DAY 7 | Dependent on the Holy Spirit

Jesus was a real person who really lived on this earth. While his birth was miraculous, His time on earth started as a baby in a stable in a little town of Bethlehem. Grew up, ate food, got tired, got hungry, had relationships, had hardships. Think about this for a second, of His 12 disciples, one betrayed him, one denied him, and one doubted him. Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert for 40 days.

Pastor Dann Spader puts it this way: 

“Jesus did not dip into His deity to live out his humanity.”

Jesus is our model for life. We are called to LIVE like Jesus.

1 John 2:6
6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

Hebrews 4:15
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.

We have the same resources available to us today as Jesus did, and over the next four days, I’m going to share with you what those were.

Jesus depended on the Holy Spirit.

Follow Jesus’s journey through the first four books of the New Testament, you repeatedly see His connection to the Holy Spirit. Jesus was Spirit-led and Spirit-filled.

Luke 3:21-22
21 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Luke 4:1
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

Luke 4:14
14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.

Jesus’ ministry was marked by His dependence upon and connection to the Holy Spirit. As fuel is to a car and wind to a sailboat, so too, is the Holy the power in our lives.

Depending on the Holy Spirit means we are
Spirit-led Spirit-filled

Acts 1:8
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

2 Timothy 1:7
7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

Galatians 5:16-18
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Galatians 5:22-25
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Being Spirit-led means doing the things that lead to obedience. First, you must humble yourself before God and trust that His ways are better than your ways. Humility is key to following Jesus. Second, you must then trust that God has a plan for your life. We might not always see the future, but choosing to obey Christ’s commands shows that we trust God’s plan for our life. Finally, being Spirit-led means taking action. We’re not called to be Spirit-felt, but Spirit led. That means that we are willing to obey God even when we don’t “feel” like it.

Being Spirit-filled gives us observable measurements of our connection to God. It’s not about perfection, but are we making progress in different areas in our life? Just a child matures into an adult, a Christian should also grow into maturity in his or her faith. As previously shared from John 15, our job is to stay to connected to Jesus, and if we do, God will produce fruit in our life. Can your life be described by the fruit in Galatians 5:22-25? If so, these are evidences of living a Spirit-filled life.