I Found the Holy Spirit in Some Unexpected Places…
Can the Holy Spirit truly be found in every book of the Bible? The answer is yes! How could it be otherwise? How could the One who inspired every word written in both the Old and New Testaments not be found in the same?
I love the Holy Spirit, and I never tire of talking about Him. I’ll never forget the day He touched my life. I was never to be the same again. I am forever ruined for anything less than the majesty of His presence. I’m driven by a holy obsession with the Spirit. Since the moment He first befriended me, I have sought to be a better friend to Him; I have sought to know His mind, power, and nature. Hungry to know more about the Person of the Holy Spirit, I asked Him to teach me. I told Him, “Teach me everything! I don’t want to miss a thing about You!”
I had been faithful to steward all of the beautiful revelations the Lord had given me before—revelations concerning the Holy Spirit. I wrote them in books. I preached them in sermons. I taught them in lessons. I prayed them in prayers. I recorded them in both audio and video media. And the more I talked about the Holy Spirit, the more I realized that there was more to know. Sometimes, right in the middle of me preaching, the Holy Spirit would give me whispered instructions, spontaneous glimpses about His Person. Just when I thought that I had discovered all there was to discover about Him, I would find more—much more. Dear reader, the well of revelation will never run dry. There’s that much to Him.As I remained faithful to properly steward those revelations, the Lord poured even more into me. The more we use what He has given to us, the more He gives us to use. The Lord always gives us more as we steward His treasures well.
If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities (Luke 16:10).
I began to see the Holy Spirit in places of the Bible I had never before seen Him. Especially in the books of the Bible that are historic in nature, I did not anticipate finding Him. Nonetheless, He was there—He was there all along. True to His gentle and humble nature, He worked in subtle ways through mighty servants of God, faithfully nudging divine vessels across the plane of God’s perfect will.
I wondered how I could have missed Him before so many times. After all, I had read those passages. Internally, I asked the Holy Spirit, “How did I miss You in the Scriptures so often? Why didn’t You show me that You were there?” I sensed this message in response: “Because you never asked.” You see, the Holy Spirit does not make it His priority to testify of Himself. His primary message is the same as the Father’s—their message is Jesus.
But I will send you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about Me (John 15:26).
This does not mean, however, that the Holy Spirit will never reveal His work, nature, or Person. It just means that His emphasis is Jesus. In fact, the closer you become to the Holy Spirit, the more you will love Jesus. A passionate love for Jesus is the ultimate sign of fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Still, there is nothing wrong with pursuing fellowship with the Spirit Himself.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14).
Encouraged by the truth of God’s Word, I continued my search for the Spirit in the Scriptures. I asked myself, “Could it be that the Holy Spirit can be found, in one way or another, in every single book of the Bible?” Sure, we can find the types and shadows of Christ. But is the same true of the Holy Spirit?
Dear reader, why wouldn’t that be the reality? After all, it is the oil which keeps the light of the lamp aglow. It is the Spirit who reveals Jesus and makes Him known. Where we see Jesus in action, we always see the Spirit at work. Where we see God’s will being fulfilled through people, we also see the Spirit moving. The Word of God is a divine classic marked by the supernatural, traced out masterfully by the hand of the Spirit. It was His breath that carried the words of the prophets. It was His hand that guided those who recorded the very Word of God.
My contention is simple and, in my opinion, modest: there’s something to be learned about the Holy Spirit or His work in every single book of the Bible.
His work, His Person, and His nature are emanating from every page of the Scripture. You just have to know how to look.
Mystery is in the very nature of God. Jesus taught in parables. The declarations of the prophets had, hidden within them, the secrets of the Christ. Our God is a God of wonder and unpredictability. Only those who walk in close fellowship with Him will come to truly understand His mysterious ways.
He made known his ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel (Psalm 103:7 KJV).
The children of Israel knew God’s acts and power. But Moses understood God’s ways and nature. It is the nature of the Lord to reveal Himself incrementally in response to the faithfulness of the one who seeks Him.
If you look for Me wholeheartedly, you will find Me (Jeremiah 29:13).The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will shew them His covenant (Psalm 25:14 KJV).Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour (Isaiah 45:15 KJV).
Why does the Lord cloud Himself with mystery? It’s quite simple. The Lord wants to be sought.
His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him—though He is not far from any one of us (Acts 17:27).It is God’s privilege to conceal things and the king’s privilege to discover them (Proverbs 25:2).
When asked why He spoke in parables, Jesus gave to His disciples this powerful response:
He replied, “You are permitted to understand the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but others are not. To those who listen to My teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them (Matthew 13:11-12).
The nature of God is mysterious, and Scripture was born of the nature of God.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16 NIV).
All throughout the Bible, God speaks to us through clear, straightforward messages, as well as through hidden revelations. The hidden revelations become easier to discover as we grow in our understanding of the clear truths of Scripture.
Here I must emphasize this important point: always interpret the unclear verses of Scripture by the clear verses of Scripture and never the other way around.
When you are faithful to steward and rightly handle the written Word of God, the now and alive Word of God becomes activated. Secrets of the Spirit become unlocked and ready for you to open. Remember that Jesus promised, “To those who listen to My teaching, more understanding will be given…” (Matt. 13:12).
Stop for a moment and say, “Holy Spirit, help me to be faithful to the clear revelations that I might be trusted with the hidden revelations.”
The thrilling truth is that in the Scripture, you will find meanings hidden in types, shadows, parallels, parables, and symbols. Just as Jesus is revealed symbolically—the spotless Lamb (see John 1:29; 1 Peter 1:19; Rev. 5:12), the Door (John 10:7), the Vine (John 15:1,5), the Bread of Life (John 6:35), the Light (Isa. 9:2; John 8:12), the Morning Star (2 Peter 1:19; Rev. 22:16), etc.—so the Holy Spirit is also revealed in symbolism.
Throughout Scripture, there are nine recurring symbols that represent the Spirit's work and presence. These symbols are:
Wind
Fire
Oil
Light
The Dove
The Cloud
The Seal
Water
Wine
My prayer for you is that your faith would come alive as you ready yourself to encounter the Holy Spirit in every book of the Bible.
