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As Christians we declare that we follow the one and only true Son of God called Jesus Christ. We believe that He came from Heaven through a virgin birth, lived in Judea two thousand years ago, performed miracles, was crucified and resurrected from the dead so we can be part of the New Covenant and receive atonement. Everyday thousands of people utter the name of Jesus, some in prayer, others in worship, while others use the name to display frustration.
We open our Bibles and see the name Jesus, we go to church and (hopefully) hear the name Jesus being spoken from the front. We assume that everyone over the past two thousand years has called out to the name of Jesus Christ as well. Even back when He was walking the earth the crowds went out to hear the words of Jesus Christ and to witness His miracles, or did they?
Today we just assume that because we call Him Jesus Christ that everyone else throughout history has as well. It is the belief that the way it is now is the way it has always been because we are always right and nothing really changes in the world. It’s like how people assume that places such as New York city, Istanbul, or France have always gone by those names. However, that’s not true; New York used to be called New Amsterdam, Istanbul was called Constantinople, and France was called Gaul. Be it because of changes to a language, invasions, or a differing of opinion names change over the decades and centuries.
Even if there aren’t the changes mentioned above, differences in language can change a simple name into a myriad of variations. Take Germany for example, that isn’t the nation’s actual name it’s the English version of it, in French it’s called Allemagne, while the Germans themselves refer to it as Deutschland. The same goes for nations in the Bible, what we call Egypt the ancient Jews called Mizraim, or that Tarshish is southern Spain and Yavan (Javan) is Greece.
Isn’t Jesus His one and only name and isn’t that what everyone called Him during His ministry, first name Jesus, last name Christ?
We see then that names may change over time but the things they identify remain the same, but what does this have to do with Jesus? Isn’t Jesus His one and only name and isn’t that what everyone called Him during His ministry, first name Jesus, last name Christ? Have you ever questioned why Christ his last name, I don’t remember there being a Mary and Joseph Christ in the early pages of Luke, no there’s something missing here, something that’s been forgotten.
If Christ isn’t His last name then Jesus is still His first name right? It may shock you to know that no one ever referred to Him as Jesus when He walked the earth. In those days He was called by fellow Judeans “Yehoshua.” That name was the one given to Him when He was eight days old during His circumcision ceremony. It is the name Mary called Him by as a child, the name He was known by in the synagogue, and it was the name the apostles would have recognized Him by: Yehoshua from Nazareth the Messiah.
If Yehoshua is His name what does it mean? Yehoshua is interpreted from Hebrew/Aramaic as “Yahweh the Savior” or “Yahweh our deliverer.” While the name Christ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Mashiach (Messiah), which literally means the anointed one and his anointing. To be anointed means to be covered and/or soaked by either oil or the Spirit of God, David being anointed by Samuel for example (1 Sam 16:12-13). Therefore, when we casually say the name Jesus Christ we are literally saying “Yahweh our savior and deliverer from Nazareth (literal definition varies between “branch” and “guard”) the one covered with the Spirit of God.”
How then did we go all the way from His name being Yehoshua to Jesus? In Jesus’s time because of Roman (and earlier Ptolemaic Greek) rule it was customary to for Jews to have two names. They would have their Hebrew/Aramaic birth names and an alternate Greek name which was either a direct translation or something unique. Take Peter for example, with his multiple names, he was Simon (Shimon; to hear and one the twelve tribes) in Hebrew, Cephas (stone) in Aramaic and Petros (stone) in Greek. We see this with other disciples as well as Matthew who was called Mathaios (gift of God) in Greek and Levi (to be joined and one of the twelve tribes) in Hebrew and with Judas (not Iscariot) who was called Yehuda (praise and is one of the twelve tribes) in Hebrew and Thaddeus (courageous heart) in Greek and Aramaic.
The reason for these double names is that while the people of Judea would speak Aramaic or Hebrew at home and among themselves, while Greek was the primary political and business language in the Roman Empire. If you did any business in the Roman Empire outside of what we know today as Italy you did it in Greek. Even in our day we see the same phenomenon with English (and to a growing extend with Mandarin), where people and businesses will learn English to access new markets and to grow in the global markets.
To the Jews Jesus was called Yehoshua and to the Greeks and Romans He was called Iesus.
