He Has Given Us of His Spirit

Key verse: "He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you." (John 16:14, NIV)

Some days you find yourself doing the better thing before you have fully explained it to yourself. A clearer answer comes than the one you were about to give. Strength rises for something you had already decided to put off. Your whole posture softens, and you know you could still resist it, but you also know something kinder has met you. We usually explain moments like that by saying we were finally thinking clearly, or happened to be in a better frame of mind. But Jesus taught His friends to expect something more than that.

He said He would not leave them on their own. He would give them His Spirit, and the Spirit would not come speaking separately from Him. "He will glorify me," Jesus said, "because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you" (John 16:14). The Spirit keeps making Jesus known. What belongs to Christ does not stay at a distance from us, as if His life were only something to admire from the outside. By His Spirit, Jesus keeps making His own life known right in the middle of ours.

That is why the Christian life is not only a matter of trying harder to remember what Jesus said and then forcing ourselves to act like Him. It is also a life of learning to receive Him. Jesus said, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:27). He also said, "These are the very Scriptures that testify about me" (John 5:39). As we stay near Him in prayer and in Scripture, we begin to know the One we are listening for. We begin to recognize what He is like, the way He sees people, the way He tells the truth, the way He is moved by need and never hurried past what mattered. And as the rest of the Bible opens, from the account of creation to the promise of a new heaven and new earth, we begin to see that it has all been bearing witness to Him.

Then, little by little, we start to recognize that same life meeting us beyond the page. A passage of Scripture returns at the right moment and sheds light on the next step. A friend says something simple, and it reaches further into you than the words alone should have done. A preacher opens a passage you have read before, and suddenly you can see your own situation inside it. Or you are out walking and remember that "the heavens declare the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1), and the world around you no longer feels sealed off from Him. As the apostle Paul wrote, God's eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen in what He has made (Romans 1:20). None of this replaces His Word. It points us back to Christ Himself, the Living Word, the same One we have come to know in Scripture and who has never stopped making Himself known. He does not come as a stranger.

So the day in front of you is not only a set of hours to manage with your own thoughts and instincts. Jesus has not left you to make the best of yourself. He has given you His Spirit, and that means the next pull toward mercy, honesty, courage, beauty, patience, or repair may be more than a passing thought. It may be Christ Himself drawing you away from the smaller way you would have settled things on your own. When that happens, do not hurry past that moment with Him. Stay there long enough to ask whether He may be making Himself known to you again.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank You for not leaving me to myself. Thank You for giving me Your Spirit and staying near in the middle of ordinary life. Keep teaching me Your voice, and wherever You meet me today, help me not to miss You. Keep me close. Amen.