Friday: Further Thought – The Holy Spirit and Living the Holy Life
Read Ellen G. White, “Like Unto Leaven,” pp. 95-102 in Christ’s Object Lessons.
How do we even begin to grasp the holiness of God when our nature is fallen and corrupt and His is uncompromisingly holy? His holiness defines Him as singular and separated from the world of sin and death that we humans experience. Yet, here is the most amazing thing:
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
God offers us the opportunity to participate in His holiness. That’s part of what a covenant relationship with Him is about. ” ‘Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” ‘ ” (Lev. 19:2, NKJV). Or, as the book of Hebrews says: ” ‘Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. . . . For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’ “(Heb. 8:8, Heb 8:10, NKJV). In these texts we can see the connection between holiness, covenant, and law. We cannot be holy apart from obeying God’s law, and we obey His law only as He Himself, the Holy Spirit, writes His law in our hearts and minds. What a sacred privilege is ours: “that we may be partakers of His holiness” (Heb. 12:10, NKJV), which we express by loving obedience to His law.
Discussion Questions:
|
(12)
Question:
What does it mean to have God’s law written in our hearts and minds? Why is this different from having it written only on tablets of stone?
Is it really all that different at times?
Sometimes we are so set in our ways that it is like God is writing on a heart of stone. We need to turn our lives over to Him and let Him change us to what He wants us to be and that is done through the Holy Spirit.
God is only offering us what all the un fallen worlds around him already have. Complete selfless contentment and pure virtue. The real beauty of heaven will be our changed characters.
To address some of the questions for this day's study:
2. God's law written on the heart...This is done by cooperating with God as instructed in His Word. We present ourselves to Him and He transforms us by the renewing of our mind. The Holy Spirit is the active agent that opens our understanding to the precepts of God found in His word. We study, learn and follow by relying on His exceeding great and precious promises, and the Law become written upon our heart as we daily treasure up and follow its wisdom.
3. God's holiness? We have only His law to examine since God cannot approached or “seen” by sinners. We have also Jesus to study, seeing God's holiness in human form living a holy life among men. But even in all this, the holiness of God is veiled from our full understanding.
4. Foundation of holiness. Holiness for sinners begins with repentance through faith. Without this, no holiness can take place. In order to comprehend our guilt and need to repent we need the reproof, correction and instruction found in God's Word, whether the Law, the prophets, the teachings of Christ or the word of His apostles, God is found speaking to us in all this Word, the foundation of our holiness. This is all understood and followed when the Holy Spirit is received.
5. Role of the law. Read Prov 2:1-5 to see the relation of the law to the sinner. Following this wise counsel will lead us to Christ for salvation and being filled with the Holy Spirit.
How the Holy Spirit works in us to give us the mind of Jesus and make us Holy as He is.
Step 1 The shining light from the cross of Jesus Christ reveals the love of God. Step 2: The love of God draws us to Himself. Step 3: When we yield to this drawing, we shall be led to the foot of the cross in repentence for the sins that have crucified our Saviour. Step 4: Then the Spirit of God through faith produces a new life in us. Step 5: Our thoughts and desires are brought into obedience to the will of Christ. Step 6: Our hearts, our minds, are created anew in the image of Him who works in us to subdue all things to Himself. Step 7: Then the law of God is written on our mind and heart, and we can say with Christ, I delight to do Thy will , O my God. Psalms 40:8.
Thank-you Kelvin Lim for sharing with us your testimony of how the Holy Spirit Works in us to live a Holy Life.
I left the church for 15 years but in the last 2 years, I have been studying the Bible each night before I sleep. I went back to church 2 months ago because the prompting of the Holy Spirit became too strong for me to ignore. I now hunger to study the word of God and pray to him daily. And in this 2 months, I saw a change. I feel happy for God giving us the Sabbath rest, the laws and His love. I delight in obedience rather than struggling to please him. My behaviour transformed because the spirit lives in me and urge me towards holiness. I am not "there" yet but at least my eyes are now looking at Jesus, hoping for a complete transformation.
Step 1: Surrender to Jesus and ask God to do the work in me that I can never do. Praise Him for being faithful to His promise "I will do it" (Numbers 23:19; John 14:13).
Step 2: See Step 1
It would appear that the fundemental response to all the questions is to love God as described in Luke 10:27 He answered, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
When I consider how I go after my goals in life, It occupies my mind continually, working out how I can change my approach to succeed, As described in Luke, when we strive for something using all our heart, our soul, all our strength and all our mind, it leaves very little room for anything else. So when we commit all that we have in loving God, we have victory over sin, we meditate on Gods law day and night, we mimic Gods holiness, in how we treat others because this is the standard we live by and as a result we keep God's 10 commandments because of what we have now become. May we be that good and faithful servant that Jesus calls for at his second coming. Amen