The Holy Spirit!

THURS., JAN. 6, 1994, 9:40 AM
OFFICE, PULLIAM HALL

I shall not tell you what My servant Jock will say about Me on Sunday, but I will react to the sermon title, as you have heard it – A Holy Spirit? This seems to pose the question as to whether there is such a Spirit, and even many who call themselves Christians would be pressed to affirm that I do exist and that I am as active as you know Me to be.

So the title I address today is more positive and more definitive. I am the Holy Spirit, and I am incredibly active in the lives of individuals and in the actions of many organizations, including governments. One way of evidencing Myself is, as told in the Acts story, allowing and directing persons to speak in tongues, an untranslatable prayer language, that can bring forth more understandable testimonies from others. This is a means I have used down through the years, since My “official entrance” at Pentecost. Yet it is only one of many ways.

I also attest, in My title that I am the Holy Spirit, not a, among many. While this is so, that I am the Supreme Spirit of the Lord God, there also is a case for calling Me “many.” The “case” is that I have such a variety of ways of communicating and acting that I do seem to have more than one identity. This aspect of My nature did seem to lead one of Our “sometimes readers” to decide, “No more.” Siddy seems to feel that is ungodlike… or unSpiritlike… to offer different counsel to different persons, even servants of Mine. Well, I continue to tell you that I have always done this, and always will. There is no single path of the spirit that I want every single human to be on. And I continue to encourage diversity, even as I also want relative peace.

Remember that once I said, as Jesus, (and was it only once?) that I had come not to bring peace but a sword… that for “My sake” family members would turn against one another, implying that in spiritual honesty some believers must oppose other believers. And this is just within the Christian family!

Each so-called religion consists of a number of spiritual paths, related in some ways to one another, but still different, in some ways. I am present on every path, even as some do not acknowledge Me at all. My Presence is different on each path, even as I have integrity as a single reality.

You represent a minor example. I have called on you to be and remain a Presbyterian Christian, even as I have guided you to some Hindu and Buddhist truths and to the real truth of eternal, everlasting life. Your pastor, and most others in your denomination, call upon Me for guidance, privately and publicly. Many in congregations say Amen to such prayer petitions. And yet you are rather unique in hearing quite directly from me. You haven’t had much success in having ordained clergy support this gift, and you’re unlikely to experience any breakthrough.

Remember that the Scriptures tell that when I, as Jesus, came to John, at the river Jordan, to be baptized, I was there, and I appeared as a dove from heaven. Am I always a dove? Obviously not. At Pentecost I came as wind and as tongues of fire. Am I always windy and firy? You know better. I am at every baptism, whether the baptizee’s head is barely moistened or whether at the other extreme, the whole body is submerged three ceremonial times. I like the baptism ritual, and I like it considered as a sacrament, a means of coming closer to Me. Yet I have no clear preference for the method. I naturally like it best when a person is baptized “in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” I do like to be included.