Through all of these political and linguistic influences which Jesus’s home country was facing we see then that to the Jews Jesus was called Yehoshua and to the Greeks and Romans He was called Iesus. At its core both translations of the name carry the same meaning just in different languages, but how did it become the Jesus we know today?
We already know that the Greek translation of Yehoshua was Iesus, when the name was translated into Latin (the language of the Romans) it remained the same. It wasn’t until centuries later after the fall of Rome when the Latin language fractured into Spanish, French and Italian that things started to change. When Iesus was translated into French the “I” was turned into a soft “J” and would be pronounce as Jeyzu., This was because of the German influences of the language, as in Germans all of the “Y” names in Hebrew were turned into “J” names, such as Yirmeyahu to Jeremiah (for reference is was Ieremias in Greek). Later as the English language developed as an amalgamation of Latin, French, German and other languages the soft “J” was turned into a stronger German type hard “G” type pronunciation leaving us with the Jesus we know and love today.
But this is where things begin to get very interesting, if we were to make a direct translation from Hebrew to English of the name Yehoshua would not be Jesus but Joshua.
It’s hard to accept I know, but even in older King James Versions of the New Testament we see in two instances where Joshua and Jesus are used interchangeably. In these two verses the writer is clearly speaking of the Joshua who came after Moses. Yet His name was translated as Jesus because of the Greek texts which read Iesus.
Acts 7:45 Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David; KJV
Hebrews 4:8 For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. KJV
The writer is clearly speaking of the Joshua who came after Moses. Yet His name was translated as Jesus because of the Greek texts which read Iesus.
We even see this exact same translation in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the OT which was the most popular translation used in the time of Jesus. There it also translates the name of Joshua/Yehoshua into Iesous.
I guess that does it, I broke the church as we know it and we don’t worship the Son of God called Jesus, but the Son of God called Joshua. I guess its time to rewrite all of those popular worship songs. I can’t wait to start singing songs such as “Joshua Lover of My Soul,” “Joshua Freak,” “Just Give Me Joshua,” and “Turn Your Eyes Upon Joshua.” It also looks like anything from U2’s Joshua Tree album is now fair game for Sunday mornings, who knew? We can also use this knowledge to launch a hip new rebranding campaign; “are you hurting, and looking for purpose in life then come to the church of Joshua the Soaked and find love, peace and eternal life.”
With this new understanding about Jesus’s name being Joshua things begin to get very interesting. Jesus lived out His earthly ministry according to the prophecies and scriptures written about Him (1 Corinthians 15:4). God planned all the way back at the beginning what Jesus would do on the earth and how He would use prophets and other writers to declare what was to come, even if the true measure of what they received were veiled to them and their readers at first. We see this same kind of divine planning which went into the life of Joshua, as many of the things he did were prophecies and guideposts towards the the second Joshua that would later come. These two lives are in many ways direct parallels of each other. Just as the coming Messiah was hidden in the Law given to Moses, His destiny was revealed through the life of Joshua.
Joshua’s name in Hebrew was originally Hoshea which means “a savior deliverer”, (Num 13:8) but later his name was changed to Yehoshua, no longer a “savior/deliverer” but “Yahweh the (is my) savior/deliverer.” This name change happened after he spied out the land of Canaan and came back along with Caleb with a good report (Numbers 14:6) and tried to motivate the people to go and take the Promised Land. That day he was renamed Yehoshua, no longer to be a savior/deliverer in his own strength but a declaration that Yahweh is the savior/deliverer of the people. That name “Yahweh is the savior & deliverer” is exact the name given to the Christ/Messiah and it is a continuation of the name Immanuel “God with us”. Just like Joshua, Jesus came after Moses (a picture of the Law) to lead the people into a Promised Land, Joshua was appointed to lead the people into the physical land of Canaan while Jesus came to bring us into our Heavenly Promised land.
That name “Yahweh is the savior & deliverer” is exact the name given to the Christ/Messiah and it is a continuation of the name Immanuel “God with us”.
The parallels don’t stop there:
-Joshua sat in Moses’ tent and watched as God and Moses talked (Ex 33:11); Jesus sits at the right hand of God in the heavenly tabernacle and talks with God directly.
-Joshua refused to worship the golden calf at Mt. Sinai (Ex 32:17); Jesus refused to worship Satan in the wilderness.
