Holy Spirit 02
Holy Spirit 02
John 14:15-16
Today’s devotion is number two in our Holy Spirit devotions. We are headed to John Chapter 14, verses 15 and 16. Grab your Bible (I use the NLT) and something to write with. You can use your notebook or The Daily Devotion Journal page which is also the format will be following. That format is based on three words, Meditate, Apply, Respond.
However you join in the devotions today, would you make a commitment to really, truly interact with God? Take this time to really meet with God as we go through these verses together. First, we’ll Meditate on these verses. Then we’ll Apply them to our lives. And finally, we’ll Respond to God in prayer based on these verses.
And if you’d like to go deeper into this devotion, when we’re finished, I’ll give you some ways you can do that. This is our second devotion from our Scripture By Topic list on the Holy Spirit. You can get the entire Scripture By Topic list, the Daily Devotion Journal on the Holy Spirit at MyDailyChurch.com.
Let’s start by praying that the Lord would make our hearts ready to hear from him.
Lord Jesus, we do pray, Lord that we would hear from you, that by your Holy Spirit that your Word would come alive to us, especially today. May your Holy Spirit fill us, open our eyes, open our ears to hear and receive what you have for us today. We pray in your name, Jesus, amen.
Let’s read the verses, then I’ll give you some background, and then we’ll dig in.
John 14:15–16 (NLT) (Jesus speaking)
15 “If you love me, obey my commandments.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (Helper), who will never leave you.
In John 14, Jesus and the Disciples are sitting at the Last Supper. It’s the last night before the Cross. And this section of John from Chapters 13 to Chapter 16, is generally considered the most power-packed teaching for disciples, for Christ-followers in all the Gospels.
It’s Jesus’ last night. And he’s just downloading massive truths to his Disciples because he knows it’s his last night, even though the Disciples hadn’t really accepted it, or grasped it yet. Jesus starts John 14:1 by saying, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.” And then Jesus begins explaining to the Disciples that he is going, that he is going to prepare a place and a way for them, and for us, to have an eternal home in heaven. Then, in John Chapter 14, Jesus begins this section on the Holy Spirit. He begins with our verses today, verses 15 and 16. So let’s dig into those verses a little bit.
John 14:15 (NLT)
15 “If you love me, obey my commandments. And the focus here is on loving Jesus. It’s not on some type of rigid obedience of religion. It’s if you love me, that’s the emphasis. If you indeed love me, then obey my commandment. Let your love for me come out in your obedience to my commandments. Some other translations say, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.”
In Matthew Chapter 22, Jesus sums up all the commandments of God by saying, first, love God. We call it vertical love. Love God with everything you are, and with everything you've got, love God. And then, second, love others. We call that horizontal love. Love others as if they were yourself. And Jesus says all the commandments are summed up in these two intense loves and intense love for God vertically and an intense love for others horizontally.
And so, Jesus says if indeed you love me, or maybe, in order to put on display your love for me, obey my commandments. My commandments of love, love for God, and love for others. And us obeying those commandments put on display or even prove that we love Jesus.
Then Jesus says in the following verse,
John 14:16 (NLT)
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, (another Helper) who will never leave you.
Jesus says to his disciples, who are confused and fearful, and they don't understand what he's talking about, about leaving them. He says, listen, don't be afraid. Trust me, the father will send you another advocate, another helper. And we love this name for the Holy Spirit in the original language. It's ALLOS PARAKLETOS, which means, literally, another of the same kind and quality, called alongside to help.
That is who the Holy Spirit is. He is another, the equal third member of the Godhead, another this of the same kind and quality called alongside to help you and me equal in every way to the Father and the Son. Full equal third member of the Godhead. His role in the Godhead is to come alongside us to help. That is who the Holy Spirit is. And that's what the Holy Spirit does. He is fully God. And he is fully our Helper.
