My friends and family who are now fully vaccinated are feeling a unique sense of freedom and empowerment right now. People they couldn’t go see they are now seeing. Trips they had delayed they are now taking. Teachers are now back in the classroom. Grandparents are buying plane tickets to see their grandkids. The vaccine has now given them a superpower against COVID-19. Even if exposed to the coronavirus, they have a 90% chance of not getting sick. And if they happen to be in the 10%, they will only get a very mild case that will resolve quickly.
If you are not yet vaccinated, imagine that feeling. The feeling of freedom and empowerment. The feeling of safety and security. The feeling of being at an advantage rather than a disadvantage to this pandemic.
Christians should know this feeling well. This should be the feeling we have about having the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. We have been given a great advantage in this world, but many of us are not taking advantage of our advantage. We have been given an incredible dose of freedom and power, safety and security. We have the Spirit of living God living in us, changing us, freeing us from sin, empowering us to live as Jesus lived. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now lives in us.
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Romans 8:11
Imagine someone gets vaccinated and yet still lives as if they are not. This is how some Christians are living in regards to the Spirit. Or imagine getting the first dose and never going back for the second. This is how some Christians are living who have the Spirit and are saved but who do not live filled with the Spirit. The Spirit reveals things to us that only God knows. We have access to the wisdom, the knowledge, and the power of God through the Spirit. But are we accessing what we’ve been given access to?
The apostle Paul tried to tell the Corinthians just how amazing it is that we now have the Holy Spirit.
…as it is written:
1 Corinthians 2:9-14
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[Isaiah 64:4]—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
Do you know all that was given to you when you received the Holy Spirit? You are now a conduit of the Kingdom of God on the earth. You’ve been given power over sin. You’ve been given the right to be called a child of God. You are a vessel of God’s power to heal, deliver, and save. The Light of the world lives in you making you the light of the world. The wisdom of God for the problems of this world are waiting to be downloaded to your heart and mind so that you can bring answers that no one else has thought of.
The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for,
1 Corinthians 2:15-16
“Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”[Isaiah 40:13]
But we have the mind of Christ.
Maybe it’s time we revisit all that we’ve been given when we were given the Holy Spirit.
Fire and Light 