:12), the Holy Spirit continues to fill people with wisdom to design artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, new engineering processes and new medical devices all to the glory of God.

When the Holy Spirit controls your life you can cease from the hectic, frantic pace of work and in quiet adoration be still and know that God is sufficient. The Holy Spirit offers you strength to sustain you wherever you work. The Holy Spirit provides you with the confidence and courage to be who God called you to be and to do what needs to be done without fear.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit you can take your hands off the steering wheel of your life and say: “I thank you Lord that you are in control of this situation.” At the very moment when you in faith utter those words things start to happen. You might not see results immediately but the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life is your assurance that God is at work.

The Holy Spirit will provide you with the wisdom you need to do what needs to be done in your work. Then you will declare with joy that “your accomplishments were not by your might, nor your power, but by God’s Spirit.” (Zech 4:6)

Holy Spirit - Part 2

Last week we looked at what it means to receive the Holy Spirit. This week we explore what it looks like to live a life filled with the Holy Spirit.

Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. (Rom 8:2)

The Holy Spirit testifies to your soul that you are God’s beloved child. With the Holy Spirit in your life, you no longer need to look for the approval of other people or be concerned about what other people think of you.

A life filled with the Holy Spirit is a life that is free from trying to satisfy our insatiable appetite for attention. A life filled with the Holy Spirit sees God as important in and of himself and not simply in relationship to what he can do for you. A life filled with the Holy Spirit is life that is lived neither seeking recognition or importance, neither desiring power or visibility, but rather seeking to glorify God. A life that is permeated by the Holy Spirit is a life that no longer presumes to be the center of the universe but honors God as the center and sustainer of the universe.

The cost of receiving the Holy Spirit

There is a cost to receiving the Holy Spirit. You have to choose to surrender your self-will, your ambitions, your desires to the one who created you. You have to surrender your desire for the praise of other people and the prizes of this world, so that God’s name is glorified. You have to choose to yield up your most precious things to the one who created all things. In faith you choose to receive the Holy Spirit by believing that .

The Joy of the Holy Spirit

A life filled with the Spirit doesn’t mean that your human nature won’t rear its head. There will still be times when you are slow to understand what God is doing. You will still make judgment errors, and mistakes. Your memory will still fail you. You will still struggle with doubts and addictions.

Sin rearing its ugly head in your life is not the end of the story. Life in the Spirit is like standing constantly under a waterfall gushing with warm water cleansing you from all your sins.

The Holy Spirit and Human Nature

A life filled with the Holy Spirit can experience the agonies and ecstasies of life with joy and delight because joy comes from the Holy Spirit and not the circumstances of life. You will still experience all the emotional and physical pains of this world. But you will also know the joy of sins forgiven, and the assurance that nothing that happens in this world can separate you from God’s presence.

A Spirit Filled Life in Community

When the Holy Spirit permeates every aspect of your life people will see God’s spirit in your life. While you receive the Spirit of God personally, the life of the Spirit is lived out in community.

A life filled with the Spirit is a life that shares God’s love with other believers. A life filled with the Spirit is one in spirit and mind with other Christians. God builds us up together through the Spirit to become a dwelling place where God lives.

Because you have received the Holy Spirit you have much to offer your fellow Christians. You are able to bring the message of Christ to your fellow Christians with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit encouraging them to remain faithful, and to never lose hope. 

When your life is filled with the Holy Spirit your love is contagious towards all people, even difficult coworkers, because your love comes from the eternal well of God’s love. When your life is filled with the Holy Spirit your joy overflows even in the most oppressing circumstances because your joy comes from the Holy Spirit not from your circumstances. A peace that passes understanding in the most stressful moments of your day radiates into the lives of those around you when you are filled with the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit - Part 1

Jesus’ ministry didn’t end at his ascension but continues today from heaven through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a unique person, in fact the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead. God freely gives the Holy Spirit to communicate God’s power from on high.

After Jesus’ resurrection the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and filled the lives of the disciples. The Holy Spirit came upon the disciples not because of the righteous things they had done, but because of God’s great mercy.

God continues to freely offer the gift of the Holy Spirit today to you and me. We have the privilege to choose to actively receive this precious gift. We are able to receive the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ, not because of our works, or our wealth, but because of God’s grace and mercy.

When you believed in the gospel of salvation, God put the Holy Spirit in your life as a seal of his ownership on you, and as a guarantee of what is to come (2 Cor 1:21-22).

You can’t have the Holy Spirit on your terms. The Holy Spirit is more than just a heavenly influence to be invoked on an as needed basis. You can’t project your own needs and wants on the Holy Spirit. You can’t experience the blessing of the Holy Spirit when you want to remain sovereign over certain spheres of your life.

Receiving God’s gift of the Holy Spirit in your life is like turning on a light bulb inside a diamond, and watching that light radiate out of every facet of the diamond. You are a precious diamond that God created. When you receive God’s gift of the Holy Spirit in your life, the light of the Holy Spirit radiates from every facet of your life into the world around you.

When you invite the Holy Spirit into your life, he doesn’t destroy your identity. God is the one who created you and God knows exactly how to perfectly enhance your identity through the power of the Holy Spirit. When you receive the Holy Spirit, you are filled with the power, the wisdom, the creativity and the freedom to do what God created you to do and be who God created you to be.

When you are filled with the Holy Spirit you are able to show up in any situation as your whole self bearing the image of God – bearing the image of God’s grace; bearing the image of God’s wisdom; bearing the image of God’s covenant love; bearing the image of God’s holiness and righteousness.

The Holy Spirit is not your critic, your censor or your killjoy. Instead He is your gracious helper and counselor. The Holy Spirit offers you the infinite resources of heaven that you can draw upon for your life of adventure with your Savior. The Holy Spirit is the mighty burden bearer of the world enabling you to undertake more than you could imagine on your own strength.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. Not liberty to do as you want to do, but liberty for the Holy Spirit to accomplish God’s purposes through your life. Life in the Spirit is a life spent serving the Living God in every aspect of your career, family and social life.

When you receive the Spirit of God, you will find rest for your soul. For it is no longer you working, but the Holy Spirit working through you so that God’s name is glorified rather than yours.