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The Spirit’s aim is to give people aim in life. He seeks to direct them along a path which shall enable them, at their life’s close, to have marked progress in learning Christ’s deeper ways, in growing to love him more and more.
With “two hands,” said St. Irenaeus, third-century bishop of Lyons, God teaches and guides his people—with the Word and the Spirit. In the last column we focused on the Spirit’s role in writing the Word. In this column we look at the Spirit’s work in guiding God’s people as they read and apply it.
How do we humans know what we know or, at least what we think we know? The question of knowledge is one of the most centrally important—and vexingly complex—issues facing humankind today, and cries out for a solid, appropriate answer.
The source of this sturdy confidence, this quiet tranquility and hope? It is anchored in the confident trust Jesus’ community puts in his promise to them: “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.”
In order for God’s Word to achieve its Divinely intended purpose and effect, such an “Aha! That’s me!” response must happen within the hearts of those who read and hear it.
We focus on the Spirit’s work in creation—more specifically, on his act of creating each human being as a mirror of God.
When, as part of their Sunday worship, Jesus' followers join to declare, "I believe in the Holy Spirit," they’re saying a mouthful - a large mouthful.
To acknowledge that the Immortal God, the very Creator of the entire universe, is Father; and to affirm that this Father’s firstborn Son, Jesus Christ, once came to dwell on earth, to suffer, to die, and then to rise victoriously over death.
"Designed to the Inheritance of Jesus" blog entry from Coop's Column.
One of my former pastors told me that in his -then- 27 years of ministry in five different congregations he had met only two persons-an elderly wife and husband-who lived in daily excitement at the fact that Jesus shall come again. At every day's beginning they exclaimed to each other, "This could be the day! Let's be ready to greet our Lord!"
That Jesus is now enthroned became a central and glad part of the earliest Christian testimony, and it formed the basis for their heady and unshakable confidence in life and death.
God’s Word declares that Jesus, his appointed task on earth having been finished, returned to his Father in heaven. Trusting that Word, Christians triumphantly confess the words in the Apostle’s Creed: “He ascended into heaven.”
