BY GREG CRUM
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” Genesis 1:1-3
Here in the first few verses of our Bibles we read of the Holy Trinity in action. The Father’s design, the Son’s word, and the actions of the Holy Spirit brought about the will of God on this Earth. In our beginnings this unity of force brought about an environment for us to inhabit, and still today, it is this same chain of action that enables us to accomplish the will of God in our lives.
Last week we wrote of God’s desire to demonstrate the truths we have heard from the Bible. The Father longs to confirm those spoken truths by miraculous demonstrations of His grace and power. This is something the earliest believers in Jesus understood and expected, and God was able to work with them to accomplish His will on this planet. But how about us? Do we still believe as the early church? Do we expect God to confirm the words we relay from Him? I hope so, because God still desires to confirm His Word today!
Enter the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. One of the primary reasons the Holy Spirit dwells in us during this Age of Grace is to work with us and through us to confirm the words of Jesus and accomplish the will of God. Just as in the first few verses of Genesis, when God wills it, and the Lord Jesus has spoken it, the Holy Spirit does it! This is the way it was in the beginning, and it is the way it was in Jesus’ Earthly ministry. We read in Acts 10:38 “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.” Now, here is the important point for our day: the mission of the Holy Spirit in these regards was not fulfilled when Jesus ascended to Heaven. What the Holy Spirit was doing through Jesus then, He desires to do today through the Body of Christ. God is still anointing the Body with the Holy Ghost and with power to produce the results of the Gospel of God.
God’s confirmation of His Word in and through us brings an honor to Him that we should seek. In 2 Corinthians 1:20 we come to understand that when the promises of God come to pass in our lives it brings glory to Him. What is more, when God is able to show the miraculous among us, it helps to move our relationships with Him from the purely intellectual to the experiential. We go from Bereans to Galilaeans. From people who mentally understand the precepts of Christ to people who personally know Jesus because we have been with him.
Friends, I am glad I have been exposed to the precepts of God by growing up in church, going to a Christian school for a time, and graduating from a Bible College. But more than anything, I want to know Jesus through a personal relationship with him. He is not a historical figure of the past. He’s the living Savior, in our present, available for a tangible relationship with us.
According to I Corinthians 2:1-5, our faith is not supposed to be in fine oration and sound reasoning; it’s supposed to be in the power of God, and that can only be experienced through genuine relationship.
How do we get to this state of relationship? How do we get to the point in our times together with the Lord that enables the Holy Spirit to confirm the Words of God like He was able to do among the earliest Christians? Well, maybe our believing has to change. Perhaps it is our expectancy. Probably both, right?
Let us start by understanding that our relationship with Jesus can come through the pages of our Bibles and right into our lives. And then when he shows up in the room, we will see again what we saw accomplished all those years ago.
Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.