John 14 (Part 2) :15-17 • The Spirit of Truth

We are in the book of John chapter 14. Open your Bibles there please, John chapter 14. It was my intention today to get through the rest of the chapter and I started studying through the section of scripture and started just writing what I felt the Lord was laying on my heart concerning the first few verses and that's as far as I got. So we're going to read like 3 verses and we're really only going to focus on 2 of them. So here we go. Verse 15, John 14, verse 15, it says,

I want you to stop there, let's pray. Heavenly Father, even as we sang this morning, we invite you to speak that which is true to our hearts. Minister insight and understanding, grace and knowledge and help us, Father God, to really lay hold of what Jesus is saying to all believers in these verses. We ask that you would guide us today and be the teacher we desire, Lord, to learn. In Jesus precious name, amen, amen. Well, the first verse that we read here this morning, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” That's the one you're going to have to wait on just a little bit, because that verse, which is great, really goes along with the rest of the verses that belong to the rest of this chapter here in chapter 14. And so, we're going to deal with that next week and so I'm going to have you kind of put that one on the back burner. But this morning I really want to focus exclusively on the following 2 verses: verses 16 and 17 and as we do, just to give you that context for them. Remember that this is at the Last Supper. Jesus has told His disciples that He's going to go away and they're not going to be able to follow Him and that was very distressing for them to hear. And so Jesus has been speaking words of assurance to the men as He's gone along and this section right here is part of these assurances that Jesus is giving to His disciples.

And so, once again, I want to just take a look at these verses: verses 16 and 17. The first one says,

Obviously, Jesus is both foretelling and promising the coming of the Holy Spirit and His work among the disciples and so that's what we're looking at today. In fact, what we're going to do is break these 2 verses down into essentially six truth statements I'll call them, okay, that Jesus gives us, and we're going to unpack them this morning. I’ll put him up on the screen for those of you who are note takers and just to help us all kind of see the road map of where we're going to be heading. Six Truth Statements about the Holy Spirit  Another Helper  With you Forever  The Spirit of Truth  The World cannot receive Him  You know Him  He is with you and will be in you All these six truth statements that Jesus gives concerning the Holy Spirit. Speaking of Him as: another helper, one who will be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, the one whom the world cannot receive and yet He says, you know Him and then that final statement, He is with you and will be in you. So let's look here first at the first statement in verse 16. Again, Jesus says,

first truth statement and immediately we see this beautiful picture of the triune God. Notice that it is Jesus who petitions the Father on our behalf. Who does He petition? The Father, and what does the Father do in response to the petition of the Son? He gives the Holy Spirit and so you have all 3 persons of the Trinity who are visible right there in that initial statement. But I know I want you to notice too, that Jesus refers here to the Holy Spirit as “Another Helper” and the word “another” obviously means an additional person. That suggests or infers that there is a helper “And I (am going to) will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper.” And, of course, Jesus has been the first helper of the disciples during His time of ministry.

He's been helping them to understand, He's been helping them to walk in the power of God and so forth. And now He's telling them about another helper who is frankly going to be more effective than He Himself has been during His earthly ministry because this other helper who is coming is not going to be limited by time and space. This other helper is going to be able to be with everyone at the same time no matter where they go, no matter where they are, night or day, anytime, this other helper will be there and will be doing His work. And I want you to notice too, the word “helper” because that's a very significant word also and this is the Greek word “Paráklētos”. Some people like to just say “Paraclete” but the actual Greek word that's used here, Paráklētos. And if you have the opportunity to read through several different translations of the Bible, you're going to learn as you do that Bible translators struggle to find the right word with which to render this Greek word Paráklētos. You'll notice as you read through different translations of the Bible that they use lots of different words there and it's not because they aren't sure of what Paráklētos means, that is translated here just helper. But it's because there is no single English word that covers the spectrum of what this single Greek word can mean. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) along with the 1984 revision of the NIV, they use the word “counselor.” If you were to open up, well, obviously you have an ESV that you're probably reading here this morning, the NASB, the New American Standard Bible also uses the same word, which is “helper.” The Old King James uses “comforter.” And here's the point about all the different words that are used, they're all accurate. It's not like one of them got it and the others kind of missed it a little bit, they are all accurate. Paráklētos, which most often means, “one called alongside to help,” if you will, “helper” can mean so many things. It can mean an advocate, it can mean a defense attorney, it can mean a character witness. This word can also mean an intercessor or a mediator or a spokesman. It can also mean one who bears witness. There are many shades of meaning within the context of the definition of this single word, Paráklētos, and because no single translation can possibly do it all, some Bible students like to, when they come to this word, they like to just speak the Greek word.