-Joshua called on the people after spying across the Jordan to go and fight the giants of the land (Num 14:6, 30); Jesus conquered the Devil and calls His followers to go reclaim souls from the enemy.
– Joshua waited three days before crossing the Jordan (Josh 1:10-11) into the Promised land; Jesus remained in the grave 3 days before ascending to glory.
-Joshua crossed the Jordan on dry land (Josh 3:1-17) through a miracle of the Spirit; while Jesus was baptized into it and the Spirit appeared as a divine witness.
-Joshua who unlike Moses (the giver of the law) led the people into the promised land (Num 26:65, 27:18-23, Deut 31:14-15); Jesus who fulfilled the law leads us into the promised land of forgiveness, righteousness and total relationship with God.
-Joshua after crossing the Jordan circumcised every man (Josh 5:1-7); Jesus after crossing from death to life has circumcised our hearts and has written His law upon it.
-Joshua led the armies of Israel to capture the Promised Land (Deut 31:1-8, Josh 1:2-3); Jesus leads the armies of heaven and the church to expand the kingdom on earth.
-Joshua who uttered a cry and the walls of Jericho fell (Josh 6:16-20); Jesus who made His cry on the cross and the veil of the temple was torn in two.
-Joshua spared the life of the harlot Rahab (Josh 6:25); Jesus spared the life of the woman caught in adultery.
-Joshua who prayed that the sun should not set until he had completed the battle (Josh 10:12); Jesus upon the cross brought darkness over the land until he had declared “it is finished”.
-Joshua and the people faced betrayal and defeat because of the greed of one man Achan (Josh 7:19-26): Jesus was betrayed because of the greed of one man Judas Iscariot
-Joshua made a covenant with the heathen Gibeonites to spare them from the Judgment of God on the land (Josh 9); Jesus made a New Covenant for both Jew and Gentiles to spare them from the eternal judgment of God.
-Joshua made a public display of the fallen kings he had defeated (Josh 8:29, 10:24-26); Paul says that Jesus made a public spectacle of the spiritual forces He has defeated (Col 2:15).
-Joshua commissioned the 12 tribes to continue the fight and claim their territory (Josh 23:3-5); Jesus commissioned the 12 apostles to preach the gospel to every people, tribe and nation so the Kingdom would be spread.
Of all of these parallels the most important one is that Joshua came after Moses to bring the people out of the wilderness and into the promised land.
Jesus, Iesus, Yehoshua, Isa, Jezu, Yesu, Hesus, Iosa, Ihu or how it appears in any other language how we pronounce His name is not the issue as long as we know the power behind it. The name in itself isn’t a magic word, the power comes from His actions, sacrifice, resurrection and in who He is. Our faith in who truly He is will move mountains not whether we use an I or a J, or if we pray in Greek, Aramaic or English. His blood, authority and dominion go beyond simple words. At His name, His true name “Yahweh our Savior the One covered with the Spirit of God.” every knee will eventually bow.
The name in itself isn’t a magic word, the power comes from His actions, sacrifice, resurrection and in who He is.
Where do we go from here? Understanding Jesus’s true name should awaken you even further to the purpose of His coming to earth, that we can see the parallels and previews of the life of Joshua and see its fulfillment through Jesus. We are to take this knowledge and use it to take that next step in understanding who Jesus is and how our lives revolve around that truth. That true name of “Yahweh our Savior the One covered with the Spirit of God” should be what we think about whenever we say His name, or read about Him, or pray, or even try to understand what it looks like for us to follow Him.
Jesus didn’t just come to make us good moral people, He came to save us from sin and its eventually outcome of death and separation from God. Like Joshua He leads us into enemy territory to retake the land in the name of God’s kingdom, but now rather then using swords we use faith, prayer, testimony, good works, love, compassion, power and the fullness of the Holy Spirit to do so.
It also means that we today as Christians must look at the life of Joshua and the people he led and do all that we can so that we don’t end up like they did in the book of Judges. Those who claimed a relationship with God but looked and acted even worse than the Canaanites they allowed to remain in their land, or those who would worship God only when they felt that Baal had failed or ignored them.
The secret name of Jesus must be known to us so we see Him as He truly is, our savior, deliver and King. We must take this knowledge and spread it to all people in all places that “Yahweh our Savior the One covered with the Spirit of God” has come to set us free and to bring us into the Heavenly promised land. The Law, our good deeds, or even our hearts desires cannot carry us into the Promised Land only Jesus can.
