Third Day – “Spirit” (Devotional)
Oh Lord fill us with Your Spirit. Guide us by Your presence. How we need You, God
The heart cry of this song can be found in Exodus 33 where Moses is commanded by God to lead His people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. Moses’ reply to God in Ex. 33:15 says: ΓÇ£If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.ΓÇ¥
Moses knows he cannot undertake the task God has for him without the presence of God being with him and with the people.
They had known the guiding presence of God through the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night and Moses needed to know that God’s existence would still be manifestly with them. The literal translation here of ‘my presence’ is ‘my face’, and earlier in Exodus 33 we read that Moses was able to talk to God face to face, as one would to a friend. Until then, God’s awesome presence had been too pure, too majestic, and too powerful for any human to withstand.
If we fast forward to the New Testament we discover that God’s presence can literally be in us through his Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the existence of God himself in your life! God lives in you. More than that, the Holy Spirit is the PERSONAL presence of God himself in your life! The third person of the Trinity lives in you. Even more than that, the Holy Spirit is God’s personal, HOLY presence in your life! Refining you, cleansing you, making you more like Jesus. Yet even more than that, the Holy Spirit is God’s personal, holy, EMPOWERING presence in your life. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available in you and through you-so that you have power to live by, and power to touch others lives. As believers, we are indistinguishable from everyone else in this world without the existence of God in our lives.
With God’s Spirit present in our lives, we can at one and the same time, grow closer to Jesus and lead others closer to him as well.
How about using the chorus of SPIRIT right now as your prayer:
Oh Lord fill us with Your Spirit
Guide us by Your presence
How we need You, God
Written by Nigel James (THIRD DAYΓÇÖs Road Pastor)