Is the Holy Spirit necessary?
Josh Stuart
What comes to mind when you think of the Holy Spirit?
If you’re anything like me, your first thoughts go to people getting knocked over by imaginary gusts of wind or speaking in languages they made up.
Although many of our opinions about the Holy Spirit are heavily influenced by our upbringing and our own experiences, the question remains, is the Holy Spirit a necessary, or even an important, part of our lives?
The Holy Spirit Brings Life into Darkness
The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is fully God — just like Jesus and God the Father. What we believe about the Holy Spirit is important because misunderstanding the Holy Spirit means we misunderstand God.
Through creation, the Spirit of God brought life and order into the darkness and chaos.
Before the world was created, the Holy Spirit was hovering over the darkness of the earth (Genesis 1:2). He existed before the world began, long before anyone had ever prophesied or spoken in tongues.
Through creation, the Spirit of God brought life and order into the darkness and chaos. Then, through our sin, we brought that darkness and chaos back into the perfect world which God created (Genesis 3).
To rescue us from our sin, Jesus came to earth and paid the price for our sin. The Spirit of God came back into the sinful and chaotic world we created, once again creating life and order by overcoming death (Romans 8:11, John 14:16-17). Before Jesus returned to heaven, He then gave this Spirit to His followers (John 20:22).
Today, when we become Jesus followers, we receive the Holy Spirit just as the disciples did. The same Spirit who overcame darkness and chaos at the beginning of the world and overcame death at the resurrection lives in us today.
The Holy Spirit Empowers us to Love as God Loves
We inherited the sin Adam and Eve brought into the earth. Because of our sin, we are incapable of showing the same unselfish, sacrificial love God does.
The Holy Spirit empowers us to love as God loves (Galatians 5:22, Romans 5:5). His love is unmistakable, never-ending, and life-changing.
God's love is unmistakable, never-ending, and life-changing.
The Bible gives us many examples of how the Holy Spirit was important in the early church. In John 13:34-35, Jesus tells us that our love for one another is what will identify us to the world as His followers. In John 14:16-17, we are promised that the Holy Spirit will be with us forever. And in 1 John 4:7-8 and 1 John 4:19, we see how the love of God changes us and enables us to love.
It is our love for others, created within us by the Holy Spirit, which allows people in a dark and chaotic world to experience the love of God for themselves.
The Holy Spirit is more than supernatural power. He brings life and healing where once there was nothing. He enables us to love the same way God loves. And when we love as God loves, the Spirit of God still hovers over a dark and chaotic world through us, slowly healing and restoring it back to the perfect state in which God originally intended.