Are you looking to develop your relationship with God and better understand the Bible? Pick up a copy of one of my books today.
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The Secret Name of Jesus ChristCameron Conway is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
DOES IT EVER FEEL LIKE there’s a conflict that constantly takes place inside of yourself? As if there’s a “war” taking place in your heart between the part of you that wants to do the right thing and another part which wants to do the wrong or selfish thing? Right now there is constant battle inside over how we are to act, think and believe. When we have been wronged or even when people have done the right thing to us we can have many different thoughts on how to respond. Some thoughts are good, others bad, even if they appear good in our own eyes.
This is all important as we continue our growing understanding of not just the Holy Spirit but our daily life as believers of Jesus. When we declare that the Holy Spirit is a regular part of our lives we must accept that He is not just some abstract fragment of God far away somewhere. For Christians the Holy Spirit is the living part of God that is housed inside of us. When we learn to hear His voice over that of our own then we can truly have fellowship with Him and live among others as a good witness for Christ. When we learn to listen and trust His voices then we can have the advantage in this war for our hearts.
In Galatians 5:16-17 Paul shows us the source of this struggle: it’s the war between our flesh, which is our fallen nature and our spirit, which is the part of us that has been made alive through Jesus.
Galatians 5:16-17 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. (NKJV)
We must first understand that we are a being of two realities, therefore we have two natures within us striving for control. One of these natures is the one that desires to please God and the other one that is in constant rebellion against God. This second nature is what was in control of us before we knew Christ, our old flesh/self focused sin nature. The nature that looks out for only me, myself and I, it is our physical needs, wants and desires. It takes the physical needs we require to survive and supercharges them and forces us to go above and beyond to satisfy every desire no matter the cost or consequences.
Our flesh takes the physical needs we require to survive and supercharges them.
However as Christians who have been made alive through the resurrection and have been adopted into the New Covenant we have both of these natures vying for control of our every thought and action. Now our spirit is alive and is trying to live according to God’s standards while the flesh is trying to lead us back to living according to our own standards.
One of the best examples of this dual nature at work in the believer comes from Paul in Romans 7:14-24. Here Paul lays out one of the greatest struggles faced by a believer, that although we are saved, redeemed and made righteous
the flesh’s desire to sin and act selfishly does not automatically disappear. We see and know that we still have struggles to do the right thing at times and at others we have no will to do what we know God wants us to do in a given situation.
The good news for us is found in Romans 7:25 where we see that there is a hope for us through Christ.
Through Christ we have the ability to receive forgiveness of sins when we do follow after the will of the flesh. With Jesus and the Holy Spirit living inside of us we have hope to prevail, as long as we are aware of the battle between the flesh and spirit taking place. That is why prayer and taking moments to stop and wait on God is so crucial in many instances. When we don’t stop for a moment and bring God into the picture we are exceedingly more prone to following the will of our flesh, because it seeks instant gratification and can’t stand playing the waiting game.
When we don’t stop for a moment and bring God into the picture we are exceedingly more prone to following the will of our flesh
When we come to Romans 8 the secret of winning this war for our heart is revealed. It’s interesting to note that in the original Greek manuscripts there is not a division between the end of Romans 7 and the beginning of Romans 8, it is the same paragraph. Far to often we create and artificial divide between chapters 7 and 8 and tell both others and ourselves that we live in either one of the two chapters. But the reality is that it’s the same thought in action, here Paul is painting not a picture of condemnation in chapter 7 but of one of victory for the believer. That while we still struggle with these issues we also have access to our daily victories through Christ.
Romans 8:5-6 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
In Romans 8:5-6 we find our first key: what we set our minds to will determine how we act and respond. If we are only concerned about ourselves, our will and our feelings then we will inevitably turn towards acting in a fleshly way. On the other hand, if we are mindful of the Spirit of God living inside of us and thinking about His will and feelings first then we will walk according to the ways of the Spirit. We begin by making willful choices on how we are to live and interact with others and how we follow God.
We see the same truths spoken of by Paul also in Galatians 5:19-21 and Ephesians 2:1-7, in Galatians Paul describes several examples of living according to the flesh. While in Ephesians Paul highlights the spiritual influences which lead many to follow after those selfish ways of the flesh along with the solution to the problem, Jesus and our hope for eternity.
