2016.05.08_Holy Spirit Who Perfects Our Faith

 To cooperate with God, our faith must be perfect

God does His work. The image most people typically have in their minds is that of god just sitting in a chair without doing anything, but God’s character is very different from that image. God is the one who has continually done His work, even before humanity and the world existed. The Bible starts with the scene of creation, and the last chapter finishes with God completing His work after achieving all of His will.

If we misunderstand God as One who is still and doing nothing, or if we feel unconcerned though He is not at work with us, that is a serious issue, for we are God’s children and co-workers who should work together with Him. How can we form a relationship and work with Him? It is faith that makes it possible. Faith enables us to build a strong and everlasting relationship with the invisible God. We must struggle to strongly root this faith in us.

Our faith might be at a much lower level than what we think. What we need to seek is a perfect faith. A perfect faith is not a self-contented faith, but a faith which God approves of. Having a complete faith is not possible through our effort;, it is possible only when God makes our faith perfect.

Knowing God means experiencing Him

What is the way to make our faith perfect? The most important thing is to know God. God does not do His work alone. As mentioned above, while God works, He does not work alone, but works, necessarily, through His Son. In other words, God does not go beyond His Son when He does His work.

God appointed His Son as heir of all things, and through His Son He created all things (Heb 1:2, John 1:3). God created heaven and earth, but not alone – He brought His Son into the act of creation. However, all works were actually performed by God. When a builder constructs a building, he should build based on the blueprint of an architect. In this case, the building is said to be built by the architect, not the builder. God set His will, and His Son carries out His will and achieves it.

Jesus said, “For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it” (John 12:49). Seeing the Son of God is to see God Himself, and knowing the Son of God is to know God Himself. One who knows God and Jesus Christ, whom He sent, gains eternal life (John 17:3).

What does ‘knowing’ mean? Is it just about some information inserted into one’s brain? Eternal life is gained not by inserting some information into one’s mind, but through experiences. God allows us to know the truth so that we can gain eternal life. We must clearly understand the meaning of knowing the truth. To know means to experience.

The Holy Spirit helps us experience the truth

The work of God and His Son is focused on giving mankind eternal life. The Bible says, speaking on God’s work, “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16), while the Son says, “When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). The Son also says, “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you” (John 16:14-15). The Father gave all that He has to His Son, and Son gives it to us through the Holy Spirit.

If the Holy Spirit does not work, no one can come to Jesus. Even if a person comes inside a church building, he or she is not said to have come to Jesus. To come to Jesus, one must have an experience through the Holy Spirit. The Lord’s words, “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth,” does not mean that ‘if Holy Spirit comes gently upon us and achieves all works, we are automatically guided into all truth.’ Knowing the truth is a great and distinct experience.

The Law and prophesies of prophets are not truth. Jesus indicated that He Himself is truth (John 14:6). Thus, the words saying that the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth mean that the Holy Spirit guides us to Jesus. Then how can we be guided to Jesus, in spite of Jesus’ ascension? The word that Jesus is truth means Jesus’ blood is truth. His flesh that He distributed to us is also truth. Truth is Jesus Christ Himself. Gospel that contains all of Jesus’ work is also truth. Ultimately, all merits that Jesus did, His death on the cross and resurrection are truth for us.

The Lord wants His merits to be confirmed in us through the Holy Spirit. We already know that ‘Jesus died on the cross. He shed His blood and was torn in His body for us.’ However, we cannot feel at ease since information stored in our brain can be taken away. In order not to be robbed of truth until we enter the kingdom of heaven, we must be confirmed of the merit of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. From God’s standpoint, that is setting His seal on our faith as confirmation, and from our part, that is having assurance of the truth.

The Holy Spirit guides us into God’s will. We must not block the inspiration of the Holy Spirit with our biases or stereotypes; rather we must let the Holy Spirit guide us as much as He pleases. God gave His will to His Son, the Son carried out and fulfilled the Father’s will as it is, and the Holy Spirit causes saints to attain eternal life without losing anyone, guiding them into God’s will that has been fulfilled through the Son (John 6:38-39). The Holy Spirit makes our faith a solid foundation by experiencing the truth.

Be Changed through the Holy Spirit, and Carry Out the Ministry of Spreading the Gospel Which the Lord Left Us With

Through the work of the Holy Spirit our faith becomes perfect. From that moment, the Holy Spirit carries out His second task, which is changing the nature of saints, removing stubbornness, biases, and secular rubbish that we had in our past. This is to make us capable of doing the Lord’s work that He left us. The Lord wants us to labor, endure, and work like Him (Matthew 16:24). The work that the Lord left us with is to spread grace to others that is achieved by the Lord’s blood. To do that work, we have to agonize in our hearts, be weary in our flesh, and even be threatened of death. Thus, without the Holy Spirit, no one can be a witness of Jesus.

We must keep the new commandment while spreading the gospel. In other words, we must do both tasks at the same time – saving souls and serving others. Keeping the new commandment means testifying that we are the ones who have received grace through Jesus’ blood. Taking part in Holy Communion whenever we gather is confirming that we are the ones who have received grace from the precious blood. When we do it, people outside of the church can acknowledge us to be people of God, and through it, they are also given the opportunity to glorify God (John 13:35).

The Holy Spirit changes our minds and even our nature, because through that change we can do the work that Lord left us more effectively. We should be pleased to suffer and endure, rather than be pleased when succeeding alone when others fail. We must always show each other trust and faithfulness to our church. We must endeavor for God’s will that was left with us to be fulfilled by our church. For this, the Holy Spirit perfects our faith.

 Summarized by Sungrak Mission Center