He's our Counselor. He's our Guide. He's our Strength. He is so many more things. And guys, the Holy Spirit is the primary member of the Godhead at work in your life today. This is his role. This is his time as he fills us, empowers us, draws us to the Lord. As he strengthens, encourages, and drives us. This is the Holy Spirit’s role. And if you are a believer today, the Holy Spirit lives in you. And verse 16, says he will never leave you.
So, there's so much more that we can say about who the Holy Spirit is and what the Holy Spirit does in our lives. We've done multiple series, dozens, and dozens of messages about who the Holy Spirit is and what he does in our lives because he's so crucial to our empowered walk with Jesus, our transforming walk with Jesus.
But for today, let's move on to applying just these two verses. That's our job. Let's apply them next.
John 14:15 (NLT)
15 “If you love me, obey my commandments. Now, that's not too hard to apply, right? And so, we say together, Lord Jesus, we do love you. We do love you, Lord. Help us to obey your commandments of love. Help us to obey your commandments of love out of our love for you. And may our obedience to your commandments be the natural outcome of our love for you. And may our love for you be put on display by our obedience in loving you and loving others. Guys, that applies to every one of our dealings, every one of our interactions with God and with others. That's a big application.
Then, in verse 16, 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. And we say, Lord, in order for us to love you and all we do by obeying you, we need the Holy Spirit. We have absolutely must have the full power of the Holy Spirit firing on all cylinders, working at full strength in our lives. Lord, we need your Holy Spirit. We need your Holy Spirit to lead us, and to guide us, to comfort us, and to counsel us. We need your Holy Spirit to be our help and to be our strength.
We need the ALLOS PARAKLETOS, the third and equal member of the Godhead, who is called to come into our lives to help us, to strengthen us, to empower us, and to transform us. And we need to know that God, the Holy Spirit, will never leave us. We say together, Lord God, we need more of your Holy Spirit in our lives today. That's some seriously big application in those two verses. Man, we need the Holy Spirit.
So now let's respond to God. Let's respond to God in prayer, praying through this scripture. I'll just pray through the scripture and you pray with me in response to God.
Verse 15, to start.
Lord, we do love you. We love you, Lord. And we pray that you would draw us into a deeper love for you. And Lord, we commit right now, and we pray right now for your power to put our love for you on display by obeying your commandments. Lord, we need you to do that. We need the power of your Holy Spirit. And Lord, your commandments are summed up by us loving you and loving others. And we commit today, and we pray for your strength to show you our love by putting our love for you and others into action by our obedience. Lord, help us, by your Spirit, to love you more and to love others as you would love them.
And then verse 16.
And Lord, we pray that you would send the Holy Spirit with power into our lives, Lord. That we would be filled to overflowing with the life, and the strength, the abundance of peace of the Holy Spirit. Fill us to overflowing, Lord, baptize us in your Holy Spirit. We pray for the Helper. We pray for the Advocate to fill our lives. And we pray that the life of your Holy Spirit in us would visibly transform our lives. And we thank you, Lord, that you will never leave us. We thank you that your Holy Spirit will always be with us.
And we pray, Lord, that we would learn more and more to depend on your Holy Spirit, to follow you more closely, Lord, and to love you more dearly. In your mighty name, Jesus, amen.
Now, before we go, I mentioned I’d give you some ways to dig deeper into these verses. So, let me start by suggesting you spend some time with this section of scripture. Just open your Bible to John 14. It goes from verse 15 to verse 31, that section. Just meditate on those verses and interact with God on this section of scripture. And then, if you'd like to hear full messages on these verses, you can go to MyDailyChurch.com, tap or click the teaching tab in the navigation bar, and then type into the "Search Media" box Secrets of Discipleship. And you'll get parts one and two of this teaching.
Or you can type into the "Search Media" box under the teaching tab, Under His Influence and you'll get a three-part series on the Holy Spirit by that name. And there's a fourth message thrown in there called Life in The Spirit, from Romans Chapter 8.
Thanks for being part of this ministry. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for telling others about the podcast. And thank you for your financial support. We are slowly gaining steam here in the devotional podcast as more and more people are finding out about it. And we're really seeing God at work in this ministry. Thank you for being part of all of it.
