Andrew Leeper – Portadown, Ireland Special Meetings – 2011

John 16:13, “Howbeit, when He the Spirit of truth is comeā€¦things to come.” I was thinking of the Spirit and the work of the Spirit. The Spirit works very closely with Truth. What is guided by the Spirit is Truth. When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, He mentioned those who would worship God in Spirit and in Truth. I have been thinking of the work of the Spirit. When one receives the Spirit of Truth one feels peace and joy that comes from God. The Spirit will only show us what is true and what has come from God. The Spirit has no opinion of His own. It is the same for God’s people and God’s messengers. As we go through life the standard we uphold is not the standard of our own opinion. It is something that comes from God.

Luke 11:13, “If we being evil know….Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.” We need to be obedient to God to have His Spirit. John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. He had been obedient to the Gospel. He was conscious of God’s guidance and he was obedient to it. Because he was in the Spirit, he received words that could be a help to others. It is our privilege to live in the Spirit. As we go through our daily lives, we could have the Spirit and whatsoever situation would arise, our response would be in the Spirit. The Devil put a thought into the mind of Judas and he also puts thoughts into our minds. It is possible for us to believe these thoughts. That’s what Judas did. He believed that thought and it produced in his heart fruit of a different spirit. We can do the very same thing.

One time, the Devil put a thought in my mind and I believed it because I thought it had come from God. I heard people giving testimony and speaking of the thankfulness in their hearts. I couldn’t enter into that, the result was a resentment began to well up in me. That was the fruit of believing a lie. I wasn’t in the Spirit that day so I couldn’t be guided into Truth. In the religious world, there are many people who are believing a lie. We may wonder what is their fault that they are deceived. We are all responsible that we would believe the Truth. The fruit that comes from believing a lie is totally opposite to the fruit of the Spirit. It brings a lack of joy, a lack of peace, and produces resentment. We need to watch our spirits and, as Jesus showed us, we should pray that we have the right spirit.