Day By Day By Grace
Bob Hoekstra
July 15, 2010
"When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all the
truth...He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and
declare it to you"...Now we have received...the Spirit who is from God,
that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
(John 16:13-14 and 1 Corinthians 2:12)
The promised teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit guides us into all
the truths of the word of God. "When He, the Spirit of truth, has come,
He will guide you into all the truth." As the Spirit fulfills this
promise, He especially wants to unfold God's truth in ways that will
glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. "He will glorify Me, for He will take of
what is Mine and declare it to you." The desire of the Holy Spirit is
to bring glory and honor, not to Himself, but to the Lord Jesus Christ.
"But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of
Me" (John 15:26).
One basic way the Spirit glorifies Jesus is by revealing to us (and
bringing into our growing experiential knowledge) the free heavenly
riches that are ours in Christ. "Now we have received...the Spirit who
is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given
to us by God." This is the language of grace: "freely given to us." The
wonders of God's grace are poured out freely: "being justified freely
by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus...to the
praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed upon us in
the Beloved" (Romans 3:24 and Ephesians 1:6, NASB). What man deserves
(and has earned by his own sin and offenses) is judgment. However,
Christ supplies at His cost (His death for us) the free remedy of
eternal life. "But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the
one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by
the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many...For the
wages of sin is death, but the [free] gift of God is eternal life in
Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 5:15; 6:23).
These freely given things of everlasting life include far more than the
precious gift of forgiveness. "He who did not spare His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give
us all things?" (Romans 8:32). We are to freely drink from a river of
blessings (including, peace, hope, fruit, gifts, victory, etc.)
throughout time--and even for all eternity. "I am the Alpha and the
Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the
water of life freely to him who thirsts... and let him who thirsts
come. And whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely"
(Revelation 21:6; 22:17).
Lord Jesus, these freely given things of God, revealed to me by Your
Spirit through Your word, cause me to glorify You greatly. Please teach
me to freely drink of these riches yet more and more, through humble
dependence upon You, Amen.
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