You can find out more about this ministry, or contact us by going to MyDailyChurch.com. God bless your day.
However you join in the devotions today, would you make a commitment to really, truly interact with God? Take this time to really meet with God as we go through these verses together. First, we’ll Meditate on these verses. Then we’ll Apply them to our lives. And finally, we’ll Respond to God in prayer based on these verses.
And if you’d like to go deeper into this devotion, when we’re finished, I’ll give you some ways you can do that. This is our second devotion from our Scripture By Topic list on the Holy Spirit. You can get the entire Scripture By Topic list, the Daily Devotion Journal on the Holy Spirit at MyDailyChurch.com.
Let’s start by praying that the Lord would make our hearts ready to hear from him.
Lord Jesus, we do pray, Lord that we would hear from you, that by your Holy Spirit that your Word would come alive to us, especially today. May your Holy Spirit fill us, open our eyes, open our ears to hear and receive what you have for us today. We pray in your name, Jesus, amen.
Let’s read the verses, then I’ll give you some background, and then we’ll dig in.
John 14:15–16 (NLT) (Jesus speaking)
15 “If you love me, obey my commandments.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (Helper), who will never leave you.
In John 14, Jesus and the Disciples are sitting at the Last Supper. It’s the last night before the Cross. And this section of John from Chapters 13 to Chapter 16, is generally considered the most power-packed teaching for disciples, for Christ-followers in all the Gospels.
It’s Jesus’ last night. And he’s just downloading massive truths to his Disciples because he knows it’s his last night, even though the Disciples hadn’t really accepted it, or grasped it yet. Jesus starts John 14:1 by saying, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.” And then Jesus begins explaining to the Disciples that he is going, that he is going to prepare a place and a way for them, and for us, to have an eternal home in heaven. Then, in John Chapter 14, Jesus begins this section on the Holy Spirit. He begins with our verses today, verses 15 and 16. So let’s dig into those verses a little bit.
John 14:15 (NLT)
15 “If you love me, obey my commandments. And the focus here is on loving Jesus. It’s not on some type of rigid obedience of religion. It’s if you love me, that’s the emphasis. If you indeed love me, then obey my commandment. Let your love for me come out in your obedience to my commandments. Some other translations say, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.”
In Matthew Chapter 22, Jesus sums up all the commandments of God by saying, first, love God. We call it vertical love. Love God with everything you are, and with everything you've got, love God. And then, second, love others. We call that horizontal love. Love others as if they were yourself. And Jesus says all the commandments are summed up in these two intense loves and intense love for God vertically and an intense love for others horizontally.
And so, Jesus says if indeed you love me, or maybe, in order to put on display your love for me, obey my commandments. My commandments of love, love for God, and love for others. And us obeying those commandments put on display or even prove that we love Jesus.
Then Jesus says in the following verse,
John 14:16 (NLT)
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, (another Helper) who will never leave you.
Jesus says to his disciples, who are confused and fearful, and they don't understand what he's talking about, about leaving them. He says, listen, don't be afraid. Trust me, the father will send you another advocate, another helper. And we love this name for the Holy Spirit in the original language. It's ALLOS PARAKLETOS, which means, literally, another of the same kind and quality, called alongside to help.
That is who the Holy Spirit is. He is another, the equal third member of the Godhead, another this of the same kind and quality called alongside to help you and me equal in every way to the Father and the Son. Full equal third member of the Godhead. His role in the Godhead is to come alongside us to help. That is who the Holy Spirit is. And that's what the Holy Spirit does. He is fully God. And he is fully our Helper.
He's our Counselor. He's our Guide. He's our Strength. He is so many more things. And guys, the Holy Spirit is the primary member of the Godhead at work in your life today. This is his role. This is his time as he fills us, empowers us, draws us to the Lord. As he strengthens, encourages, and drives us. This is the Holy Spirit’s role. And if you are a believer today, the Holy Spirit lives in you. And verse 16, says he will never leave you.
