reading

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Verses marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphasis (italics) in Scripture quotations has been added by the author.

Cover by Koechel Peterson & Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota

Cover photo © iStockphoto / Thinkstock

The names and characterizations in this book that are drawn from the author’s ministry and counseling experience are usually rendered pseudonymously and as fictional composites. Any similarity between the names and characterizations of these individuals and real people is unintended and purely coincidental.

The author expresses his gratitude to the people who responded to his series of messages on the Holy Spirit on radio and television that eventually became the basis of some of the chapters of this book. He has quoted from some of these responses in various places within this book. Permission was granted at the time of writing the first draft of the manuscript.

EXPERIENCING THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Revised edition of The Greatest Counselor in the World

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ogilvie, Lloyd John.

Experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit / Lloyd John Ogilvie.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-7369-5249-1 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-5250-7 (eBook)

1. Holy Spirit. I. Title.

BT121.3.O35 2013

231’.3—dc23

2013010341

All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a non-transferable, non-exclusive, and non-commercial right to access and view this electronic publication and agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author’s and publisher’s rights is strictly prohibited.

Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Who Can Help Us?

2. The Greatest Counselor in the World

3. Sealed by the Holy Spirit

4. Our Counselor’s Program: God’s Will in Our Lives

5. Strength in Our Weakness

6. The Spirit of Faith

7. Abounding in Hope

8. Love Has No Write-Offs

9. Overcoming Yesterday

10. Ready for Battle: Discerning and Armed

11. Can We Ever Lose the Holy Spirit?

12. The Best Day of Your Life

13. A Peace of Your Mind

14. Awesome Promises

Notes

To Dr. Robert Dockson—great friend, generous benefactor, and benchmark leader in education and business

Acknowledgments

I want to express my gratitude for the people who have helped me experience the power of the Holy Spirit.

In 1948, when I was a freshman at Lake Forest College, I was an agnostic. Bruce Larson was the proctor of my dormitory. Every Wednesday evening he led a Bible study along with his friend Ralph Osborn. In response to their persistent invitations to attend the Bible study, one evening I reluctantly slipped in to listen. Both Bruce and Ralph were seniors who had become Christians during World War II. Their explanation of Christianity was exciting and impelling. After six months of never missing a meeting, they challenged me to give as much as I knew of myself to as much as I knew of Christ. I returned to my room and, after a long struggle that night, got on my knees and committed my life to Christ. I was given the gift of faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. That night 65 years ago, I began the adventure of being a disciple of Christ.

I changed my major from speech and dramatics to philosophy and theology, and my career plans from acting and media to preparation for the ministry. All through college and in seminary, I was privileged to have outstanding professors who encouraged my intellectual growth.

It was during the final stage of my theological training at New College, University of Edinburgh, that I had two professors who helped me move from being a “bitarian” who gratefully believed in the Father and the Son to a Trinitarian, who claimed the fullness of Paul’s benediction, “The grace of the Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14).

My classes in New Testament theology, taught by Dr. James S. Stewart, and dogmatics, taught by Dr. Thomas F. Torrance, were a life-changing intellectual and spiritual experience. Friendship with both of these giants in the Christian faith lasted through the years. Later, during my study leaves each summer, I returned to Edinburgh and visited with these former professors and confirmed my deepening convictions and experience of the Trinity.

My own Bible study, devotional life, and preaching during my service as a pastor in several churches enabled me to grow in my understanding of the Holy Spirit.

All through the years of my ministry I have been a participant in small groups, churches in miniature, in which I had the opportunity constantly to experience both encouragement and accountability. With trusted brothers and sisters in Christ, I was able to discover the power of the Holy Spirit for my personal life as well as my preaching and writing.

During my ministry in Hollywood, California, two of my prayer partners were Dr. Jack Hayford and Bishop Ken Ulmer. Together we claimed the power of the Holy Spirit for each other’s challenges and opportunities, and worked closely in seeking to bring renewal in the churches and clergy of Los Angeles. For that we needed a constant replenishment of supernatural power. I am grateful to these two gifted brothers.