We have talked about how the flesh tries to lead us to sin and how our spirit (and the Holy Spirit living in us) tries to lead us closer to God but there is a third power at work among all of this turmoil, the soul.
The soul is the combination of our mind, will and emotions, in Hebrew it is also called our heart, it is the center of our being here on earth and it is the one which both the spirit and the flesh are trying to dominate. Our spirit is eternal, it is how we communicate with God and this is the point of contact between the natural and supernatural realms. The flesh represents our bodily needs such as food, drink, sleep, sex, self preservation and so on. In its current state these are the only things that the flesh cares for and it does what ever it can to get as much of these things as it can.
The soul is left in the middle to pick and choose which other parts of our being it will submit to and follow.
This leaves the soul in the middle to pick and choose which of these parts of our being it will submit to and follow. Our soul is not just mind, but also our desires, memories, intellect, it’s the captain of our choices and it’s the part of our being that made the choice to accept Christ and receive salvation and forgiveness. Let’s go back to Romans 8 to see how this plays out.
Romans 8:5-8 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Here in Romans 8 we see the interaction between the spirit, soul and flesh, Paul lays out how desires and urges begin in one place but are acted out in another.
Be it good thoughts, urges and desires from the spirit or from the flesh. It is the soul which casts the deciding vote on how and what we are to act upon. In Romans 8:6 we see clearly that a mind set on flesh will bring about death, be it spiritually, emotionally, intellectually or physically. On the other hand, the mind set on the spirit brings life and peace.
The Greek word for life here Zoe and doesn’t just mean natural life but also the kind of life which makes up the soul and the spirit. When we follow God’s will and ways and live a life under the control of our spirit it brings about life and peace not only in an intellectual sense but also in a spiritual and in a natural way.
On the other hand if we continue to allow our flesh and carnal nature to rule over our lives and thoughts Romans 8 shows us clearly that our mind becomes hostile towards God and will not allow itself to be subjected to the love, power and expectations of God (also Romans 2:5-11). Which is why Paul says in Romans 8:8 “So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God”. Paul can make a declaration like this because of what God spoke in Isaiah 55:8-9. Even Jesus eluded to this contrast between the ways of the spirit and the ways of flesh throughout His ministry when He spoke about the ways of the Kingdom, how He expected His followers to act and in nearly every parable.
Seeing all of this we must accept that the ways of the flesh will never be in alignment with how God sees the world and how He wants us to live. If left unchecked our flesh will always chose the exact opposite of what God would have us do (or at the very least corrupt our motives for doing the right thing), because the flesh is focused on itself, its true god.
Is our current situation hopeless? No for we have been given an unfair advantage in the war over the control of our heart. Our spirit is not alone for we are also in living communion with God and through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit we have the living God present in us to give strength to our spirit so that it can speak loud and clear to our soul (Romans 8:9-14, Galatians 2:20).
The spirit has the advantage over the flesh, but only if we allow it.
We must come at this war over the soul from a mindset that the spirit actually has the advantage over the flesh, but only if we allow it. Through patience we learn the ability to not act impulsively when situations arise, we must always give God opportunity to speak and intervene within our spirit and soul.
At every opportunity we should be in internal fellowship with God so that we will always be aware of how we are to act, speak and believe in any situation. Walking in the spirit requires effort, while walking in the flesh only requires inactivity. Our living everyday relationship with God and our ability to live out the call on our lives will not be decided by natural means but will be decided by the battle raging within ourselves.
Question: How would you act differently in your daily life if you were constantly aware of God’s presence all around you and how would that impact the war within you?
Are you looking to develop your relationship with God and better understand the Bible? Pick up a copy of one of my books today.
Understanding Who You Are: A Survey of 21st Century Christian Beliefs
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WHEN IT COMES TO UNDERSTANDING WHO GOD IS we tend to be comfortable in the identities of Jesus and the Father. Yet when it comes to the Holy Spirit He feel less like a familiar neighbor and more like some hermit in that creepy house at the end of town. Throughout the Old Testament we hear of God moving through the prophets and the nation of Israel. While in the New Testament we are focused on the works and words of Jesus, however what we usually don’t realize is that the Holy Spirit is working right there along side them.
