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The Spirit is the mark of belonging, not your church attendance, not your knowledge, not your family background, not how you feel on your best day, the Spirit of Christ dwelling in you, that is what makes a person his.

Romans 8:9, Paul is crystal clear about what each room produces, Romans 8:6. Life and peace, that is what the Spirit produces, not anxiety about whether you measure up. Life and peace and then Romans 8:9 comes in and it tells you which room you are in, but you are not in the flesh but in the...

Romans 8:9, look at what Paul just did, in one sentence, he used two different names, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, two phrases, one breath, no explanation. The second name is the key, because if you understand what Paul means when he says the Spirit of Christ, you will understand...

Ephesians 1:13-14, how do you carry the sealing of the Spirit into a Tuesday afternoon? The seal changes how you face your worst moments, when the fear comes, the fear that says you are not really God’s, you do not argue with the fear, you remember the seal. You remember that the Spirit of the...

Ephesians 1:13-14, the Spirit in you is the proof that you are genuine, not a forgery and you are secured, held, protected until the day of redemption, then Paul adds the word that changes everything. The Spirit is the down payment, the first installment of the inheritance already paid into your...

Ephesians 13-14, the day of redemption is not wishful thinking, that is what the seal is for, it is the guarantee that the full payment is coming and that the ones who were sealed are not lost. The question that is probably forming in your mind, if I am sealed, does that mean I can do whatever I...

Ephesians 1:13-14, so what is this inheritance? Paul says the Spirit is the down payment of your inheritance to the redemption of God’s own possession. Redemption, that word means to buy back, to set free by payment. And God’s own possession, do you hear the echo in that? In the Old Testament...

Ephesians 1:13-14, consider Acts chapter 2, a small room in Jerusalem, a handful of believers, still grieving, still confused, still not sure what to do next. And then the sound, like wind filling the whole house, tongues of fire resting on each one of them and they began to speak in languages...

Ephesians 1:13-14, the sealing was not your work, it was done to you at the moment you believed, yet consider what happened next in that house church in Ephesus. The letter is being read aloud, because that is how these letters worked, a reader stands in the middle of the room and the believers...

Ephesians 1:13-14, consider following a sealed document for a moment, because this is where the image gets its teeth. A courier leaves the port city carrying that contract to a buyer 200 miles away, he crosses mountains, he sleeps in roadside inns where thieves watch the door, he passes through...

Ephesians 1:13-14, one word in the Greek and in the world Paul lived in, that one word could settle a legal dispute, prove who owns something and keep a letter safe across a thousand miles of Roman roads and Paul says that word is what God has done you. The word is sealed, Ephesians 1:13, most...

(Personal actions of the Holy Spirit,) now the title has been answered, scripture gives the Spirit the actions of a personal subject, he communicates, knows, wills, directs and relates and scripture places him within the identity and work of God. But the deepest consequence is still ahead...

(Personal actions of the Holy Spirit,) then Romans 8:26-27, this personal action is intercession, the exact nature of the groanings is debated. Some understand them as the Spirit's own inexpressible intercession, others understand the Spirit working through the believer’s wordless groaning, some...

(Personal actions of the Holy Spirit,) at this point, scripture takes you beyond personhood, the Spirit is not merely a created personal messenger standing near God. In Acts chapter 5, Ananias lies about money he has kept back. Peter says he has lied to the Holy Spirit, then says he has not lied...

The Spirit is not the Father, the Spirit is not the Son, yet he acts in the identity and work of the one God, that is why Paul can write in 2 Corinthians 13:14, fellowship. That word fellowship belongs to relationship, not machinery. Historic Christianity has confessed the Spirit as personal and...

(Personal actions of there Holy Spirit,) the Holy Spirit is not standing outside God waiting to be briefed, he knows the depths that already moves beyond the picture of an impersonal influence. But Corinth’s problem requires more than knowledge, the church is not only asking, who understands, it...

(Personal actions of the Holy Spirit,) Romans 8:16, a personal action is testimony, the Spirit bears witness about Christ and he bears witness with believers regarding adoption, that does not mean every strong inner sensation comes from him, feelings rise and fall for many reasons. Paul places...

(Personal actions of the Holy Spirit,) the next pressure is knowing where to go, Paul and his companions are traveling in Acts chapter 16, they have a mission, they have a map, they are trying preach, their first route closes. Acts says they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit from speaking the...