Hi all,
Last week I shared how every prayer request in the New Testament is to the Father, not Jesus, and there is not a single prayer to the Holy Spirit either. There is mention of fellowship with Jesus and fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and I will define and help guide how to do that in this series. But all prayer requests in the NT from the Lord’s Prayer on, are to the Father.
The reason is quite simple: The Father planned salvation, Jesus was (merely) the way it was accomplished. From the Common English Bible (CEB):
“All of these things are from God (the Father) who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation. God (the Father) was reconciling the world to Himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this ministry of reconciliation.” II Corinthians 5: 17-19
People don’t realize when they call Jesus the Word of God, just whose Word He is. He is the Word of (from) God the Father to mankind: Be reconciled to Me! If a father tells his son to go outside to tell the rest of his brothers and sisters to come inside because its late, the kids outside don’t ask to stay out longer to the son who is merely the word of the father, the messenger.
They ask the father who originated the message and sent the son in the first place. Jesus is the Word of the Father, the carrier and messenger and even author of our salvation urging us to come inside. But the Father is the Source of the invitation, not Jesus. We ask the Father. Not the Messenger.
I use this example frequently: A father tells his son to wash the car. The son washes the car using water. We could say the father washed the car by using his son, and both father and son could accurately say it was the water that washed the car. We are the dirty car, the father is the Father, the son is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the water. One could correctly say the Father washed us, or the Son washed us, or the Holy Spirit washed us. Each has a different function. One planned it, One did it, One was the agent used to do it.
The flow
In Matthew 3:16 as Jesus came up out of the water at His baptism we see the Father spoke audibly, then the Spirit descended and settled upon Jesus. From the Father to the Spirit to Jesus. Today we are the body of Christ and the flow continues: The Father to the Spirit to the body of Christ.
In John 15:26 Jesus stated, “But when the Comforter has come, Whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, Who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.”
This revelation, that the Holy Spirit ‘proceeds from’ the Father is key. He comes from and proceeds out of the Father to us. Think of it this way: The Father is on His throne in heaven. We are Christ on the earth. There must be a link, a bridge, a means of communicating between heaven and earth. That is the role and function of the Holy Spirit. He flows from heaven to earth. He is in both places at once.
We must also understand what Jesus said of the Father in John 4:24, the Father is a Spirit. Therefore He will communicate to our spirit. He is not a mind. We must look for fellowship with Him and communication from Him in our spirit, not our mind.
The Holy Spirit is the One in ministry today on the earth, to think of it another way.
The Holy Spirit is the One here today, given at Pentecost, sent from the Father to empower us and so that we might know and fellowship with the Father and Lord Jesus. All we have, all we hear, see, and do in the Lord are through and in the Holy Spirit. When a person sees Jesus it is indeed the Lord, but our eyes are opened to His realm by the Holy Spirit. A person is born again by the Spirit. Any experience a person has with God is by the Spirit. He is the One on earth today, communicating accurately and truthfully what heaven is saying and communicating to us.
This is why Jesus said in John 16:13 that He is the Spirit of truth and, “..He will not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He hears, that is what He will speak.” The Holy Spirit only repeats what He hears in heaven.
He initiates nothing of Himself, which is why it does no good at all to make a prayer request to Him, to ask Him to do thus and so – He is merely the link between heaven and earth. He merely repeats what He hears. Just like at Jesus’ water baptism above: The Father through the Spirit to Jesus on earth. Today that ‘Jesus on earth’, is us. The flow is the same.
Paul shared it in a different way
Paul elaborated on Jesus’ statement that the Holy Spirit only repeats what He hears in I Corinthians 2: 9-16 first quoting an OT verse: “Eye has not seen, neither ear heard, neither can we imagine the things that God has provided for those who love Him. But, God (Father) has revealed these things to us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of the (Father) God.”
The Holy Spirit is right now searching the heart of the Father God on our behalf, seeing what He has provided for us, and then when He finds something, communicates that with us in our spirit.
This may be as minor as guiding your steps to that empty parking space close to the store you asked the Father for, to communication in your spirit by peace that you got that job you interviewed for. The Holy Spirit as Jesus said, does not speak of Himself, but only what He hears. He searches the heart of the Father looking for His provision for our lives.
The Father is the Source of your answered prayer
“Do not err my dear brothers and sisters. Every good gift, every perfect gift, come down from the Father of lights, with Whom there is no varying to His character, nor even a hint of change at all. He chose to give us birth by His Word of Truth, that we should be a kind of first crop from the harvest of all He created.” James 1: 16-18
How to fellowship with the Father, the Spirit, and the Son…until next week then, blessings,
John Fenn