On a technical level the Holy Spirit is the third member of the trinity and is an equal part of the godhead along with Jesus and the Father. The Holy Spirit is the part of God in which we can interact with on a daily basis. He is the personal part of God which we have not only living inside of us but is a part of the world around us, as the tangible presence of God on the Earth (2 Corinthians 13:14, John 5:6-8).
Some people tend to see God as being far off in Heaven and Jesus is right there beside Him, while the Holy Spirit is here on the earth and is never far away. Through salvation and baptisms the Holy Spirit not only becomes part of our lives but comes to live inside of us. We can’t just reduce that truth to a Christian phrase or a theological topic, but we must come to a living reality of that truth in our own lives.
The Holy Spirit wants to be known by us and we must be just as willing to know Him.
The Holy Spirit wants to be known by us and we must be just as willing to know Him. That is the purpose of this first section to better know the Holy Spirit and develop a living relationship with Him here and now. To take away any walls of separation between us and the trinity. To live in the fullest possible measure of God’s presence and purpose for our lives.
We see The Holy Spirit at work in many ways throughout the Bible all the way back at creation in Genesis 1:2, 26 we see the spirit hovering, waiting to create, waiting to bring life to the natural realm we live in. Fast forward to the baptism of Jesus and we see Him at work again as the one who empowers Jesus to fulfill His mission to redeem mankind (Matthew 3:16-17).
After the death and resurrection of Jesus we see the power of the Holy Spirit at work through the apostles and the early church in the book of Acts.
The Holy Spirit was moving in the same way He was during Jesus’s ministry because we have been given the same authority to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and the do the same. The Holy Spirit isn’t a type of magic to be invoked He is the power and presence of the living God who is looking for those willing to not only have a relationship but be willing to do was the Father calls them to do with their lives.
The Holy Spirit’s role can be seen clearest through Jesus’ words about His unity with the Father. (John 5:36-40, John 8:28-29). The same relationship that Jesus lays out concerning His relationship with the Father should be the same for us and the Father today. The Holy Spirit, aka God’s presence on the earth should be just as open and vivid to us as it was to Jesus during His earthly ministry. The Holy Spirit does not glorify Himself, but the Son. This does not speak of an inferiority in His standing in the Trinity but reveals the role of the Holy Spirit in the plan of redemption. That is why we must never forget that the Holy Spirit came to make real the things of Jesus, that through Him the same power that was at work through Jesus is available to us today (John 16:13-15).
The Holy Spirit came to make real the things of Jesus, that through Him the same power that was at work through Jesus is available to us today
Unlike in the Old Testament where people were kept a safe distance from the Spirit of God, in the Gospels, Jesus signaled a change in how the Holy Spirit would relate to men and women. No longer would there be a separation where only the high priest on one day a year could experience the presence of God but all people at all times could be that near to God. Before the people would fear and quake at the presence of the Father, now under the New Covenant the barrier of sin is gone and God through Holy Spirit has deposited His presence into us. No longer are just the prophets and patriarchs privy to a special relationship with the Creator but everyone who have called Jesus their Messiah and Savior.
Another key role of the Holy Spirit is that He takes the all of the things we associate with the Father and reveals them to us (John 16:12-16). We see this modeled over and over with Jesus as He only said and did what He heard from the Father. That same relationship is available to us today, and not just for a select few such as prophets or leaders of large churches. All who are willing to listen and obey can hear the voice of the Father.
This leads to another one of the Holy Spirit’s roles, the one who would empower His church to do what God called it to do. He helps the church be an authentic witness to the world just as we saw in Acts 1:8.
Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
The Holy Spirit wasn’t just sent to help the church metaphorically or emotionally, but He is here to help the church move in power. Be it power over sin, hopelessness, or the fallen state of the world. He also brings to us gifts of wisdom, knowledge and even (at times the most needed manifestation) miraculous power which sees the dead raised, people healed and testimonies which cannot be denied come to pass. You see as believers we are nothing more than living lightbulbs and the Holy Spirit is the electricity which generates light for people to see Jesus.
Starting with the apostles and carrying on to today we are all called to be proclaimers of the gospel. From the beginning God knew that Jesus’ physical presence would leave but He would send the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ place to work through and with believers (John 16:7).
