I want to talk about the Holy Spirit, and theology in a moment. And to do that I want to use a quote from Michael Hardin.
Just a heads up though before reading further. This next quote is both true, and also challenging. And if it doesn’t challenge you, then read it again, pray, sit, and it soon will.
Here is what Michael Hardin says about the Holy Spirit, God, and theology:
If all the Holy Spirit does is to confirm your personal theology, it probably isn’t the Holy Spirit. The work of the Spirit is to conform each of us as persons and together as a people into the image of Jesus.
And this is just so true, and disturbing at the same point. It is obvious none of us are Jesus, none of us are Christ. We each have areas that need to be remade, transformed, or shaped into being Christlike.
And Hardin raises the point that if all the Holy Spirit does is comfort you, confirm your view of God, and counsel you, it probably isn’t the Holy Spirit. Because part of what the Holy Spirit does is to challenge you to conform to Christ. This means dying to parts of yourself, this means being convicted of sin and changed.
The point is that if the Holy Spirit isn’t doing any challenging or convicting, we’re probably just not listening enough…
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