147. Receive Holy Spirit
John 20:22 He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.
Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to His disciples, which also includes us who live in a different age and yet have believed in Christ. To receive the Holy Spirit is to have the Almighty, Eternal God living within. The God who lives in us is the HS whom we have received as a gift from Jesus Christ. This means everything, for if we have God we have all things. We receive HS not so we might possess or control Him for our own wishes and desires; no, we receive HS so that He might possess and control us according to His will. Faith in God’s Word knows that God’s will is good for us, far better than our own selfish will.
The control of the HS is not by force or coercion, but it is by gentle influence convincing us by the Word that His will is better; we submit our will to His. This is a scenario of constant struggle; indeed, the flesh and the spirit within are at war inside of Christians all the time. Another term for this spiritual warfare is old man versus new man; another is saint and sinner.
The Holy Spirit dwells in the human spirit after making it alive by faith in Christ. From there it wars against the human soul, which is entirely self-seeking and under the tyrannical control of Sin. Most people recognize that they are two people, and they see them as some form of good versus evil. The Christian knows that he is both saint and sinner at the same time all the time. Both exist (and fight) together in the same person until death, when the soul is finally changed forever.
“Breath” and “spirit” are the same word in both Hebrew and Greek. Four times God breathes the spirit: 1) when God created Adam in Genesis 2; 2) when God breathed on the dry bones in Ezekiel 37; 3) when Jesus breathed on His disciples in John 20; 4) when God breathed out (inspired) the Scriptures in 2 Timothy 3:16. Both breath and spirit are life. We receive the breath and we live.