They talk about where Jesus says, “I will send, I will ask the father and He will give you a Paráklētos.” They just use the Greek word because they can't find the right word, because it means so much and because He does so much. The Holy Spirit does so much in our lives. He is the one who teaches us, that's why we pray every Sunday and Wednesday, “Lord, teach us.” He is the one who comforts us, He strengthens us, He guides us, He warns us, He convicts us, He equips us. He does so much more, He is the Holy Spirit, He is the one who comes alongside: Paráklētos. You recognize the first part of that word I trust, “para” where we get our word “parallel;” running alongside, keeping alongside. The Holy Spirit is running alongside you, He's helping you every step of the way. What a beautiful, beautiful picture. But the next truth statement that is found here at the end of verse 16 where Jesus speaks here of the Holy Spirit is, He says that, "He will be with you forever." And the reason He makes that statement you guys, is because this is new to the New Testament. I don't know if you know that, or I should say perhaps, the New Covenant. I hope you understand that under the Old Covenant, first of all, the Holy Spirit never came to indwell anybody. People weren't indwelt by the Holy Spirit under the Old Covenant. The Holy Spirit came with them and the Holy Spirit came upon them, but He did not come in them, we'll talk more about that in a bit. But here's the other interesting thing about the work of the Holy Spirit or the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer under the old covenant is that He could be removed. I don't know if you remember, you may. King Saul started off great, first king of Israel, really started off pretty good. He started off actually as a fairly humble man and then things went south pretty quickly and he walked in terrible disobedience as it relates to the word of the Lord. Let me show you on the screen, from

And I put another verse on there as well from

See, that's what could happen under the old covenant, but can I just tell you, that's not the case today. I get this question a lot from people, but the Holy Spirit, once given, will not be taken away from the believer. You are born again, you are a child of God and you need to understand that. And that's why Jesus said, “I will ask the Father and He will send the Paráklētos; the helper, the comforter, the counselor, to be with you forever.” Next truth statement, look in your Bible. Notice that Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth. I was particularly blessed this morning as we sang over and over, inviting the Lord, “speak what is true, speak what is true.” Do you know that's what the Holy Spirit comes to do? He comes to speak what is true because He is the Spirit of Truth. You'll remember that last week, as we were talking about statements that Jesus made related to Himself, He said,

Remember that? So Jesus declared Himself to be the truth, He didn't say He was a truth, He said He was and is the truth. And one of the tasks of the Holy Spirit is to reveal Jesus in the heart of the believer. He comes to reveal Him who is true, He who is true and so He Himself, by virtue of that, is the Spirit of Truth. He comes to speak, He comes to reveal and He also comes to confirm truth in our hearts, right? Have you ever had that confirmation of truth just ring in your heart when you hear something? I hope you get it at church, I mean, if you're not getting it at church, there's a problem, right? If you're not getting that confirmation, that ring from the Holy Spirit. But maybe you remember a time you're just in a conversation with someone else, you're talking about the Lord or talking about the Word and they share something and you just have that, yes, that confirmation, yeah, that's true. Or you even hear something on the radio or read something in a book and there's this just confirmation and it's from the Holy Spirit. He confirms and He's like, “yes, yes, that's true” and we come to recognize that very thing. But there's something else the Spirit of truth does that's pretty cool, and that is, He brings an instant family confirmation. When you're talking to somebody, maybe you've never met until that very moment, they're a perfect stranger. Maybe you meet them on an airplane or in an airport or in the store or something like that and you get to talking and you know that you know. And this is a brother or this is a sister and you're kind of like, “whoa, I've just met you now, but you're family.” It's really the coolest thing in the world. That's the Holy Spirit doing that, you guys, He's confirming that which is true. “This person is a child of God and we've hardly begun to speak and I'm already connected to you, and I love you, I love you in the Lord.” It's just one of the most crazy sorts of things. The Spirit of Truth working in your heart but He also gives us a ring when we've heard something that isn't true. And I thank Him for that as well. Sometimes you're talking with somebody and they're telling you what they believe, and you're like “drrriiinggg (alert sound),” you get that red alert. I wish I could do the sound on Star Trek of red alert because it's just a great sound effect, it's something like that when the Holy Spirit just kind of taps you on the heart and says, “that's not true, that, what that person said is not true or what you just heard there, that's not true.” It's so cool when the Holy Spirit begins to do that in people's hearts and they begin to have this discernment about error. And once again I field a lot of questions from people who will say, “I went to church and I heard someone say, or even sometimes I heard the pastor say,” and they'll say, “I just got this weird feeling when that happened so why is that?” I said, “well, that's the Holy Spirit, listen to the Holy Spirit. He's telling you that's weird or that's off base or maybe there's a little bit of truth, but that got twisted a little bit or something like that.” He is so faithful to do that to us, the Spirit of Truth. The next truth statement that we see Jesus making about the Holy Spirit is that, "the world cannot receive Him" and you kind of look at that and Jesus goes on to even give the reason why. He says, “because it neither sees Him” and of course, the world is so fixated most of the time on what they can tune into with their 5 senses and because the Holy Spirit is invisible, that immediately puts him off most people's, belief radar. But, He says, “the world neither sees Him, but they also, they don't know him.” Why don't they know the Spirit of Truth? Why is it that the world cannot know the Spirit of Truth? Well, have you ever noticed that the world we live in, the same world that we're forced to interact with on a daily basis, have you ever noticed they love lies? Have you noticed that? They love them, they wallow in them. I mean, somebody starts telling people there's more than 2 genders and they're all about it, oh yeah. And it's a lie, it's just a flat out lie. But the world, oh man, oh man, they are in on that one hook, line, and sinker. Why? They love lies.