When I served as chaplain of the United States Senate I was very thankful for the five Bible studies I taught each week for the senators, their spouses, their staffs, and the general Senate staff. In each group we claimed the biblical promises of strength from the Holy Spirit for the high calling of leadership of the nation. I am particularly grateful for a prayer group of senators who met with me weekly in addition to the Senators’ Bible Study. These dynamic men and women shared profound times of intercession for the nation and for each other’s needs. I learned to take no one for granted. Underneath the surface, we all needed daily anointing with the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, discernment, and courage.

Most of all, I want to express my greatest thanks to the One about Whom this book is written. Wonder Who that is? Press on to the first chapter!

Who Can Help Us?

Life is not easy. We only go around once. And for most it’s no merry-go-round ride, but a difficult, bumpy journey.

Problems get us down. Minor problems and sometimes serious ones. Many of them never seem to go away. We overcome one obstacle and then get hit by another one with full force. Often problems pile up. Worry about them saps our strength and creativity. They accumulate and suddenly too many surface at the same time. Panic sets in. We wonder how much we can take. We can take one problem if we can concentrate all our energies on solving it. But so often our energies are dissipated by other problems that worsen at the same time. It’s difficult to stay up during financial hard times. Our own health problems or those of our loved ones make us anxious. Our carefully laid plans get messed up by human error or carelessness. Foul-ups happen at work, at home. Then, as if staying afloat wasn’t difficult enough, we feel the undertow of the larger social problems of violence, racial tensions, and human misery when we turn on the television news.

We keep waiting for a time when all our problems are behind us so we can really start living. It never comes. The stuff of life involves facing and solving problems—learning and growing through them. Who can help us overcome our seemingly endless list of problems?

Our Urgent Need with Relationships

Many of our biggest problems are wrapped up in people. Often their need for affirmation and encouragement seems insatiable. Some are easily hurt, some are competitive, still others need recognition. We all know the excruciating pain of being misunderstood by those we love or friends we are trying to help.

Communication is one of the key challenges in marriage. A wife said to her husband, “We’re passing like ships in the night. You say you understand what you think I’m saying, but what you think you are hearing is not what I’m saying!”

And raising children to be mature adults with self-esteem is an awesome calling. It means riding out the storms of discipline, rebellion, and anguish. Sibling rivalry keeps many families on edge, even after the children are adults.

In the best of families, there are tensions when aging parents must be parented by their adult children through the difficult periods of declining health, nursing care, and an ever-increasing need for attention and time.

At work, we can trace most problems back to someone who’s the cause. Communication breaks down and so does efficiency. I met an office manager at the end of a stressful day who exclaimed, “People and computers! I’m ready to throw out both!”

Among our friends, we all have people with the “What have you done for me lately?” attitude. Then there are those who are facing real difficulties and we long to help bear the burdens they are carrying. It would be great if we could meet everyone’s needs!

In the church, there are times when fellow Christians get on our nerves. Every church has its share of difficult people who want to be served rather than to serve. There are unmet ego needs at the heart of many squabbles that keep the church from being the beloved community Jesus intended.

We wish we could see beneath the surface of people, understand their insecurities, and know what to say and do. Simply keeping our relationships in order is a full-time job, with overtime required most every day, even many nights. We wonder if we have what it takes to deal with needy, demanding, frustrating people. A lot of the time we’re sure we don’t have the patience and endurance required. Who can help us find the love we need when we feel like we just don’t have any more to give?

Our Urgent Need with Ourselves

But not all of us are externalizers, who readily identify other people as our problems. Some of us are internalizers, who feel that our most formidable problems are with the person who lives inside our own skin. The externalizer tends to blame others; the internalizer blames himself or herself. If there is a problem, internalizers usually assume they caused it. A syndrome of low self-esteem, multiplied by memories of failures and mistakes, equals a deep sense of inadequacy.

Internalizers have a very active inner child, to use a term coined by psychology and the recovery movement. The same fears we had as children influence our adult lives. If we sensed as children that love and approval were dependent on our performance, we place similar conditions on ourselves in adulthood. The fears of our growing years become the settled condition of our attitudes toward ourselves. Fears of punishment, rejection, and alienation linger into adulthood.

