7 Steps to Walking the Spiritual Walk
Here are 7 suggestions that will fuel a passion for the things of the Spirit and further educate how to live a life directed by him.
Articles on God the Holy Spirit
80 results found
10 Key Bible Verses on the Holy Spirit
These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
10 Benefits of Reading the Bible: Part 1
Ask God to give you eyes to see the worth of Scripture and to waken in you an unyielding desire for the Word of God.
3 Ways Christians Are Sanctified
There are three primary agents in the character formation or sanctification of a Christian—ways that God uses to change us.
10 Things You Should Know about Theophanies
A theophany is a visible display to human beings that expresses the presence and character of God.
Spiritual Blessing: More than Just a Nice Feeling
God's blessings are more than just polite sayings or false promises—we have assurance of these blessings from the the Holy Spirit.
10 Things You Should Know about the Trinity
God wants us to learn about and consider the Trinity. Here are 10 things you should know.
10 Questions about Spiritual Gifts
Spiritual gifts are capacities or abilities imparted to Christians by the Holy Spirit to enable them to exceed the limitations of their finite humanity in order to serve other believers to the glory of God.
What Did Jesus Teach about Prayer?
As mediator, Jesus brings us to God, but he does so by pouring out his Spirit upon us so that our own prayer life is to replicate his prayer life in terms of how the Holy Spirit binds us to our Father in heaven.
10 Reasons to Study the Holy Spirit
Joel R. Beeke, Paul M. Smalley
The Holy Spirit is God. Therefore, to study the person and works of the Holy Spirit is a great opportunity to know God in a better way.
How the Resurrection Changes Everything
Jesus death an resurrection changed everything, and it has the power to change us.
10 Things You Should Know about God’s Attributes
When we speak of his attributes, we must keep in mind that because his essence remains undivided, his goodness is his power. Or, God’s love is his power is his eternity is his immutability is his omniscience is his goodness, and so forth.
How the Holy Spirit Helps Us Read Scripture
Following Jesus by faith (i.e., discipleship) is the foundation of understanding. We don’t simply understand and then follow. We come to understand as we follow. This is the work of the Spirit.
An Open Letter to the Weary Pastor
The gospel gives hope and encouragement to weary pastors—hope and encouragement that cannot be found anywhere else.
According to the entire witness of Holy Scripture, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not three gods. Nor are they some confederation of the one God with lesser gods. These three are the one God.
Was the Trinity Torn Apart at the Cross?
Jesus's quoting of Psalm 22 on the cross has been a source of wonder and speculation. What can and can’t we say about this cry?
The Key to Spiritual Stability in the Christian Life
As you prayerfully saturate your mind with God's Word, it begins more and more to control your thinking and behavior.
Does Scripture Teach that Jesus Is Fully God?
One of the most debated, and at times perplexing, aspects of belief in the Trinity is the question “Does Scripture actually teach that Jesus is fully God?”
How Reliable Is Your Conscience?
Martin Luther believed that maintaining a good conscience was worth going to prison for and even dying for.
Orthodoxy and Heresy Orthodoxy means right doctrine or belief. In one very important sense it is essential to salvation. Although we are saved entirely by the grace of God, not on the basis of the …
Communing with the Holy Spirit
In order to experience the Spirit’s power, we need know the Spirit as a Person, to begin a relationship with him through prayer.
10 Things You Should Know about the Incarnation
The Son, who is in eternal relation to the Father and Spirit, willingly humbled himself and chose to assume a human nature in obedience to his Father and for our salvation (Phil. 2:6-8).
A Thought Experiment to Help Recalibrate Our Beliefs about the Trinity
Matthew Y. Emerson, Brandon D. Smith
The way we talk about God’s acts often divides the persons of God in a way that is contrary to our confession that God is one God in three persons.
The Holy Spirit, Our Helper and Beautifier
Without the Holy Spirit, the church would never have been founded. Godly leaders would never have been called, believers added, gifts distributed, service rendered, or growth realized.
What God Starts, He Always Finishes
As New Testament passages abundantly emphasize, God is faithful to sustain and establish us in our relationship with Jesus.
What Does It Mean to Walk in the Spirit?
Margaret Elizabeth Köstenberger
Prior to their new life in Christ, New Testament believers had not experienced the continual indwelling of the Spirit. It was at Pentecost that the Spirit came upon the first believers and the church was born.
10 Things You Should Know about the Holy Spirit
When you find your mind wandering or getting lost in the details of pneumatology (the doctrine of the Holy Spirit), just call back to mind the basic Christian confession that there is one God in three persons.