--- Well, when you love lies, you have no room in your heart for the Spirit of Truth. Because the Spirit of Truth comes to speak the truth to the hearts of those who will listen, right? To testify, the Spirit comes to testify. Remember what Jesus said to Pilate after He'd been arrested? He talked about the fact that He came to testify to the truth and of course, Pilate, just said, “well, oh, yeah, what's true anyway?” (John 18:38) Jesus could have said, “You're looking at Him.” He didn't, but because, when the heart's not ready to receive, when the heart’s closed, you're not going to, there's no place for the Holy Spirit to speak into our lives that which is true. But when you begin to open your heart, do you know what? You know what the first thing that opens the door of somebody's heart to the truth that the Holy Spirit wants to speak into their lives? The very first door that has to get passed, in order for us to start listening to the Holy Spirit has to do with our sinful nature and our sinful condition. And once we get past that, which we call you, as you know, the bad news. You have to get past the bad news to get to the good news. And the bad news is you're a sinner and you're on your way to hell and that's the news that we all had to grapple with at some point in time, correct? We all had to, and what it did is it opened us to the Spirit of Truth, speaking into our lives and giving us the good news. This whole thing about understanding my sinful condition is absolutely critical. Let me show you what the Apostle John went on to write in his first letter up on the screen.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, (and look at this) and the truth is not in us. How does the truth get in you in the first place? By the Holy Spirit and if someone is going around saying, “I'm not so bad, don't talk to me about sin” and they don't want to hear anything about it, well, there's no room right now. That's not to say that there won't be later on, there might be. But, that is a, when I tell you, when somebody comes down front to talk to me after a service and I usually will ask people if I don't know them, and if they look kind of like, if they kind of have that deer in the headlight look with the whole Christianity thing, I'll usually ask him, “have you prayed to receive Christ as your Savior?” ---

