Jesus Prepares Us to Enter Into His Spirit
Jesus came to earth to prepare the world for entry into the spiritual Promised Land. He did this by giving us His life. The words that He spoke, the miracles that He performed and His promise of a helper that came in the form of the Holy Spirit, set the foundation for our entry into the promise of God.
The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the spirit of Jesus that lives in us and we live in Him. His spirit empowers us. We will now present a few scriptures that support this proposition. The first scripture provides an example of Jesus preparing His disciples to continue His mission after He is gone. He leaves them the promise of the Holy Spirit who will be sent to them by the Father in His name:
If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever; the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. (John 14:14-21)
The next scripture communicates the story of the Holy Spirit’s descent upon the disciples:
When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
The Baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost
And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs; we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, Whatever could this mean? Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.” But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. (Acts 2:1-19)
From that day forward they were empowered through the Holy Spirit of God.
In addition, everything about Jesus’ preparation of the people was better that in the time of Moses. Jesus gave us a perfected law that was written on our hearts and that changed our character (see the section on Jesus-the-Brazen-Laver). We no longer blindly follow rules without understanding but rather change our hearts to become more like Jesus. He gave us a perfected priesthood that came with a perfect sacrifice and a perfect offering. Most importantly, He gave us more than a Pot of Manna to eat; He gave us His body to eat and his blood to drink in the new spiritual covenant (see Jesus-the-Table-of-Showbread and Applying-the-Attributes-of-Jesus-our-Table-of-Showbread).
Read my book entitled, “Possess the Vision.”
Read the truly amazing life story about how the forces of good and evil battle over a man and the vision that God gives him. Joseph W. Gordon’s Possess the Vision (Xulon Press, $12.95, 140 pages, ISBN 1-59781-205-6) tells about the mysterious spiritual experiences that occur throughout his lifetime. They start in his youth when amazingly he has a series of dreams that warn of impending danger that come true. In a mind gripping account he tells what happened when he turned away from God and suffered demonic attacks that took him into spiritual Golgotha, the place of death. There he is confronted by Satin and is brought before the judgment seat of Christ. Fortunately, judgment is not dispensed. He awakes in the hospital the next day disbelieving what he perceives as a very bad dream. He is then pummeled by a series of physical attacks and teeters near death for months. Out of desperation he picks up a bible and later gives his life back to God.
Immediately God responds by leading him through a series of spiritual and prophetic experiences, that when melded together, communicate God’s desire. Possess the Vision weaves these experiences into a proposal to unite Christians in a common ministry to improve the life and living standards of the world’s people — in support of the command of Jesus Christ that we love one another.
SEEKING JESUS 