To be converted as a Christian is to have changed your thinking and your believing about Jesus Christ, and to be changed into a person who is no longer an enemy of God but a beloved child of God.
What Does It Mean that Jesus Is Prophet, Priest, and King?
Jesus has one office, that of Messiah or Christ. He is the anointed one, the one mediator between God and man, the Savior. But this office has three aspects to it: those of prophet, priest, and king.
The Trinity Transforms the Church into a Community of Love
Just as the church is the glorious gift of love from God the Father to Christ the Son, so the church, as the body of Christ, reflects that Trinitarian love and beauty outwardly to the world.
An Open Letter to the Christian Disheartened by Ongoing Temptation
D. A. Carson, John D. Woodbridge
That you are experiencing rounds of temptation is not as unusual as you might suppose. From the inception of the church believers have found this pilgrim way to be strewn with multiple temptations.
10 Things You Should Know about Christmas
The primary purpose for observing Christmas is remembering Jesus’s birth.
What Is Distinct about the Theology of Ephesians?
Why has this small letter had such a big impact on the church? The answer, at least in part, is due to the depth and diversity of topics emphasized in the letter.
Help! I Can’t Get Control over My Tongue
There is an intimate path between our words and our heart. Our speech simply puts on display what is produced in the heart–whether good or evil.
Good Bible Reading Requires Humility
The first step in reading the Bible in the power of another is to begin with humility. It begins with the renunciation of pride.
Godly growth and change happens through 5 influences and circumstances: God, Scripture, wise people, suffering, and you.
5 Truths about God’s Unity of Simplicity
God’s unity of simplicity means that God is one with himself, selfsame and indivisible in his being and operations, and God is not composed of parts.
How Scripture Empowers Personal Holiness
God wants Christians to share his holiness and to present themselves as slaves of righteousness, which will result in holiness.
Should We Pray in, for, or to the Holy Spirit?
While it is possible for Christians to pray to the Spirit, for the Spirit, and in the Spirit, the Bible overwhelmingly focuses on one of these.
Personal Actions of The Holy Spirit
Erik Thoennes meditates with us on who the Holy Spirit is and what he does.
The glorious good news of Jesus is that you and I can change. Part of the problem is we often try to change in the wrong way.
What Was the Holy Spirit’s Role in the Incarnation?
Joel R. Beeke, Paul M. Smalley
Christ would not be the God-man apart from the power of the Spirit forming his humanity from Mary’s flesh. God’s promises hinge upon this great work.
The Problem with Trying to Portray the Holy Spirit
As we strive to know the Holy Spirit the way he makes himself known in Scripture, we are constantly tempted to add a few details, to quietly nudge the Spirit in the direction of being more immediately vivid.
We were made for closeness to others and to God through Christ, and yet it doesn’t always feel as though we can grasp God’s nearness to us.
My Breakthrough in Scripture Memory
Maybe the breakthrough could come with some simple change in perspective. What if Scripture memory really was about today?
Why Sanctification Is Not Passive
Sanctification is absolutely essential to the life of faith—so much so that Scripture frequently treats holiness as the identifying mark of a true believer.
Are You Frustrated by Others’ Spiritual Immaturity?
The Holy Spirit guarantees that he is at work. He will continue to be at work until it is completed on the day of Christ Jesus.
Matthew Y. Emerson, Brandon D. Smith
The eternal communion of Father, Son, and Spirit is the grounds for our communion with him and one another. Our triune God, simple and perfect for all of eternity, has always been the one God.
Devon Provencher, Jessica Robyn Provencher
How can we avoid unintentionally communicating to our littles untrue things about God?
Faith is much more than a one-time decision; it is a lifestyle lived with the presence, promises, and call of God always in view.
“Why Have You Forsaken Me?” Understanding Jesus’s Cry on the Cross
Matthew Y. Emerson, Brandon D. Smith
The crucifixion is a good case study in showing how a careful Trinitarian framework can help work through thorny issues related to the Trinity and salvation.
On the side of God’s infinity, there is a complete chasm between God on one side and man, the animal, the flower, and the machine on the other. On the side of God’s infinity, He stands alone.
Nativity Scenes, T-Rexes, and the Gestalt Shift
One of the most powerful human experiences is when one construal is replaced with another, when a shift in the Gestalt happens and we come to see in a different way.
A Brief History of the Doctrine of the Work of the Holy Spirit
Many people will be surprised to discover that the work of the Holy Spirit was not developed as a doctrine until after the Protestant Reformation.