And if I get a, “well, no, I don't think so,” or whatever. The first thing I ask is, “well, do you know and understand that you are a sinner and that you need a Savior?” And if they go, “well…,” I know we got a little work to do. But if they go, and usually when they come to church, that's, there's already been some breaking down going on of some of those sorts of things. And if they'll say something like, “oh yeah, oh, believe me, I know I'm a sinner.” It's like, “okay, well sit down, we're going to talk about Jesus.” See, we can get right to the good news. We don't have to sit and belabor the point of sin and all of the consequences and all that. They're past that, why? Because the Spirit of Truth has spoken to their hearts and created a reality of understanding to say, “I am a sinner and I need Jesus Christ is my Savior.” Oh, man, it's all over, but the crying, it's and this is fun. It's like ripe fruit falling in your lap, it's kind of cool, that's often the way I get to harvest. I don't, I'm not the kind of, I'm not an evangelist, and so I don't usually go out and do a lot of witnessing outside because my gifting and stuff is for the body of Christ. And so usually, when I get the privilege of harvesting, it's pretty ripe, and it just falls off the vine right into my lap, and so I don't have to work for it, so it is pretty cool. Anyway, I just think it's I think it's really cool when the Holy Spirit reveals that spiritual condition to people and you know they've been listening to the Holy Spirit. All right, we have 2 truth statements remaining. The fifth statement is very simple, Jesus says, "you know him, you know him" and you'll notice that He says it in a rather sort of conclusive sort of a way: “You know him.” You'll notice that Jesus didn't even hesitate, “you know the Holy Spirit.” And He's saying that to the disciples who haven't had nearly the amount of teaching about the Holy Spirit as you have, do you know that? You guys who have walked with the Lord for a period of time, I mean these guys had walked with the Lord for what, maybe 3 years? And the revelation of the Holy Spirit, there wasn't a great deal under the old covenant and Jesus had 3 years to speak to them about the Holy Spirit. They had experienced the Holy Spirit, probably without knowing it on several occasions. The Holy Spirit had been operating among them powerfully and they were probably mostly unaware of it. You know more today than what they did at this particular time. And yet Jesus said to them, "you know Him, you know Him." There are so many ways that we know the Holy Spirit is operating in our lives, but we may not even think about it. If you have ever been grieved and I know you have, by the presence of sin in your life, you know the Holy Spirit. If you have ever looked out at the world and what is going on in the world and been grieved by the darkness, you know the Holy Spirit because that is the Spirit of God in you. That doesn't happen naturally, your natural flesh is connected to the world. It is the Spirit in you who causes you and me to be grieved by the things that we see in the world. If you've ever been stopped short of doing something or saying something, because you suddenly got a very unsettled feeling. Ever happened to you? You're about to do something and all of a sudden, it's like, whoa there, something, something's pulling back on the reins here, and you're about to say something… and it just doesn't come out of your mouth because you just kind of got this instant [unintelligible] kind of a sort of a thing. Put that into…, I love the people who are transcribing this right now. You just, you know that you know that you know that the Holy Spirit just said, “shut up” in a very polite sort of a way, because He's very polite. That's the Holy Spirit, that's the Holy Spirit, you know the Holy Spirit. So He's working in our lives and sometimes we don't know that it's Him, but it's Him. I wish I could say that knowing and walking with the Holy Spirit was always a perfect exercise. But I'm sure you also know that it's very possible to mistake our own feelings for the Holy Spirit. Been there, done that a couple of billion times, “God told me.” It's funny, when we, we had 4 children, the first child, I was convinced the Lord told me we were having a boy, it was a girl, I never guessed again. God has a way of, it's like, “yes, I know, the Lord told me.” Yeah, well, and so it's possible to listen to our own feelings and assume that that is the Holy Spirit. And the fact of the matter is, we can choose to ignore also what He's saying to us. We can resist the leading of the Holy Spirit and go our own way. I wish we couldn't, I've asked the Lord many times, I've given him permission many times to stop me dead in my tracks when I'm heading the wrong direction. Sometimes He does, sometimes, I don't listen, but He's faithful either way. I wish I could say that there are no missteps in the leading of the Holy Spirit, knowing the Holy Spirit. I mean, probably the most popular question I get from people is, “how can I know it's the Holy Spirit and not just me?” That's got to be number 1 and it's one of those questions you have to just say, “well, you learn as you go.”

