|||| Passion Week has come to a close — Christ is risen from the dead! You’ve celebrated His triumph, sang all the songs, coordinated the bright colored outfits and brought your family along for Sunday worship services. But what now? How does the most miraculous day in history affect the rest of your regular, boring life? Every day this week, I’ll be giving a short encouragement on ways to epitomize the Resurrection and embody walking with Jesus. New life is just the beginning. There is so much more God has for you after Easter. ||||
1. Sails
I’d like you to try something with me. I’m sure it’s something you’ve done before. Take a slow, deep breath.
Now again, but even slower, more intentionally.
Picture for a second that your breath is pushing forward the sails of a weary and battered ship on the sea. Without a breeze, a sailboat isn’t able to do much. Before the rise of the steamboat in the late 1700s, wind was an essential element when it came to making any kind of progress on a voyage. When the air was dead and stale, all you could do is pray because without it, you were basically useless.
In Genesis, Yahweh makes Mankind with His own hands out of, in the words of
, “mud and holy wind.”17 Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
— Genesis 2:7
God reaches down to the earth and takes a handful of the `aphar (dust, mud, clay)2 out of the adamah (ground, soil)3 and fashions the man to His will. But it’s not just in the forming and shaping and anatomy that makes a human. Without some form of divine energy, the lump of dirt is basically useless. There’s one more step for the man to be complete: Yahweh breathes into him the breath of life, the neshâmâh.4
Through the Scriptures, neshâmâh or ruach are employed to describe the wind of God’s breath — God’s Spirit — that empowers and enlivens us.
2. Big-Time Help
Jesus spoke much of the Spirit before His crucifixion, and a bit after as well. The promise He made to His disciples was that it would be better for them if He was physically gone so that the Holy Spirit would be able to come. Each of the disciples would get to be an apartment, and the tenant living within would be Yahweh manifested in holy wind, helping and teaching them.
16 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
…
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
— John 14:16-17, 26-27
The work of the Spirit within believers is comprehensive: He shapes our character (Galatians 5:22-23), guides us into what is true (John 16:12-13), gives us supernatural confidence to stand witness to Christ’s victory (Acts 4:29-31), empowers us with spiritual gifts to bless and build the Church (1 Corinthians 12), and comforts us and gives us peace (John 14:27, Acts 9:31). Our relationship to God is one lived through interaction with the Holy Spirit; He is the One Who speaks to us, comforts us, leads us and develops us into the image of Jesus. We’re like ships on the sea of the world, with the breath of the Spirit like the wind in our sails, driving us on:
The hope of heaven under troubles is like wind and sails to the soul.5
— Samuel Rutherford
When Jesus said “apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), this is what He meant. Intimacy with the Spirit is how we abide.
3. Filled
Grapevine imagery was such an potent choice for Christ to wield when expressing the act of partaking in the divine life. As the fruit requires nutrients from the vine for the branch to grow and flourish, so also we must abide in Jesus, imbibing the spiritual nutrients He pours into us. And He does this through the Spirit, Who is continuously filling believers in the book of Acts (2:4, 4:8, 4:31, 9:17, 13:9, 13:52). Followers of Christ are encouraged to take in this New Wine continuously:
18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.
— Ephesians 5:18
Every single day we need the Spirit’s help and for His work to be done within us. Calvin asserted that “the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ efficaciously unites us to himself.”6 The way we get to know Christ more is by getting to know the Spirit; the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead (Romans 8:11)! He is the one who breathes the breath of God into us, who nourishes us and empowers us for the work of living righteously as the Church in the earth. Depending on Him, surrendering to Him and engaging Him daily is crucial for an overcoming Christian life that packs any punch.
Jesus’ new life means we can have new life, and He administers it to us through God the Holy Spirit. He is One with the Father and the Son, worthy of our devotion and gratitude, and always present to help us live victoriously through the feasts or famines of life.
Put it into Practice:
Today, take a look at Galatians 5 and 1 Corinthians 12. How does the Spirit work in those passages? In what ways does this echo His work in your own life?
Get outside if you can. Preferably, somewhere you can experience some solitude in nature. Be quiet and still before the LORD for a few minutes. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you today. If there’s a particular temptation, challenge, decision, or trouble you’re facing, ask Him for guidance and strength.
What are some ways you can grow in your dependence on the Holy Spirit? How can you listen to Him speak better and submit to His leading? Write down a few thoughts and offer them to God in prayer.
Mythology and Mysticism with Martin Shaw - Maybe God Podcast. (n.d.). https://www.maybegodpod.com/Mythology-and-Mysticism-with-Martin-Shaw
Strong’s Hebrew: 6083. עָפָר (aphar) -- Dust, ashes, earth, ground, powder. (n.d.). https://biblehub.com/hebrew/6083.htm
Strong’s Hebrew: 127. אֲדָמָה (adamah) -- Ground, land, earth, soil. (n.d.). https://biblehub.com/hebrew/127.htm
H5397 - nəšāmâ - Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon (kjv). (n.d.). Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h5397/kjv/wlc/0-1/
Samuel Rutherford (1867). Letters of the Rev. Samuel Rutherford. p.268.
John Calvin (2009). Institutes of the Christian Religion Vol. 1: Translated from the Original Latin, and Collated With the Author's Last Edition in French. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p.485.
Thanks for this, like the after Easter challenges to grow, go deeper!
So applicable! Love the Sam Rutherford quote.