So, there's so much more that we can say about who the Holy Spirit is and what the Holy Spirit does in our lives. We've done multiple series, dozens, and dozens of messages about who the Holy Spirit is and what he does in our lives because he's so crucial to our empowered walk with Jesus, our transforming walk with Jesus.
But for today, let's move on to applying just these two verses. That's our job. Let's apply them next.
John 14:15 (NLT)
15 “If you love me, obey my commandments. Now, that's not too hard to apply, right? And so, we say together, Lord Jesus, we do love you. We do love you, Lord. Help us to obey your commandments of love. Help us to obey your commandments of love out of our love for you. And may our obedience to your commandments be the natural outcome of our love for you. And may our love for you be put on display by our obedience in loving you and loving others. Guys, that applies to every one of our dealings, every one of our interactions with God and with others. That's a big application.
Then, in verse 16, 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. And we say, Lord, in order for us to love you and all we do by obeying you, we need the Holy Spirit. We have absolutely must have the full power of the Holy Spirit firing on all cylinders, working at full strength in our lives. Lord, we need your Holy Spirit. We need your Holy Spirit to lead us, and to guide us, to comfort us, and to counsel us. We need your Holy Spirit to be our help and to be our strength.
We need the ALLOS PARAKLETOS, the third and equal member of the Godhead, who is called to come into our lives to help us, to strengthen us, to empower us, and to transform us. And we need to know that God, the Holy Spirit, will never leave us. We say together, Lord God, we need more of your Holy Spirit in our lives today. That's some seriously big application in those two verses. Man, we need the Holy Spirit.
So now let's respond to God. Let's respond to God in prayer, praying through this scripture. I'll just pray through the scripture and you pray with me in response to God.
Verse 15, to start.
Lord, we do love you. We love you, Lord. And we pray that you would draw us into a deeper love for you. And Lord, we commit right now, and we pray right now for your power to put our love for you on display by obeying your commandments. Lord, we need you to do that. We need the power of your Holy Spirit. And Lord, your commandments are summed up by us loving you and loving others. And we commit today, and we pray for your strength to show you our love by putting our love for you and others into action by our obedience. Lord, help us, by your Spirit, to love you more and to love others as you would love them.
And then verse 16.
And Lord, we pray that you would send the Holy Spirit with power into our lives, Lord. That we would be filled to overflowing with the life, and the strength, the abundance of peace of the Holy Spirit. Fill us to overflowing, Lord, baptize us in your Holy Spirit. We pray for the Helper. We pray for the Advocate to fill our lives. And we pray that the life of your Holy Spirit in us would visibly transform our lives. And we thank you, Lord, that you will never leave us. We thank you that your Holy Spirit will always be with us.
And we pray, Lord, that we would learn more and more to depend on your Holy Spirit, to follow you more closely, Lord, and to love you more dearly. In your mighty name, Jesus, amen.
Now, before we go, I mentioned I’d give you some ways to dig deeper into these verses. So, let me start by suggesting you spend some time with this section of scripture. Just open your Bible to John 14. It goes from verse 15 to verse 31, that section. Just meditate on those verses and interact with God on this section of scripture. And then, if you'd like to hear full messages on these verses, you can go to MyDailyChurch.com, tap or click the teaching tab in the navigation bar, and then type into the "Search Media" box Secrets of Discipleship. And you'll get parts one and two of this teaching.
Or you can type into the "Search Media" box under the teaching tab, Under His Influence and you'll get a three-part series on the Holy Spirit by that name. And there's a fourth message thrown in there called Life in The Spirit, from Romans Chapter 8.
Thanks for being part of this ministry. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for telling others about the podcast. And thank you for your financial support. We are slowly gaining steam here in the devotional podcast as more and more people are finding out about it. And we're really seeing God at work in this ministry. Thank you for being part of all of it.
You can find out more about this ministry, or contact us by going to MyDailyChurch.com. God bless your day.