There are three people living inside of internalizers—the ideal self, the performing self, and the punitive self. The punitive self often dominates by heaping blame for ineptness on the performing self and ridicule for the possibility of ever achieving on the ideal self. A pervading sense of guilt results. Guilt is a feeling of self-judgment. It’s conditioned approval of ourselves, our capacity for self-evaluation gone sour. Sometimes it’s rooted in specific memories of failure, but more often it’s a floating dis-ease caused by dis-grace—uneasiness fostered by a lack of gracious acceptance of ourselves. It’s the restless disapproval of ourselves that thrashes about in us looking for tangible evidence of our shortcomings.

A friend of mine who is an internalizer received a call from his boss setting up an appointment to talk over a problem. My friend immediately assumed that he had either caused some problem or was the problem. He spent three anguishing days before the time of the appointment. When he did meet with the boss, he was greatly relieved to learn that the problem was related to a production schedule in the plant where he worked. Concluding the conference, his boss said, “I’m really glad I have a person like you to tackle and solve this problem.”

Later my friend said to me, “When I think of all the worry and anxiety of those three days waiting for that appointment, I kick myself around the block for assuming I was the problem!” Notice how quickly my friend shifted from thinking he was the problem to punishing himself for the way he reacted. He was not able to enjoy the affirmation his boss had given him. Instead, he was critical of himself for expecting the worst.

A woman with whom I was having a conversation persisted in giving herself a tongue-lashing for some failures. “You know, I sound just like my mother. I guess I’ve taken over where she left off.” My response was, “Are you always this hard on yourself?” She said, “Well, someone has to keep me in line!”

Then I think of a man who always internalizes problems when they surface in his marriage. His wife says, “I wish he wasn’t so quick to blame himself. He says, ‘I’m sorry,’ before we have a chance to talk out what went wrong. Point of fact, most often we’re both to blame, but we never get to the real issue. He runs for cover by assuming the guilt and escapes any real responsibility for working out a solution.”

Internalizers miss a lot of the joy of living. Who can infuse the esteem and confidence needed to stop worrying and start living?

Our Urgent Need with Decisions

Decisions stare all of us in the face as well. Seemingly insignificant daily decisions about the expenditure of our time, energy, and money can have long-range implications. Crossroad decisions about our careers, crucial moves, and lifestyle choices force us to think about where we are headed and the quality of person we want to be. Moral and social issues test our integrity.

We struggle to clarify our goals distracted by a cacophony of voices suggesting a thousand different directions. Some previous decisions soberly remind us that the margin of error is high. The risks make us very cautious. Sometimes we get bogged down and muddle through life, deciding not to decide but then paying the consequences.

We long to have 20/20 hindsight to learn from the past. Most of all, we wish we had better discernment about what’s best for our lives and for those for whom we are responsible, especially loved ones in our care. We yearn to have someone share the burden with us and lead us to make the right decisions. But who has enough wisdom to do that? Whom can we trust?

Our Urgent Need with Life’s Disappointments

Along with people problems and tough decisions, life also dishes out disappointments. Little ones hassle our daily happiness and peace of mind. Big ones hamper our long-range hopes for the future.

In one week recently, I talked to people who represented the broad spectrum of human disappointments. A man expressed his anguish at being bypassed for a position he’d worked hard to be awarded. Only two people at the office disagreed with his assessment: the boss and his fellow employee who got the promotion. A woman battled with disappointment over her two children who, as yet, shared neither her beliefs nor her values. A man expressed his exasperation over his son who turned down the opportunity to follow in his footsteps and take over the family business. An actress who had achieved some measure of fame and success confessed her disappointment that she had not had a chance to work for several years. A man who also is out of work shared his growing anxiety and diminished self-esteem. People who had debilitating illnesses talked about their disappointment over their physical limitations. A woman sobbed out the pain over her broken relationship with her husband.

“Quite a week!” you say. And yet, people are enduring disappointments all around us. The Scottish poet Robert Burns was right: “If each man’s internal care were written on his brow, those who have our envy, would have our pity now.” All of us, at times, are disappointed.

When life doesn’t turn out the way we’ve planned, we tend to get discouraged and angry. When the anger builds up inside, we feel depressed and are not sure what to do about it. Where can we turn to receive comfort and counsel in our hour of trial?

Even in the midst of a busy life surrounded by people, often we feel quite lonely. Does anyone really care about me? We are anxious about trying to do the best we can with what we have and receiving recognition for it. Fear of failure often racks us, especially when we face new challenges and responsibilities at work and at home. An even greater fear of rejection keeps our exterior highly polished, while—at the same time—we hide what’s really going on inside. Can we trust anyone to understand our deepest fears and insecurities?