The Holy Spirit came in this “new way” when Jesus’ physical presence left the earth and now uses everyday believers such as you and me to continue the ministry of Jesus and to expand the Kingdom. Everyday people who are willing to follow the Holy Spirit and not just the elite few. We all have our own places of influence and people we can reach that others will never be able to. If we give Holy Spirit room to move in those areas imagine what could happen, with Jesus’s resurrection and ascension the promise of John 7:39 is NOW in effect.
John 7:38-39 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
When we begin to accept that the Holy Spirit is the living and active presence of God that lives within us then and only then can we have a true impact on this world. When we no longer look at Him as being some type of mystery or some genie certain denominations talk about we begin to understand. The God we read about in the Old Testament and the Christ we preach about from the New Testament lives inside of us and is looking to continue the work He began so long ago.
The same holiness, compassion and power Jesus walked in is available to us today through the Holy Spirit.
The same compassion and power Jesus walked in is available to us today, but with that the same standard of holiness spoken of by the Father in the Old Testament remains. The Holy Spirit has been unleashed to bring people to the cross, to work in power and to ensure that Christians live according to the standards which have been lovingly set by the Father.
John 16: 7-11 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
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WITH ALL OF THE DIFFICULTIES, struggles, pains, losses, frustrations and general unjust craziness there is in this life it doesn’t take much to lose ones hope. We try our best to continue trusting the God of hope but so much in this world and in our individual lives tells us to give up the fight and settle into the lands of defeat. There is no fairy tale ending, so get a cozy chair and get yourself a nice view of the pit of despair.
We see bad things happen, or watch family members struggle with health issues, we struggle with finances, prayers don’t get answered so we are tempted to just give up trying to be optimistic or to cling to any sort of faith that God can change what is going on in our lives. Along with all of that we take the fallout from one unanswered prayer and use it to justify not having faith for God to do something next time. Or we allow one loss to cancel out dozens of previous victories, everything that God did years ago no longer matters because we feel that He wasn’t with us today.
These are difficult issues and hard questions to deal with and they can’t just be answered by telling someone that they just have to believer harder or that they should just read their Bible more. I’m not against faith or prayer or anything like that, I’ve personally witnessed the blind see, the deaf hear, and the crippled walking out of wheel chairs. However, I have also watched people die from cancer, others struggle with issues from accidents, I’ve lost two friends to depression and suicide and I’ve had my own problems as well.
I have seen the greatness of God’s power in action and I’ve experienced the absence of it.
I have seen the greatness of God’s power in action and I’ve seen and experienced the absence of it, even with myself. For the past four years I have struggled with an ear issue that has left me with unending ringing in my ears, has cost me one third of my hearing ability and has made me unable to even worship along with the rest of the church I attend. Flashback ten years ago now and I was once in a market in Mexico City on a mission trip and we were praying for people. One day a woman came to get prayer for her ear. Me and another prayed for what we thought was an ear
infection and she was miraculously healed. What we found out after we prayed was that she didn’t have in infection but had actually ruptured her ear drum the day before and was totally deaf in the one side. After she said she could hear she pulled out the cotton ball from her no longer deaf ear that was stained with blood.
It’s not just a matter of going down to the Jesus store and picking up some joy with a side of milk.
This is where things get difficult when you know that God can and is able to move in power and He doesn’t. It’s not easy to keep hope alive, especially as the years go by, especially when those years bring more and more pain, frustration and loss. God is the God of hope according to Paul in Romans 15:13 and not only that but He is also supposed to be our source of joy and peace. The problem is though it’s not just a matter of going down to the Jesus store and picking up some joy with a side of milk. These are real matters of faith, not just superficial ones where we just try to whitewash what is going on inside of us.
You see real faith is not yelling at the top of your lungs that you have faith; real faith involves being honest with what is in front of us. Faith is never absent from realty, it recognizes what is really going on and looks towards God to change that reality to something else. Pretending that there are no problems is not faith it is delusion. Does that mean we can’t pray for a change? Of course not. What I am saying is that our faith and hope are not dependant on our circumstances they are dependant on the nature and character of God.
It takes infinitely more faith to declare that God is good and loving when your world is upside down than it does when you’re sitting in an air-conditioned church and everything is rainbows and sunshine. Real faith is when you are able to honestly praise God even when you don’t get your prayers answered, not just when you do.
