COME ALIVE to the Spirit of God today.
“Leave me alone!” I said (or yelled) that a thousand times to my brother and three sisters when I was a kid.
“Don’t leave me alone!” I said that to my dad when I was seven, just as our family walked through the front gates of Disneyland into a giant cloud of strangers. “Stay close to me,” dad said. I obeyed because I didn’t want to be lost in the big D eternally. At that moment, the happiest place on earth looked pretty frightening to me.
When Jesus told His disciples He would be leaving them, they were frightened, too. “Stay close to Me and obey Me” Jesus said, “and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you…at that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you” (John 14:16-17, 20b, niv, msg).
Jesus told His disciples that after He rose from the dead and led the way into a new dimension of aliveness, He would be with them through the Holy Spirit. “Just as the Father was with me and within me through the Holy Spirit, I will be with you and within you through the Holy Spirit. I road tested this thing and it works very well. Mark my words, this is the life!”
What made this intimate union possible was the Lord’s death on the cross. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive (John 14:19, msg). Because He came alive after being dead, we can do the same.
So Jesus sent the Spirit to help us by showing us how to do it.
Life Challenge: Invite the Holy Spirit to help you come alive today. Make a mental note to request the same thing from Him at least two more times today.