All of this can happen to good people, religious people, church people, who discover that life is difficult. There’s an aching need for strength, courage, and confidence. Inner certainty and serenity are lacking. Religion begins to wear thin. Vibrant hope starts to dim. Something important is missing. But to whom shall we go to find the missing piece of the puzzle?

We need someone to listen and understand—someone who will allow us to talk until we know what we are trying to say. And we need someone who will probe to the nub of the issue, who has the authority and wisdom to help us see any confusion in our thinking or distortions in our emotions. This someone not only needs to lead us to the truth about ourselves and our lives, but also must possess the strength to empower us to act on what we know we must do and be. Above all, we need someone who has the power to heal our painful memories, sharpen our vision of what is best for our future, and catch us up in a purpose beyond ourselves—one that’s big enough to fire our imaginations and give ultimate meaning and lasting joy to daily living.

That’s a tall order. No friend, psychiatrist, psychologist, pastor, or spiritual advisor can meet all of these qualifications. But they may help lead us to the One Who has all these gifts. He alone has the omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence to be the kind of counselor we need. He can help us with our problems, relationships, and decisions, for He knows everything. He is with us always, for He never sleeps. He has all power to give us strength and courage, for He is the Holy Spirit with us and wants to live within us.

The Greatest Counselor in the World

The Holy Spirit is the greatest Counselor in the world. The word counselor may not be the first word that comes to your mind when you think of the Holy Spirit. For many, He is the least known and understood Person of the Trinity. For others, He is associated almost exclusively with Pentecost, the gift of tongues, or the charismatic church. And for some, the Holy Spirit is the subject of dispute about when He is received, what is the evidence of His presence in the life of a Christian, and customs that have emerged to celebrate His presence in contemporary worship in some churches.

But to a growing number of Christians around the world today, the Holy Spirit is known and praised by the name Jesus used to declare what the Spirit would be in the lives of His disciples after Pentecost. The Greek word is Paraklētos, a cornucopian word overflowing with inspiring implications. It is translated as Comforter in the King James, Helper in the New King James, Counselor in the Revised Standard Version, and Advocate in the New International Version.

We can appreciate more fully the ministry of the Holy Spirit as our Counselor when we understand the use of this propitious name Paraklētos. The Greek word is rich in meaning. It was associated with courts of law and signifies one who is the counsel for the defense, one who pleads on behalf of another. In a broader sense, it identifies one who stands by a person’s side or one who is ready to aid a soldier in battle.

Now consider how the word was used for Christ Himself. The apostle John writes, “We have an Advocate [Paraklētos] with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation [hilasmos—the means whereby sin is remitted] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2). John knew this to be true from Jesus’ own self-identification to the disciples, then in the apostle’s personal witness of the death of Christ, and, most of all, in his own experience of the risen Lord through the Holy Spirit. Christ pleads our case before the Father on the basis of His sacrifice on the cross. When we believe in Christ and His atoning death for us, He is our Advocate before the Father, claiming the same love for us as the Father has for Him. Incredible!

In that light, next consider Christ’s words about the Holy Spirit spoken in the upper room on the night before He was crucified. He promised another Advocate. “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth…He lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17 NIV). The word “another” needs underlining. The Greek word used is allos, another of the same kind, not heteros, meaning another of a different kind. Then Jesus went on with this mind-stretching promise: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” and further, “At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:18,20).

In light of the unity of the Persons of the Trinity, we can press on to understand and experience the particular ministry of the Holy Spirit as our Counselor and Advocate in the stresses and strains as well as the opportunities and challenges of daily living.

What a Difference the Spirit Makes!

Allow me to share my own experience of the Spirit as Counselor. It began many years ago while I was a postgraduate student at New College, the University of Edinburgh.

Up to this point I had lived with a firm trust in Christ as my Lord and Savior before I experienced the power to live the Christian life. I did my best to be an orthodox believer with evangelical fervor. Seldom a day passed without Bible study and prayer. I shared my faith and tried to be a faithful disciple. With a crusader’s zeal, I entered into battles for social justice.

