In Jesus’ last hours with the Disciples, they were wound up tighter than a juiced up baseball. The reason for their angst was simple. Jesus had just announced He was leaving them, and they wouldn’t be able to follow Him anymore.
The Disciples had left homes and families to follow Him. They had spent three years with Him, traveling everywhere He went. But now He was leaving them? What would happen to them? What was the last three years all about then?
If Peanuts had been around back then, one of the Disciples might have muttered, “This reminds me how Lucy jerks the football away when Charlie Brown tries to kick it.” In other words, “Not funny, mister.”
To calm the Disciples down, He makes a promise: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17)
His promise is just as relevant these two thousand years plus. Every Believer in Christ welcomes the Holy Spirit. That truth separates Christianity from any other religion conceived by mankind. Suppose you desired to create a religion. Since your supernatural capabilities amount to jumping over a mud puddle, you must limit your religion to some sort of moral code system: Be good according to these five stipulations, and you inherit eternal life. Two of the stipulations are optional, of course.
Wait a second—you have the ability to provide eternal life for someone based on your stick house of a religion? Is your name Hector? Didn’t you just snort daisies?
On the other hand, it’s mind-boggling to ponder a religion in which the creator of said religion reveals Himself to actually be God. Then God walks voluntarily to His own death. Yet He lives again after three days. But before all that, He promises all believers He will come and dwell within them.
The best Hector can do is something like, “Just treat people okay and maybe someday you can go to that big cloud in the sky. And DO NOT, under any circumstances, eat kale.”
If the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within every Believer, what’s He doing there? Is He just coming to get away from Heaven for a while, kind of like a vacation?
He comes bearing gifts. One set of gifts is the spiritual gifts like teaching or serving or encouraging. Utilizing those gifts helps build up each other in our faith and unify us as a church family. Lots of good there!
The other wonderful gift He brings is His fruit. From Galatians 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
Maybe I’m thinking wrongly, but if God gave me a choice between having the spiritual gifts or the spiritual fruit, I would take the fruit every time. Who doesn’t want more love or joy or peace in her life? Who doesn’t see the value of having patience and kindness and goodness as a part of his life? Wouldn’t we live in a better world if we all possessed faithfulness, humility and self-control?
The obvious question is how is the Holy Spirit’s love different from human love? It logically must be different or why would He bother? How is the Holy Spirit’s joy different from human joy? Since it’s His joy, we can safely assume it’s better quality than the joy we possess.
Why would I want generic catsup if I can have Heinz catsup? Would I rather drive a Yugo or a Rolls Royce? Why be a Cubs fan when I can be a Cards fan? Therein lies the difference.
Exploring those differences will take time, but it’s worth it. Are they related to living the life of the easy yoke or the light burden Jesus promises in Matthew 11:30? They have everything to do with His promise.