This Month's Newsletter

Part 1: The Greatest need in the church today " The Holy Spirit"

Pastor Don Nicely's Newsletter for January 2009

The Holy Spirit is our helper.

John 16:7-14 (NKJV)⁷Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. ⁸And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: ⁹of sin, because they do not believe in Me; ¹⁰of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; ¹¹of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. ¹²”I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for all He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; He will tell you things to come. ¹⁴He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

By the words of the savoir himself, He would soon depart and the Helper would come in His place. Christ would return to heaven His home and the scripture would be fulfilled of another comforter who would come and help us, and not be limited by the dimension of time like Jesus was. He could be everywhere all over this planet at the same time because He is in Spirit form. He is the Spirit of the risen Christ Himself, the Spirit of the Holy One. The problem was that Christ Himself would have to leave before the Spirit could come. So not that great day of ascension Christ ascended on a cloud and the Spirit came a few days later on the day of Pentecost. What would our new helper do when He came? First and foremost He would reprove. He would reprove us of our sins. He would reprove us of the righteousness. And then He would reprove us of judgment. And if we won’t listen to His reproof then He will rebuke us promptly.

Verse 9 in our text proves that Christ has the power to judge sinners. After all, He is the ultimate judge to judge of us in righteousness and unrighteousness. Righteousness is so needed in our land today. In fact we need to get righteousness back into our churches. As I write this teaching today I do so at the dawn of a presidential election where many Christian people are going to vote for a man to be the president of the United States not on the basis of morality or good policy, but instead on the basis of skin color. Friends there is no skin color in the kingdom so why would we let that be a determining factor in such and important office. Even though the man is very immoral in his belief system and very liberal in his view of human life that doesn’t matter to some Christians. And that is very sad. Yes we need to get righteousness back into the churches. Righteousness is the quality of God that is imputed to us at salvation, because of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. But even though my righteousness comes solely from Christ it is my righteous duty as a citizen of the Kingdom of God to stand up for righteousness in the land that I live my natural life in. And friends believe me supporting the murder of baby infants in their mother’s womb is not the way to gain favor from the giver of all life “God Almighty.”

Another responsibility of our helper is to lead us out of all spiritual ignorance. These are the things that we face in life that are too overwhelming to understand in these natural lives. For these things the Holy Spirit helps us. He also makes a major impact in our lives by speaking to us things that we need to know. He reveals to us that things that He hears the Father say, and by divine guidance leads us into all truth. Our lives need to be ordered around the revelation that the Holy Spirit gives us from the Father. And that revelation can only be formed by reading it in the pages of God’s word. Remember Proverbs 28:11 teaches that without revelation is given to us to influence us to praise Christ. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit never brings glory to Himself, but only to Christ in verse 14. He will glorify Me, And then the Holy Spirit helps us by changing us. He changes our attitudes to that of holiness so that we can be more Christ-like in our attitudes and ambitions. He gives us goals for our life that are pleasing to God within the boundaries of His will. We begin to desire what He wants and to help our fellow man, and to share Christ’s love with others.

And finally He will show us just how to love God by putting our love into action by loving our fellowman. Remember people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. In these final days of the life in this dispensation of the Spirit let’s allow Him to help us and develop our relationship with him like never before.

Continued Next Month