The problem, however, was that I was trying to live for Christ rather than empowered by Him through the Holy Spirit. My problem was pride: I wanted to be a good Christian on my own steam. This led to a dishonest duality: I was a polished Christian on the outside; inside I felt empty, unsure, and insecure. And I tried all the harder to keep the exterior shining bright so no one else would know. That came across to others as arrogance or, at the very least, pretentious piety.

Needing to be right, I defended my decisions with stubbornness. Insecure, I became all the more determined to control my life and the people around me. That brought tensions in my marriage. I talked a lot about love, but there were times when my wife did not feel that love from me.

In sharing my faith, so often I had the words without the music. The biblical orthodoxy was there, but seldom was there a personal illustration of what the Gospel was doing for me. My least favorite verse was, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). I wanted to hold the treasure in a silver vessel, excellent in my pure theology and what I thought was exemplary discipleship.

Keeping up the image of victorious Christian living became very exhausting, particularly when I failed. A pervading tension inside finally brought me to the breaking point. I searched the message of Christ in the New Testament for an answer, all the while crying out, “Lord, help me!”

The First Part

The first part of the Lord’s answer came in an encounter with my beloved professor, Dr. James Stewart. One day he stopped me in a corridor of New College. He smiled warmly, took my coat lapels in his hand, and looked me in the eye intensely. That slightly built dynamo of spiritual power was able to see into my soul with X-ray discernment. He explained that he had read my examinations and felt that the grace I had written about with intellectual clarity, I needed to experience in my own life. His concern was that I was trying to earn what was offered to me then, not at some future time when I had measured up to my stern expectations for myself. He said something I will never forget: “Dear boy, you are loved now!”

The four words, “You are loved now!” communicated to me the essence of Christ’s prevenient grace, love that is given before we can earn or deserve it. This truth reverberated in my soul. It further opened me to receive from the Lord the empowering I so desperately needed. I was prepared for Dr. Stewart’s lecture a few days later.

Near the end of his lecture, he paused, whipped off his glasses, as was his custom in moments of intense inspiration, and stood looking out the window. Along with my fellow students I waited expectantly for what he would say. Then, in crisp, penetrating words so characteristic of his teaching and preaching, he said, “If we could but show the world that being committed to Christ is no tame, humdrum, sheltered monotony—but the most exciting adventure the human spirit can know—those who have been standing outside the church and looking askance at Christ will come crowding in to pay allegiance, and we may well expect the greatest revival since Pentecost.”

I was stirred profoundly and decided then and there that I wanted to be part of that revival. I now was eager really to take seriously what Christ had taught and promised about the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

The Second Part

I felt led to John, chapters 14 through 16, about the promise of the Holy Spirit. Paul’s word to the Ephesians, “Keep on being filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18, my translation), resounded in my mind as I noted the meaning in the original Greek. In the long hours of silent meditation, the Lord seemed to keep saying, “Lloyd, the Holy Spirit led you to Me, now let Me lead you to the Holy Spirit. You’re adrift. Lift the sails of your mind and heart. Let Me fill them with the wind of the Spirit. You need daily power, guidance, wisdom, and vision. Most of all, you need to allow Me to love you, to heal the insecurities from childhood and the memories of past failures. Stop trying to control Me. Instead, let Me control you. Don’t be afraid of losing Me by being filled constantly with the Holy Spirit. We are one! In being filled with Him, you will know me better than ever before. The energy you’ve squandered on trying to be adequate, He will multiply beyond your imagination, so you can glorify and serve Me.”

The Lord had put His finger on a raw nerve. My pride, yes, but something more. In my passion to be a disciple, I feared that opening myself to the Holy Spirit was somehow disloyalty to Christ. My faith was rooted in the historical Christ, His death and victorious resurrection alone. With everything within me, I had tried to serve the risen, reigning Christ. That was the problem. Everything within me had run out. My tank was running on empty.

So there I sat during my solitary retreat feeling the same emotions of panic experienced by the disciples in the upper room after the crucifixion and resurrection, but before Pentecost. Like them, the Master’s words, “It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper [Counselor] will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7), were discomforting. Yet, as I pondered their meaning, I realized that was exactly what was happening to me. Christ was saying that He was pulling me away from my limited stage of growth so He could pull me on to a new and exciting experience of Himself through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Words I’d read in G. Campbell Morgan’s commentary on Acts came thundering to mind with reassuring force: “Thirty minutes after Pentecost, the disciples knew more of Christ than they had learned through three years of following Him as Jesus of Nazareth.”¹ Was that true? I wondered. I felt gripped by the desire to find out for myself.