“It takes infinitely more faith to declare that God is good and loving when your world is upside down than it does when you’re sitting in an air-conditioned church and everything is rainbows and sunshine.”
Just look at what Jeremiah said after the darkest day in Judah’s history at that time in Lamentations 3:25-26 “The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; 26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (NKJV). Jeremiah didn’t write this after the people repented and had a great party, no he wrote this after the utter destruction of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah. How could he speak of hope after so much death and destruction? He could do it because He understood who God is.
That is where we find out great weakness, far too often we take the supposed and actual failures, shortcomings, and losses of our lives and place the blame squarely on God and we lash out against him like overly emotional teenagers in response. Everything bad was God’s fault and everything good is the result of my own hard work – is the lie we tell ourselves. You see God is good but we are temporary travelers in a world that is not good.
We live in a fallen and broken world and there are times when we don’t get our way, a prayer doesn’t get answered, a person dies, a job is lost or a life loses its purpose. Then rather than praise God for who He is and what else he has done for us we abandon hope because we believe it is better not to hope than it is to hope and be disappointed. We respond that way because it is all part of the plan, not God’s plan but Satan’s.
In Satan’s eyes a mute, broken and depressed Christian is the best one there is because he knows they will never do anything to weaken his kingdom. It is a campaign of disarmament where he and his forces go out and convince Christians that it is better to have never hoped than to have hoped and lost. It is a strategy where he convinces us that the weapons of our belief and warfare are too heavy to carry and actually do more harm than good. So we should throw them away and settle for a life under spiritual house arrest.
It is a campaign of disarmament where Satan and his forces convince Christians that it’s better to have never hoped than to have hoped and lost.
In Rick Renner’s devotional Sparkling Gems From The Greek (USA Canada) he talks about John 10:10-11 and unpacks the meaning of what Jesus meant warning us that Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy. Renner speaks of how the word kill does not mean to murder but has the understanding of a religious sacrifice such as when a lamb was killed on the altar. If Satan can’t destroy our hopes, dreams, purpose, life or anything else he’ll convince us to do it ourselves out of devotion or another reason. The same applies to our hope if he can’t crush it from within he’ll convince us to lay it down either for moral, cultural, religious, or emotional reasons. Or it could be as simple as feeling as if God is calling us to lay something down when in reality God is trying to awaken that thing you are about to kill.
Proverbs 13:12 tells us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick” this is both a spiritual and a medical truth as the loss of hope has a tangible impact on our spirit, mind and body. However the verse continues and says that a “longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
In our opening verse Romans 15:13 the hope Paul was looking towards was the culmination of both Jews and Gentiles coming into the Kingdom of God together through the New Covenant (Titus 2:13). This is what drove him from nation to nation and from prison to prison preaching the gospel despite the problems he encountered because he saw a light at the end of the tunnel.
We also need that long ranging hope to carry us to the end of our lives, but we also need hope for today. We need both hope for today and for the future because we live in two worlds one of earth and one of Heaven. So our hope must reflect that we can’t have a hope that is based only in the future, but we must also have a hope that sees its results today, although to a smaller degree.
It is just like opening a present on Christmas eve and getting the rest in the morning. Or taking a long-awaited road trip but also taking time to make stops along the way. You don’t wait until you arrive to enjoy yourself even though your ultimate enjoyment is at the end of the trip (serendipity). At other times you may discover that you only enjoyed the final destination because of what happened along the way, so it is with our hope in God.
Are there times when God will answer our prayers, yes, and are there times when He won’t (at least as far as we can perceive) of course. What is important though is not how God answers but how we respond to God afterwards. If we can turn to God with the same love and hope no matter the outcome then we have passed the test of faith and our hope is not in God’s ability to please us but it is based on our love for Him.
If we can turn to God with the same love and hope no matter the outcome then we have passed the test of faith.
Romans 5:1-5 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (NKJV)
Are you looking to develop your relationship with God and better understand the Bible? Pick up a copy of one of my books today.
Understanding Who You Are: A Survey of 21st Century Christian Beliefs
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Indigo, iBook, Nook and more HERE
Six Minutes of Grace: The Key To Finding Happiness and Purpose
Amazon.com paperback, eBook | Amazon.ca paperback, eBook
Indigo, iBook, Nook and more HERE
Six Minutes of Grace Journal
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