Learning To Recognize The Holy Spirit

Did you know that the Holy Spirit will be your Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor, Counselor, Strengthener, and Standby if you will allow Him to?

And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another ^[c]Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive [and take to its heart] because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He (the Holy Spirit) remains with you continually and will be in you.
John 14:16

The Holy Spirit is standing by to help us. The problem is that we do not recognize His presence and as a result leave Him standing by. He is a gentleman and will not try and force Himself into our lives.

I noticed early in my Christian journey that the Holy Spirit seemed to help some people more than others. This did not agree with Peter’s statement in Acts 10:34 where he tells us that God is not a respecter of persons. It just didn’t make sense that God doesn’t show favoritism and His Spirit did.

Over time it became clear that the reason some people receive more help from the Holy Spirit than others do is because they look to Him. They lean on Him for guidance from what they are going to eat in the morning to what they will wear to work. These people acknowledge His presence and develop their ability to recognize His promptings.

The Holy Spirit is not a respecter of persons. He does not show favoritism but some people have learned to look to Him much more than others do.

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5

If you are a Christian the Holy Spirit is dwelling in your heart. Some people will never receive His help in their daily lives because they are leaning on their “own understanding” and do not look to Him.

The majority are led by their understanding and five physical senses. They use reasoning and logic to make decisions. Christians have not been left to the mercy of their reasoning or five physical senses!

If you have invited Jesus into you heart you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in your spirit. He is continuously leading and guiding us but we must acknowledge Him or we will miss His guidance.

The Holy Spirit will help us with natural things like tying our shoes, balancing our checkbook, or anything else in the natural realm that we need to do. The world is fighting the covid-19 pandemic which has resulted in shortages. There have been times that the Holy Spirit has prompted my wife and I to go out of our way for an unscheduled grocery stop. When we have followed Him we’ve always found items on our grocery lists in stock. Sometimes there were only one or two items left on the shelf! Through everything that has been going on we have never experienced a shortage of anything.

The Church must become more aware of the Holy Spirit in our midst. He resides in the spirit of every Christian and we should look to Him first. This will require us to recognize His presence and acknowledge that He is with us.

I believe that the first step to our learning to recognize the Holy Spirit’s presence is for us to develop an awareness that He is a divine person. He is not some impersonal force or power as many ministers portray Him.

Many people are confused about the Holy Spirit because they do not recognize as a person who desires to have a relationship with them. They view Him as an impersonal force and as a result He is not real to them. This is the reason He is often referred to as “it” when people talk about HIm.

“It moved powerfully in the service tonight.”

Jesus used masculine pronouns to refer to the Holy Spirit. We will examine several passages in the Gospel accounts and see this. A “him” is not an “it”. We would use “it” to reference something impersonal like a chair. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.
2 Corinthians 13:14

The word translated “communion” could also be translated as “fellowship”. It is not possible to have “communion” or “fellowship” with a chair or any other impersonal object. It is possible though to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit?

And I will pray the Father, and he (the Father) shall give you another Comforter, that he (the Comforter) may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him (the Comforter) not, neither knoweth him (the Comforter): but ye know him (the Comforter); for he (the Comforter) dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
John 14:16-17

This example shows us that Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as he or him five times in just two verses. We are going to stop here but will pick up in the next post and continue to look at Scriptures that will help us come to a deeper understanding of the third person of the godhead.

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