I got down on my knees. “Lord Jesus,” I prayed, “I know I could not have believed in You without the gift of faith from the Holy Spirit. But, since then, I’ve given little thought to the Holy Spirit. Now You have shown me that You and He are one, through Him You can live in me. He will empower me to serve You. I confess that I’ve feared losing control. That’s absurd. I’ve already lost control trying to be Your disciple on my own energy.

“With the same earnestness that I confessed my faith in You, Christ, I confess my trust in, and need for, the Holy Spirit. I ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit and make a covenant to keep allowing Him to fill me. Lord, as the Holy Spirit led me to You, now lead me to Him so I can glorify You and serve You with authentic power and not my limited and now depleted strength. Lord, I need the Holy Spirit, I want the Holy Spirit, I yield myself to the Holy Spirit.”

While still on my knees, I felt a palpable surge of power throbbing in my body. A warmth flooded my whole being. A sense of peace, security, and well-being invaded my turbulent heart and mind. I felt loved and cherished. Then an indomitable will to press on captured my own will. I was ready to live again, really for the first time.

The difference this experience made in my life, marriage, and ministry was startling, first to me, and then to those around me. Morgan was right: The Holy Spirit did free me to know, love, and serve Christ better than ever before!

The Next Step

I have shared this account because it was a prelude to a next step I was led to take about a year later. This step is directly germane to the thrust of this book.

In my continued quest to know the Holy Spirit better, I kept coming back to this word, Paraklētos. I began a daily experiment of claiming Him as my Counselor. I had been through clinical training in counseling and knew what a human counselor should do. I had learned listening skills, how to draw a person out, and how to communicate unqualified acceptance. It hit me that this was exactly what the Holy Spirit did for me in an infinitely deeper way when I gave Him a chance by being completely honest with Him—allowing Him to lead me to deeper truth about myself and my thoughts and feelings.

Often when I remained in silent listening prayer, insights came to me that were so far beyond my own understanding that I was simply amazed. Sometimes when I was stressed out, feeling jangled emotionally, quiet listening revealed a deeper cause that I would not have discovered on my own. When I asked for help with strained or broken relationships, often I was shown more than I wanted to admit about what I had done or said to cause the problems. Added to that, it was revealed to me what I had to do or say as my part in bringing healing.

As the years rolled by, intercessory prayer took on a whole different focus. I came to my Counselor with the needs of people and confessed I didn’t know what was best or how to pray. Often in the silence of prayer the Holy Spirit gave me empathy, love, and discernment I could not have produced myself. It was astounding—I was given many times a kind of X-ray penetration into what was really going on inside people.

The same thing began to happen in my prayer for specific situations, problems, and decisions. In my quiet time with my Counselor, the Holy Spirit, I started the practice of talking out what was confronting me. Slowly, but persistently, I was taught to leave my concerns with Him in a complete surrender. Sometimes the answer came quickly; other times I had to wait in patient trust. With His power, I was able to press on to do what He had convinced me was best, would glorify Christ, and bring His ultimate good to everyone concerned. In it all, I discovered that if I made a less than creative decision or really goofed things up, I could ask for and receive forgiveness. But better than that, I learned that if I admitted my mistakes, the Holy Spirit would bring some good out of them that I never could have foreseen.

I have recounted my fledgling beginning years ago as a counselee of the Holy Spirit. The relationship grows deeper every day, especially as I try to put down in writing what He means to me.

The Father’s Outstretched Arms

I am stunned by the magnificent way the three Persons of the Trinity work together. Irenaeus, church father of the second century, has given us an apt image for this unity. Picture God the Father reaching out with two arms. One is Christ, through Whom He reached out to redeem the world and now reaches us with the power of the cross. The other arm is the Holy Spirit Who works in us, convincing us of Christ’s atoning death and our forgiveness, giving us the gift of faith to respond. With the two arms the Father draws us to His heart. Both arms are crucial. Without the arm of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible for us to appropriate what the arm of Christ has done and does for us.