Intimacy – God Is With Us
If you read the statements in Acts relating to the ‘activity of the Holy Spirit’ in an earlier post, you will notice how completely dependent the early believers were upon the person of the Spirit! Paul refers to it as, “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.”
There are periods of unfolding revelation throughout The Book, as God reveals Himself to people as Father or Abba, Jesus the man and Spirit.
The revelation of God the Father throughout the OT is an awesome picture of majesty and power leading the people of God by fire and cloud with references of prophetic insight into the One who was yet to come, Jesus, who would be called Immanuel, God with us.
During Jesus’ time on earth He talks with the disciples about the One who is to come, who will lead you into all truth. And, after his resurrection the Spirit becomes the person of the triune God at work within the Church.
These early believers were intoxicated with the Holy Spirit and as a result experienced genuine intimacy with Him. It seems to me that this dependence upon His Presence was at the heart of the early Christian Church and will be the key for us as well.
John Wesley died on 2 March 1791, in his eighty-seventh year. As he lay dying, his friends gathered around him, Wesley grasped their hands and said repeatedly, “Farewell, farewell.” At the end, he said “The best of all is, God is with us,” lifted his arms and raised his feeble voice again, repeating the words, “The best of all is, God is with us.
Observations
I have observed over the years what it means to walk in a fresh and experiential relationship with the person of the Spirit. He frees us from who we were in order to show us who He wants us to become. The fresh fruit of his Spirit is evident in those lives that have chosen to walk this way in humble dependence.
If those early believers lived so fully in the sweet awareness of God’s Presence so that everything else seemed secondary, we can as well. It is the ‘heart’ of the early Church we are to desire.
As we look again at the early church there are signs of joy and freshness, devotion and purity, glory and awe flowing out of the people of His Presence. This fresh realisation will dawn within our hearts that Jesus’ promise of Another to come alongside is being fulfilled in his Body. But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
May we be encouraged to trust the living God to restore His Church in His way!