How to Read (and Not Read) the Bible
We have to read the Bible as literature, but we also have to recognize that it is unlike any other book we know.
Why Bible Study Should Always Lead to Worship
Anytime we spend time gazing at who God is as he’s described in the Scriptures, we cannot help but be drawn into worship.
Have You Ever (Really) Read the Bible?
True understanding of Scripture comes when we set aside our earthly and sinful desires and instead seek God's glory.
If you are responding to Jesus and following him, then you are praying.
Podcast: Common Misconceptions about the Trinity (Fred Sanders)
Fred Sanders explains why the doctrine of the Trinity is essential to the gospel, highlights why Trinitarian analogies are of limited value, and responds to the charge that three-in-one is inherently illogical.
What Ministry “Freshness” Means
More than anything else, we want to guard our relationship with God with a sense of urgency, and deal with anything that hinders that relationship. Our primary desire is God.
Why Is It So Hard to Discern the Work of the Holy Spirit in My Life?
You come to awareness and confession and belief in Christ and then gradually become aware that if you are successfully believing in Jesus, it’s because the Spirit is at work within you.
Our faith and all that flows from it in the Christian life is due to the Spirit, who renews us in the image of God and transforms us into Christ.
Is the Fruit of the Spirit More Like a Pie or a Tree?
Rather than picturing the Spirit’s fruit as a homemade pie that depends on its ingredients, we are to picture it as a tree. A fruitful tree is dependent on external factors to survive and thrive.
Experiencing Gospel Transformation in 2017
Paul teaches that the very resurrection life of Christ dwells in those who have been united to this risen Lord.
What John Piper Wants You to Know about the Bible
In his two of his newest books, John Piper helps us to understand and enjoy the Bible for what it truly is—the very Word of God.
How Pentecost Stands as a Pattern for the Church's Life
Men and women in their blindness and sin have done their very best to ruin the Christian church.
How Christians Evidence Christ’s Victory
Between the victory on the cross and the present day, and on to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, did God intend that there should be any evidence of the reality of the victory of the cross?
We all need help and we are all helpers—that’s part of being human.
Podcast: What Really Happened at Pentecost? (Patrick Schreiner)
Patrick Schreiner discusses the story of Pentecost—the account of the sending of the Holy Spirit to indwell God’s people in a new and powerful way.
Excellent Revelations through Ordinary Means
As was typical among the Puritans, the Lord’s Supper is seen not simply as a memory aid, but an occasion in which Christ is present among his people through the Holy Spirit.
As humanity proved incapable of fulfilling God’s purposes from the very beginning, God, in his grace, became present to do what man was unable to do.
Read a sampling from the ESV Daily Light Devotional Bible.*
Video: How to Cultivate "Gospel-Doctrine" and "Gospel-Culture"
Ray Ortlund sits down with Justin Taylor to discuss his new book, The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ.
Podcast: What an Old Puritan Can Teach Us about the Holy Spirit (Andrew Ballitch)
Andrew Ballitch discusses John Owen’s writings about the Holy Spirit and insights into spiritual gifts, the illumination of Scripture, and how the Spirit indwells believers.
Podcast: What Is Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? (Fred Sanders)
In this episode, Fred Sanders answers questions about the Holy Spirit—What does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit? Why did Jesus call that sin “unforgivable”?
Podcast: 5 Strange Stories in the Book of Acts (Nancy Guthrie)
Nancy Guthrie answers a series of questions about some of the amazing but at times confusing stories in the book of Acts.
Andrew Young on Power in Weakness in Acts (Season 2, Episode 7)
Join Nancy Guthrie as she talks with pastor Andrew Young about a framework for understanding both divine power and human weakness on display throughout the book of Acts.
Podcast: What Was the Trinity Doing on Christmas Day? (Matthew Emerson and Brandon Smith)
Matt Emerson and Brandon Smith explain what the doctrine known as the inseparable operations of the Trinity is all about.
Fred Sanders on the Holy Spirit in Acts (Season 2, Episode 3)
Join Nancy Guthrie as she talks with theologian Fred Sanders about the person and work of the Holy Spirit and specifically about his descent and indwelling of believers in the book of Acts.
Richard Gaffin and Tommy Keene on Pentecost (Season 2, Episode 4)
Join Nancy Guthrie as she talks with professors Richard Gaffin and Thomas Keene about the book of Acts and primarily about Pentecost and its meaning for the early church and for us today.