3rd Night Notes

Here are the notes I have prepared for Wednesday night. Ignore the little 'notes to self' - that is how I keep my place. Also, remember there is a lot of dialogue between each statement. These notes are made up of the things that occurred to me as I was doing my 'homeowrk' (dont you hate people who use quotes all the time? I promise I dont do "air quotes" when I talk to people in person). I use these notes to keep me on track so that I dont end up making and hour and a half class into a three hour class. Anyway, I hope they are easy to understand (I wrote them so they are pretty simple ;-).
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This week's study was all about the Miracle of the Holy Spirit

Do we see the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as a miracle today?

I don’t think we do.

Maybe its because our culture has a sense of entitlement - maybe we think the Holy Spirit is the least God can do for all the trouble we have to go through here on earth. Maybe its because we don’t understand enough about the Holy Spirit to really grasp the ‘concept’ of being indwelt by the Spirit of God OR maybe, (and this is my personal opinion) we don’t really BELIEVE in the power of the Holy Spirit, so the Holy Spirit is just ‘church talk’ to many of us

The truth is that the miracle of our receiving the Holy Spirit at salvation today is no more of a miracle than when the people we read about in the book of Acts received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

We are at a disadvantage today in that we have so many miraculous inventions and distractions (ie TV, Internet) that we are too busy to notice the Holy Spirit that lives within us. Those people were hungry for a sign from God - our lives are so filled with outside influences that we don’t even have (or take) time to tap into the power God has given us.

Over and over in the Old Testament we read about God speaking to people. Abraham, Moses, etc. etc. all audibly heard God speak to them - there was no question about what God wanted them to do - He told them plainly what to do (dosnt mean they always obeyed, but they knew what to do)

Today God still speaks to us - not audibly but through the Holy Spirit.

Even though we don’t have an audible voice to hear today (we have the still small voice of the Holy Spirit), we are still held just as accountable as Moses, Abraham and other OT believers for how we obey.

In the Old Testament God spoke to His people using His own voice or sometimes angels. In the New Testament He spoke through Jesus and today He speaks through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is how He has chosen to communicate with us today and we are to obey that voice just as the people in the OT were to obey the direct voice of God.

The manner in which He speaks today is different, but His ultimate purpose is the same - for us to listen to Him and obey what He says.

On page 30, the book talks about how sometimes the Lord confirms His voice to us through others or His word
Does anyone have an example of the Lord speaking to you in a sensational way?

John 16:7 says, “But 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 go, I will send Him to you.”
Old Testament believers had to go through the priests and make sacrifices to get to God - we get to go directly to God and never have to worry about sacrifices because Jesus took care of that on the cross - He is our sacrifice. We think of the people in the OT as being closer to God, but in reality, we have an advantage in coming to the Lord because of the Holy Spirit.

On page 32, day 2, the title is The Conscience and The Holy Spirit
I think a lot of people confuse their conscience and the Holy Spirit - she makes a good point that even non-Christians can have a moral conscience - we all know unsaved people who live basically moral lives (ie. don’t steal, don’t cheat, etc). The difference is non-Christians do not have the Holy Spirit

Page 35, day 3, starts the section titled The Guidance of the Holy Spirit
I think day 2 and day 3 go together in that the Holy Spirit transforms our conscience to align with the desires of Christ -
The Holy Spirit is not your conscience, but the Holy Spirit is working in and through your conscience to accomplish God’s plan for your life
1 Thessalonians 5:23 says “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ“.
Notice that spirit and soul are mentioned before body.

Most of the time we are more interested in our physical bodies than our spirit and soul

Name some things we do to take care of our physical body

Name some things we do to take care of our spirit/soul


Day 4, page 38 talks about being transformed by the Holy Spirit
Romans 7:14-19 says “For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am made out of flesh, sold into sin's power. For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.”

On page 38, what did you say was the biggest battle between flesh and spirit?
From the time we are saved (even before) the Holy Spirit is working to make us like Jesus - we/ourselves are the roadblock - we don’t allow the Spirit to perfect us - a lot of the time our problem is that we have too much of the world in us to enjoy Jesus and too much of Jesus in us to enjoy the world.

On page 39, how many of you answered that you struggle most to present your mouth as a living sacrifice ?
Day 5 - Led By the Holy Spirit
When we are saved, the Holy Spirit begins to change our hearts and minds so that what we may have done before we no longer want to do -The Holy Spirit is kind of like a marriage counselor - Jesus is the Bridegroom and we are the bride - the Holy Spirit helps keep us tuned into our Bridegroom - the Spirit helps us remain faithful to our Bridegroom

The problem is that we are fickle - even though we have the Spirit - we don’t always listen and are not always faithful in our relationship with God - thankfully He is faithful when we are not

Have you ever thought of your love of the world, things, etc as committing adultery?

If your husband came to you and said, “Honey, I love you, but I also love a few other women and I like to spend time with them and spend money on them just as much as I like to do those things for you”

Wouldn’t you say that is adultery?

Same thing with our relationship with God - when we (the bride) make the things of this world as important as our relationship with God, we are committing adultery

On page 42, What is the difference between seeking God’s will and seeking Him?