John 15:26-27 – But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

THEME OF THE DAY: THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHILD OF GOD. All Christians know they cannot live the Christian life alone. They need the constant help of God’s Spirit to keep them from sin, promote their holiness, and renew their minds toward eternal things. Remove the Spirit and Christians are done. The commands of God are beyond human capacity. The attacks of the devil are no match for us. And the flesh is so strong, we fail every time we try to subdue it in the strength of self. Yes, the power for the Christian life is in the Holy Spirit and we thank God for Him. Yet, the Spirit has another important work in the child of God. In fact, this is His primary work in us. It also is the primary focus we are to have in living the Christian life and seeking the Spirit’s help. What is the primary work? It is two-fold, but centered on one thing; the witness, the supremacy, and exaltation of Jesus Christ. Let’s look at this two-fold work today.

First, Jesus states when the Spirit would come into the world, He would “bear witness of me.” The Spirit of God was not sent into the world to make much of Himself. He was sent into the world to make much of Jesus Christ. Archibald Brown, Charles Spurgeon’s successor at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, wrote, “In the church, the Holy Spirit’s constant work is the glorifying of Christ. His one purpose and work is to be ever making the glorified Christ more glorious in the eyes of the church.” And the chief means the Spirit does this work of exalting Christ is through a churches’ pulpits and preaching. The first and chief mark of a good church knowing God’s favor is the Christ-centeredness in its pulpit. When we leave our churches on the Lord’s Day, we should be enamored and focused on the encounter we had with the Person of Jesus Christ through His preached Word. If it is otherwise, if we are more excited and captured by the music, the program, the people, and our experience, it may have been a good “church service”, but we would argue the Spirit was absent. Where Jesus is central in church life; in the preaching, the fellowship, and the growth of its people, we may be confident the Spirit is at work. That is why He came to make much of Christ through His Word.

The Spirit’s second work centralizing on the Lord Jesus deals with us as Christians. As we noted in the opening paragraph, the Spirit is the Helper in all we are to do and be in the Christian life. Yet, He also is the one who bears witness of Christ to us personally. He is the One we seek to make Christ real to us. He is the One who reveals Christ to our hearts and renews our minds to His living reality in us, and among us. We may easily tell if our Bible reading is accomplishing the reason for us having it by this; the place Jesus Christ is becoming in our affections, our thinking, and the guiding of our lives. As the author of scripture with the theme of scripture being Jesus, the Spirit of God always takes us to Christ in His Word. And when that is happening, we hunger and long more for Christ in the Word and will seek Him more in the Word.

Thank God for His Holy Spirit. Thank Him for His daily help in life and especially living the Christian life, but thank Him more for the Spirit’s work of revealing Christ to us; the only true source of our heart’s contentment.

PRAYER: “Lord, teach me to understand the Spirit’s primary work in me is to show me You and to live like You.”

QUOTE: “The Holy Spirit’s chief role in the lives of believers is not to comfort, but to reveal Christ to them.