DAY THREE -- Jesus the Spirit-Giver

I am a seasoned veteran of Sunday School, a charter member of the church nursery. After half a century I can still be found within the walls of a sanctuary most Sunday mornings. As a child, I went to church to learn God’s Word and one thing I knew for sure was that we were a people of the Word.

Year after year, our teachers instructed us in the fine points of faith while we yawned in eager acquiescence. Everything fit together, and that was nice because we didn’t have to be afraid of religious renegades infiltrating and defiling Christ's church. We could spot them a mile away.

As a college student trying to understand Scripture on my own for the first time, I found my equilibrium often upset. The Bible seemed more, in Annie Dillard's words, like a scandalous document than the concise compilation on God I'd gotten growing up. Dillard relates how she thought if her teachers had really read the thing, they would have hid it for its dangerous implications. Instead she notes, our teachers bade us study great chunks of it, and think about those chunks, and commit them to memory, and ignore them. [Dillard, Annie, An American Childhood, Harper & Row, 1987, p. 135]

I remember reading John's words about Jesus coming to baptize us with the Spirit and with fire, and I was sure that my concept of the Holy Spirit had been sorely deficient. I'd always been taught that we get the Holy Spirit when we pray the sinner's prayer, and that is that. We get IT ALL. Period. No subsequent outpourings, no ecstatic experiences, nothing but the Spirit of God come to live within our hearts like a guest who shows up for dinner and decides to stay for good. Though news of His coming brought gladness to our souls, it seemed for all practical purposes as if He'd gone into retirement upon arrival.

In looking to see how those outside my tradition handled the outlandish implications of John's words about Jesus, I was disappointed that they had their own box into which the Holy Spirit nicely fit. Some boxes were bigger or of a more peculiar shape, but boxes they were. We had it wired, we'd all in some fashion made the Spirit a manageable component of our Christian walk. (Acts 5:41).

But those words -- baptize and fire -- troubled me. As a good Baptist, I knew that baptism meant going under all the way, being drenched, dunked, every inch submerged. That, plus a mental picture of forest fires burning out of control made me wonder how anyone thought we could ever get IT ALL at any point in time -- whether in salvation, or some second, third or even fourth blessing.

Scripture refers to the Holy Spirit as a river, a turbulent force that surges along, destroying debris in its wake, sweeping up anything caught in its path. The prophet Ezekiel, in his fantastic vision sees himself going in ankle deep at first, then up to his knees, and finally swimming in water impossible to ford at all (Ezekiel 47).

Reading that made me think that immersion into the Spirit of God must take a lifetime, that there would be tumultuous times when I'd have to hang on for all I was worth. Like Shel Silverstein's poem about the Boa Constrictor, I am in the process of being swallowed by a force infinitely greater than my mind can conceive. Oh gee, he's up to my knee...oh my, he's up to my thigh, oh fiddle, he's reached my middle...and on it goes.

Given the all-consuming nature of the Holy Spirit, it seems inane to have ever thought He would do His work in one take. Perhaps that's why when Paul commanded us to be filled with the Spirit, He used a verb tense that indicates process -- more literally translated keep being filled (Ephesians 5:18). The Holy Spirit is as boundless as the Godhead of which He is a part, and I rejoice therefore that in my lifetime, I will never get IT ALL.

Meanwhile, a day is coming when Christ will manifest His reign at the right hand of the Father, when every enemy will be silenced and every believer will bow in joyous submission, casting their crowns at His feet. Until then, He is about establishing His kingdom in the hearts of men. To that end that He promises to give the Spirit without measure (Luke 11:9-13, John 3:34-35).

The Holy Spirit's one agenda is to glorify Jesus, to make known in and through and to us the reality of the exalted Christ, and to empower us to joyfully yield control of our lives. It won't happen all at once and thus Jesus invites us to keep coming back, to keep drinking at the well of His glory, promising that as we do, gurgling springs of God-Spirit will well up within, transforming us from the inside out.

The river of God runs as wide as His mercy, as deep as His love and as ponderous as His passion for His own glory. Jesus, Spirit-Giver, will come to us as raging fire and rushing water -- breathing, baptizing, infusing, replenishing and saturating our souls until that day we enter eternity, and know at once that we've only just begun to get IT ALL.

When you think of Jesus as the Spirit-Giver, how does your view of the Holy Spirit change? What kind of box have you placed Him in? Some people box Him in as something you simply claim by faith, as if experience is irrelevant. Some people do the opposite, boxing Him into ecstatic experiences or dramatic signs. What does your box look like? As you hear Jesus speaking over you His desire to fully immerse, to drench you with His Spirit and with fire, what do you think He is saying? Whether you feel you've experienced this or not, take the time today to ask Him to take you deeper into the river. Ask Jesus to fulfill this promise and wait upon Him with an open heart.

The primary work of the Spirit within us is sanctification -- a lifelong process of setting us apart to belong wholly to Christ. The most powerful manifestation of God's Spirit is a life completely committed to exalting Christ through obedience. As you consider your experience of the Holy Spirit, how is He manifesting Himself? In what ways do you see your life exalting Christ through increasing obedience to His Word?

We will never grasp the depths of the Holy Spirit, for He is the infinite I Am, the breath of very God, come to live within us. He is a gift from Jesus to those who belong to Him and He promises to be ever welling up from the depths of our being, filling us with joy and transforming us by His power. Ponder this for a few minutes. Write a prayer of response.

Jesus, how You must smile at my foolish notions. To think I could ever explain or contain Your Spirit – that infinite, boundless, swirling breath of life You blew into my soul so many years ago. Oh how graciously You've led me into the river that flows from Your throne and out of my innermost being. I long for the day my Spirit-giver, when I am in so deep that I do nothing but yield to the current of Your love, letting You wash over and in and through, transforming me for Your glory. For this I yearn, for this I will come again and again, oh blessed Spirit-giver.