I mean, I hate to say it that way, but you do, you kind of learn as you go. You learn to listen, you learn to listen better and you learn to understand and to hear His voice. And frankly, the more you grow in your understanding of the Word, the more you're going to, you're going to have fewer missteps as it relates to hearing the Holy Spirit. Because one of the things you learn as a believer fairly early on is that the Holy Spirit will never tell you to do anything that is contrary to the Word. And so, that becomes this standard by which you can determine, “is this me or is this the Holy Spirit?” And usually, if it's something that the Holy Spirit, you wouldn't want to do, but the Holy Spirit's telling you to do, that's a good way to know right there. If it goes against your own personal feelings about something, not always, not always. He also gives us desires that are in keeping with and consistent with the will of the Lord. But sometimes He tells us to do things we just don't want to do and so we'll kind of dig in our heels a little bit, so it's not a, it's not a perfect thing. But as believers, we need to press in and we need to learn to listen carefully. And I've mentioned to you guys many times that I've recognized over the years that when people ask me questions, some of the time, not all of the time, but some of the time, they're trying to bypass the Holy Spirit or no, I shouldn't say it that way, they're trying to bypass listening to the Holy Spirit or even searching out the Holy Spirit. And I get it, we live in a world where I can Google something and I get a few million results in 0.46 seconds and I want to apply that same search procedure to the Holy Spirit. “Lord, I've got a question and I'd like an answer in 0.64 seconds, please, if you would.” And that just doesn't happen and so we have to press in and we have to spend time, and we have to lean in to hear Him and know Him and understand His will for our lives. And many times we just don't like doing it because it's hard work and we have to slow down and we don't live in a culture that gives us much time to slow down. And many of the decisions that we’re asked to make on a daily basis we’re asked to make quickly. And that's another question people will ask along those lines, saying, “what do I do when I need to make a decision, that same day?” And you know what I tell them? I go, “I don't know, I don't know, I don't have an answer for you.” Because that's where you really get into a lot of trouble. Well, I had to make a decision. ... Have you ever had people come to your door and ask you to try and sell things, like people that are selling the spray that it costs like 100 dollars for a gallon and, “but it'll last you forever” because, and have you've ever had those people come…? No, they haven't come to your door? I'm going to send them to your house because they seem to come to my door a lot. And I had to learn at some particular point, “Paul, you just need to have a rule, never buy anything on the spur of the moment” because that's not a good way to make decisions and neither it is a good way to try to hear God. “Lord, I need to hear you right now.” He's probably not going to accommodate you, so, there you go. Finally, the sixth and last truth statement that Jesus makes concerning the Holy Spirit is, "for he dwells with you and will be in you." Jesus told those 11 men that night, that at that time right there, that the Holy Spirit was with them and that He would soon be in them. And when He talks about the Spirit being in them, He's referring to the indwelling presence of God's Holy Spirit, which again, did not happen under the old covenant. This is a new revelation for the disciples and I have to wonder if they really got it when He said it. And it didn't happen until a few days later, in fact, on the evening of the resurrection, you'll remember Jesus came into the disciples, into where they were meeting. Didn't come even through the door, the door was locked and suddenly He was just standing in their midst. He said,

And then He said, it says,

And the Holy Spirit came to live in, “in,” very important, different preposition. Do you know there are 3 prepositions for the relationship of the Holy Spirit related to you and me: with, in, and upon. We're not even talking about upon, that's a different, it's a different work of the Spirit, which Jesus reveals in Acts chapter 1. But here He says, “the Holy Spirit is with you,” but more importantly, “He will be in you.” And can I just tell you that “in” is so much better than “with.” I mean, if all I had to go on was “with,” I would take it but let me just tell you how much superior of an experience and a relationship it is to be connected to the Holy Spirit using that preposition “in.” He is “in” you and me if you are in Christ and we can see this in the Bible. Jesus had been spending 3 years talking to these knuckleheads, these disciples of His about various things and they just weren't getting most of it, they got a little bit here and there. Peter was able to confess,

And even then, Jesus said, "well, the Father told you, you didn't figure that out on your own, just in case you thought you were, like, really smart, that was revealed to you by my Father in Heaven.”

But much of what Jesus was saying to them, they didn't get. Much of what He did, they didn't understand, when did they understand? When the Holy Spirit came in, that's when they began to understand. When they received the Holy Spirit, they received understanding. In fact, later on in this chapter, I'm not going to promise we'll get to it next week, we might, we might not. But skip down to verse 25 right here in this chapter, 25 and 26. Look with me in your Bible, it says,

