July 15th
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The Spirit Promised to Glorify Jesus
When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all the truth… He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you…Now we have received… the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. (John 16:13-14; 1 Corinthians 2:12)
The promised teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit involves His guiding us into all the truths of the word of God. "When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all the truth." As the Spirit is fulfilling this promise, He especially wants to unfold God's truth in ways that will glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you." The desire of the Holy Spirit is to bring glory and honor, not to Himself, but to the Lord Jesus Christ. "But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me" (John 15:26).
One of the primary ways the Spirit glorifies Jesus is to reveal to us (and bring into our growing experiential knowledge) the free heavenly riches that are ours in Christ. "Now we have received… the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God." This is the language of grace: "freely given to us." The wonders of God's grace are poured out freely: "being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved" (Romans 3:24; Ephesians 1:6). What man deserves (and has earned by his own sin and offenses) is judgment. However, Christ supplies at His cost (His death for us) the free remedy of eternal life. "But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many… For the wages of sin is death, but the (free) gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 5:15; 6:23).
These freely given things of everlasting life include far more than the precious gift of forgiveness. "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). From a river of blessings (including, peace, hope, fruit, gifts, victory, etc.) we are to freely drink throughout time—and even for all eternity. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts...and let him who thirsts come. And whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely" (Revelation 21:6; 22:17).
Lord Jesus, these freely given things of God, revealed to me by Your Spirit through Your word, cause me to glorify You greatly. Please teach me to freely drink of these riches yet more and more, through humble dependence upon You, Amen.