What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit(1 Corinthians 2:12-14).
MO is at Black Rifle Coffee, Beyond Black is in the cup, silence is again on the playlist, and God is in the room nodding His head.
Garrison is a man of habit, he sits at the same table every Sunday — a perfect place for his morning devotional. He always has his plain-covered, paperback version of the Bible with him — camouflaged, but just as powerful.
He seems especially excited today. "What's on for this morning, Garrison," I asked?
"John 16," he replied, and he read verse 13 aloud: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth."
"I love that, man," he continued. "I remember when that knowledge really hit me for the first time... that to get the whole truth, you have to have the Holy Spirit. It was disturbing! I didn't feel like I had the Spirit — I did, but just didn't know it."
Right then and there, we both felt the need to pray, and we did.
The word for 'truth' in the New Testament is a translation of the Greek word ale'theia. In Greek, it means "full disclosure, nothing hidden, total revelation." Literally it means "the state of reality that is unhidden, unconcealed." This means that without the Spirit, we live in a reality that is concealed and hidden on many, many levels.
Truth is so much more than a list of correct answers, or a collection of facts, or a set of indisputable proofs. Truth uncovers all the right stuff and real stuff — because the right stuff and the real stuff are God-breathed.
"I remember the late winter night," I said to Garrison, "and I was outside, spinning around and around, looking up, praising Abba. The Spirit who had just opened my eyes! Peace was finally mine! I could rest in truth!"
It's the Holy Spirit who leads us into a world we do not know — really, we cannot know without the Spirit. However, with the Spirit's guidance, we see things we've never seen, search and discover truth without fear, learn and unlearn principles we've heard before, experience things unimagined previously, and gradually understand hidden things — God's secrets and mysteries. The Holy Spirit, himself, is beyond our reality. He takes us past our language limitations into God's reality: heaven comes to earth. Truth, you see, is way too big for us to handle alone. It is His holy mystery.
I lived my early years convinced that the Holy Spirit left us when the Bible was finished. In other words, He was on a temporary mission from the beginning. The only guide we needed was the Bible, so we studied IT to find the truth — often to prove others wrong. Everything was tied-up in studying. That's why we had so many Bible Studies. I though studying the Bible was the most holy thing a person could do when Jesus returned to earth. I wanted to be caught studying the Bible when Jesus returned. Humm!
That left me with the Bible minus the heavenly and holy Guide. Something wasn't right. I knew it. I felt it.
Oh, I'm still learning, still wondering, still studying, still enjoying discoveries, and appreciating mystery. It's humbling and affirming and comforting. This Spirit-led life is more than I imagined and better than I deserve.
With the help of the Spirit as my Guide, the Bible has been transformed into a glorious autobiography. My second touch is real and true... And this truth sets me free.
Thank you Jesus, for our Guide! We really need the Spirit of Truth!
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