Encountering God Through His Word

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

— John 16:13-15 ESV

This morning, I was prepared to share Jacob’s post about Jesus’s command to love one another. For some reason, I sensed that the Lord did not want me to post it today. It is a meaningful message that we will receive tomorrow. The Spirit began directing my thoughts toward what it means to long for God’s glory. What does it look like to encounter God? Jacob and I, along with our whole team, are convinced that there is no power and glory outside of encountering Jesus and being transformed by him, but what does this look like?

We need the truth of the word and the power of the Spirit to be holy. There are endless verses of wisdom and instruction in the scriptures. It is still easy to get distracted by information and lose sight of the informant. We can get caught up debating words and language and forget to engage with the one who spoke the words to the scribes and ultimately is the word. We seriously need this guide to help us live holy and righteous lives. We need the wisdom of the word to understand what it means to love justice and mercy. It is all truth and all helpful.

Some have gone to the other extreme, claiming that we just need to get in tune with the Spirit and go with whatever we hear or experience. That is as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than living legalistically.

Our conviction is that God encounters us by his Spirit through his word. We believe that he uses other means to bring his gifts, but the Bible is the best source of revelation knowledge. We believe that the word contains unchallengeable truth—truth we are fearfully submitted to. From this book, we pray and prophesy, we teach and seek, we learn to serve and we learn to love.

That is what makes John 16 and the whole dialogue from John 13-17 so radical and transformational. Jesus could have left us with an instruction manual, but he went beyond this measure. He offered his Holy Spirit as the voice of truth in our lives. I know that both ends of the spectrum carry a belief that we need to live out God's mission on the earth. We need instructions, but we also need the instructor.

Jesus said that the Spirit would take what is his and declare it to us. Right now, the Holy Spirit is prepared to declare, deliver, and manifest the things of God to you. This is the transformational encounter we need every day to walk in freedom.

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