Commissioned: Powered Up: Living With the Holy SpiritSample

Who is the Holy Spirit?

In Jesus’s final teaching to his disciples, he promised to send them “another Advocate.” The word translated as “Advocate” is paraclete, a term that means spokesman, mediator, intercessor, comforter, consoler. As we read Jesus’s teaching about this paraclete, we realize that he is all of these things and more. He is the one who continues Jesus’s presence on earth after Jesus returned to the Father. The Holy Spirit is God with us, just as Jesus was.

Jesus said, “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.” He went on the say, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” When the Holy Spirit is present, Jesus and the Father are also present. This is part of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God is three persons of one substance. When one of the divine persons is present, all of God is present, not just part of God. The three persons of the Trinity always agree and always act together. They always speak one word. Jesus spoke the words of the Father; and the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, speaks the same words.

The Holy Spirit is God with us. He is God at work in the world today, continuing to do the Father’s will as the Son did. The Holy Spirit is present in the lives of all who live in loving obedience to Jesus. He enfolds us into the Trinity: “On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me and I in you.” When we abide in Christ, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. We are in Christ and Christ is in us. These realities cannot be pulled apart, because God is a perfect Unity.

By the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, God continues the work of Jesus in the world, loving us and revealing his love to us so that we will turn to Him and be filled with his love.

Stop, think and pray:

Let’s take some time in the silence of our hearts or in song to worship God the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Sometimes it is more difficult for us to relate to the Holy Spirit than to the Father or the Son. Let’s meditate on the truth that the three are, in fact, One in nature, and their nature is love. The Holy Spirit is the love of the Father and of the Son present with us and in us.