Day 212: John 14:15–18

The world is unable to receive Him because it doesn’t see Him or know Him. But you do know Him, because He remains with you and will be in you (v. 17).

Without exception, John’s Gospel equips us with more information about the Holy Spirit than any of the synoptics. I wish somehow I could write the next statement in neon lights upon this page to catch the eye of every reader: The Holy Spirit is the key to everything in the life of the believer in Christ!

I have testified many times to my defeated Christian life through my teenage years and early twenties, even though I rarely missed a church service or activity. I take full responsibility for my own defeat because I could have read for myself what the churches I attended at those times did not teach me. But although I received many wonderful treasures from the churches of my youth, I did not learn two of the most vital keys to a victorious life: how to have an ongoing, vibrant relationship with God through His Word and how to be filled with the power and life of the Holy Spirit. Both of these are vital concepts that the enemy does everything he can to make us miss. The Word and the Holy Spirit are by far his biggest threats.

One of the most revolutionary truths Christ told His disciples is in John 14:17. He told them that the Spirit of Truth at that time was living with them but would soon be in them. Think about the repercussions of that promise. What difference could the Spirit of God make living in a person as opposed to with a person? Beloved, that very difference turned a band of fumbling, fleshly followers into sticks of spiritual dynamite that exploded victoriously on the world scene in the book of Acts. The difference is enormous! Impossible to overestimate! He then filled them in a far more powerful expression at Pentecost in Acts 2:1–4. These glorious events unleashed a new revolutionary economy of the Holy Spirit for the “Church Age” and onward until the return of Christ.

The Holy Spirit now indwells every person who receives Christ as his or her personal Savior (Rom. 8:9). Oh, that we would absorb the magnitude of that spiritual revolution! Dear believer in Christ, the Spirit of the living God—the Spirit of Jesus Christ Himself, the Spirit of Truth—dwells inside of you! Have we heard these concepts so long that we’ve grown calloused to them?