And that doesn't mean they're just going to remember in the sense of, “oh, yeah, that's right, He said that.” No, they're going to understand, they're going to remember that He said it and they're going to be able to connect the dots and say, “yes, that's why He did that, or that's why He said that.” Because the Holy Spirit comes to do that very thing, because He comes in and when He comes in, He communicates to you and me the very nature of God, the very will of God, the delights of God, along with those things which grieve Him. He communicates it all and it's beautiful. Look how the Apostle Paul talked about this in his letter to the Philippians, this will be our last scripture to look at. He wrote,

for it is God who works in you, (that’s God, the Holy Spirit, who works in you) both to will and to work for his good pleasure. See, God, the Holy Spirit is speaking to you and me about the good pleasure of the Lord. But He doesn't just give us that information. He doesn't just say, “this is the good pleasure of the Lord,” He then gives us the ability to desire the good pleasure of the Lord, that's what Paul saying in Philippians. And not just to desire it, but also to act it out, to live it out, to walk it out, or as the ESV says, “to work for his good pleasure.” He gives you the ability to know the good pleasure, to desire the good pleasure, to do the good pleasure. And why? Because He is now in you. One of the most beautiful verses I read, I've ever read in the New Testament and I didn't put it in my notes or on the screen, but it's in 1 Corinthians, I believe, where Paul talks about, he who is joined with the Lord is one with him in Spirit. It's a beautiful truth, “He who is joined with the Lord is one with him in Spirit.” I want you to think about that today, maybe this week, and just ponder that and meditate on that a little bit. That as you are in Christ, you are one with God in Spirit. His Spirit lives in you, His spirit is working in you, His spirit is striving in you, His spirit is teaching and instructing and warning. What is God talking to you about? When I recognize that someone is asking me questions because they're trying to bypass that process of, that difficult process of learning to listen. I like to ask, I like to ask a question to them as a response to their question and I just simply say, “well, what's the Holy Spirit saying to you?” Because often when people ask questions, they're just looking for confirmation, they already know. Sometimes they already know, or they need someone to say it, so that it just, or they need to say it, so that it just comes into the forefront of their conscious awareness. And they hear it and they're like, “yeah, that's what the Holy Spirit's been speaking to me about, I kind of didn't even realize it, I've been getting these warning things.” Have you been getting any warnings from the Holy Spirit about a relationship, maybe, in your life? Maybe somebody who is a little toxic in terms of your Christian walk, your walk with the Lord? Has the Lord been speaking to you about your quiet time with Him? Husbands, has the Holy Spirit been speaking to you about leading your family more effectively? Wives, has the Holy Spirit been speaking to you about your role as a wife with your husband, with your children, maybe even your grandchildren? Has the Lord been speaking to you about what He wants you to do? Where He wants you to go? Have you maybe been fighting with Him on any of those things? And resisting that gentle tug that He's been placing on your heart? Maybe it's an area of service? Maybe it's, the tug to go and talk to somebody and tell them about Jesus and give them the good news, make sure they know the bad news first. Or whatever it may be, whatever it may be. That tug in your heart, “I don't think we should be watching this movie.” When you get that tug, get up and turn it off, don't resist. See, if you don't, if you don't get up and turn off the movie when He has tugged on your heart and said, “this isn't good, this isn't a good thing to put in your heart.” Then you're resisting the Holy Spirit and yes, Christians can resist the Holy Spirit, we do it all the time. Often, we're not even aware of it.

--- So what is the Holy Spirit speaking to you about? Listen, and it's the most beautiful thing in the world when a Christian begins to surrender their heart to what the Spirit is saying, and they say, “yes, Lord, speak, your servant is listening, I want to hear your voice, I want to obey, give me the strength, give me the courage to obey.” Amen, let's stand together. If you need prayer this morning, we'd love to pray with you. We'll have some folks up here in the front to pray and just remember 2 services back next week. We'll be also back here Wednesday night to keep going in our study of the Book of Genesis, so. Father, we thank you so much for your word and we thank you, Lord, that you've given us your Holy Spirit. Okay, first of all, I want to just say, Lord, if there's anybody here who has not yet fully responded to the good news, and I pray in Jesus name, they would do it right now as I'm praying. That in their heart, they would just say, “Jesus, I believe that you died for me on the cross, and I accept what you did, and I receive your Holy Spirit and the forgiveness that comes along with faith, faith in what you did.” Father God, if there's anybody here today who's just prayed that prayer, I ask you to just overwhelm them with your Holy Spirit, speak to their hearts, minister grace and get them on the path of listening to you every day and digging into the Word and growing in the grace and knowledge of who you are and what you have for their life. And Father, for the rest of us, I pray that we would learn to listen, but also learn to surrender. To not resist your Holy Spirit, but Lord, to yield ourselves every day. Lord speak, your servant is listening. We ask that you would do this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and our King, and all God's people said together, amen. God bless you. Take care. ---