Spirit Transforms From Within

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  (18)  But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Every believer has been predestined by God the Father to be conformed to the image of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 8:29). It is the Holy Spirit who does that work in us, for the above passage of Scripture declares that we are being transformed into the image of Jesus by the Spirit of the Lord. This transformation takes place progressively in the believer, as the passage tells us that we are being changed from glory to glory.

So how does He do that? We must work with Him by continually looking at the glory of the Lord in the mirror of His word and then walking in what He reveals to us (James 1:23-25). As we do this, He performs the miracle of transforming us into the image of Jesus Christ our Lord. The Holy Spirit begins this work when we are born again and continues it throughout our lives here on earth, finally bringing it to completion when we go to be with the Lord.

John 4:13-14 “Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, (14) but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

From what we have seen in this section dealing with the believer's first encounter with the Holy Spirit, it is clearly evident that in every respect, He blesses the life of the believer and not directly the lives of those around them. Obviously, as individual believers become more like Jesus, their changed lifestyles that reflect Christ in them have the collateral effect of blessing those around them. Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit is not manifesting Himself through these believers to directly bless those around them.

Jesus used the above analogy in John's Gospel to describe the blessing of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer who has been born again. Our Lord Jesus likened the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer to a fountain of living water residing within them. This fountain of water, which is an analogy for the Holy Spirit, is for the individual believer's benefit, so that they may never thirst again. It is not, however, a fountain of water that quenches the thirst of others around them.

The truth of the Holy Spirit being a fountain of water in us springing up into everlasting life is very important for us to understand and live by, for Jesus said we would never thirst again. Why is this truth so important? As we look at further encounters in this series, we will see that one of the motivations for believers to seek supernatural encounters is that they claim to feel dry inside and need to be filled once again. This goes completely against what Jesus has taught us, for He never said that if we are spiritually thirsty, we need to go to another well to drink. Rather, we are to drink from the fountain of water that resides within each one of us. Thus, believers who claim their spiritual lives are dry and desperately seek other sources of satisfaction open themselves up to an enemy that will accommodate them with a supernatural experience that will ultimately deceive them.

There is one further aspect to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers who have been born again but have never progressed to further encounters with the Holy Spirit: they have no tangible evidence (other than a changed lifestyle) that they have the Holy Spirit residing within them. It is by faith alone that they believe He resides within them, and as such, they do not enjoy the blessing of being sealed by the Holy Spirit, Who is given to us as the guarantee of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Sadly, many in the body of Christ only experience the first encounter with the Holy Spirit and, because of ignorance of God's word, never progress further in their walk with the Holy Spirit. Their ignorance in this area is perpetuated by ministers of the gospel who have been taken captive by the devil to teach error in the church—that there is no such thing as the baptism of the Holy Spirit or the gifts of the Spirit. These ministers are similar to the Sadducees of Jesus' day, for just as Jesus said of the Sadducees that they were greatly mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God (Mark 12:24), so too these ministers are greatly mistaken. Because this group of ministers has never experienced the tangible power of the Holy Spirit, they tend to condemn fellow believers who do enjoy the blessing of subsequent encounters with the Holy Spirit. When these fellow believers get into error through excesses in this area (which we will discuss later in this series), these ministers are quick to use such excesses to justify their standpoint that there are no further encounters with the Holy Spirit. It is only by God's grace that He grants some of these ministers repentance in this area through their own experience of further scriptural encounters with the Holy Spirit. Because they eventually learn the truth and come to their senses, they can begin to proclaim the full counsel of God's word as He intended.

Michael E.B. Maher

Holy Spirit Encounters

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