Everyone, whether they admit it or not, bows to something, someone. Men err in bowing to other men, to governments, to ecclesiastic hierarchies. We are to kneel to none but Jesus Christ. And in doing so, we acknowledge that He alone is worthy of our prayers, our obedience and our fealty.
it wasn't until I learned how to let go and let God, to trust Him, that I really experienced the power of God, the indwelling of the Spirit. Miracles followed. Chief among them is the difference in me. I am nothing like the person I was.
This is His promise to us. This is the evidence of His truth. Really hearing the word of God changes our lives for the better. Christ spends a considerable amount of time speaking about the fruits of the spirit for a very good reason -- those fruits are the evidence of the indwelling Spirit. They will come because He has assured us He will not leave us comfortless.
He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." -- Matthew 13:10-13 "And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
Christ is telling us that first the Holy Spirit indwells us by the will of God, and then we are given understanding and ears to hear and eyes to see.
"For whosoever hath, to him shall be given."
How much clearer could it be than that? Because at that point, our adoption by God is confirmed to us by the very real, tangible changes in our lives...
"But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." -- Matthew 13:23
And later Paul confirms the "fruit of the spirit..."
(For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord." -- Ephesians 5:8-10"For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
The "fruit of the spirit" in our lives actually "proves" the will of God, and confirms the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
"Faith is a firm and certain knowledge of God's benevolence towards us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit." -- John Calvin
You probably know my affection for Calvin, AG, because he writes so strongly and clearly of the power and scope of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And this ready witness and tangible confidence is what I find in your posts, too.
Calvin has made contributions of the first importance to other departments of theological thought. It has already been observed that he marks an epoch in the history of the doctrine of the Trinity. He also marks an epoch in the mode of presenting the work of Christ. The presentation of Christ's work under the rubrics of the three-fold office of Prophet, Priest and King was introduced by him; and from him it was taken over by the entirety of Christendom, not always, it is true, in his spirit or with his completeness of development, but yet with large advantage. In Christian ethics, too, his impulse proved epoch-making, and this great science was for a generation cultivated only by his followers. It is probable however that Calvin's greatest contribution to theological science lies in the rich development which he gives--and which he was the first to give--to the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit. No doubt, from the origin of Christianity, everyone who has been even slightly imbued with the Christian spirit has believed in the Holy Spirit as the author and giver of life, and has attributed all that is good in the world, and particularly in himself, to His holy offices. And, of course, in treating of grace, Augustine worked out the doctrine of salvation as a subjective experience with great vividness and in great detail, and the whole course of this salvation was fully understood, no doubt, to be the work of the Holy Spirit. But in the same sense in which we may say that the doctrine of sin and grace dates from Augustine, the doctrine of satisfaction from Anselm, the doctrine of justification by faith from Luther, -- we must say that the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit is a gift from Calvin to the Church. It was he who first related the whole experience of salvation specifically to the working of the Holy Spirit, worked it out into its details, and contemplated its several steps and stages in orderly progress as the product of the Holy Spirit's specific work in applying salvation to the soul. Thus he gave systematic and adequate expression to the whole doctrine of the Holy Spirit and made it the assured possession of the Church of God. It has been common to say that Calvin's entire theological work may be summed up in this--that he emancipated the soul from the tyranny of human authority and delivered it from the uncertainties of human intermediation in religious things: that he brought the soul into the immediate presence of God and cast it for its spiritual health upon the free grace of God alone. Where the Romanist placed the Church, it is said, Calvin set the Deity. The saying is true, and perhaps, when rightly understood and filled with its appropriate content, it may sufficiently characterise the effect of his theological teaching. But it is expressed too generally to be adequate. What Calvin did was, specifically, to replace the doctrine of the Church as sole source of assured knowledge of God and sole institute of salvation, by the Holy Spirit. Previously, men had looked to the Church for all the trustworthy knowledge of God obtainable, and as well for all the communications of grace accessible. Calvin taught them that neither function has been committed to the Church, but God the Holy Spirit has retained both in His own hands and confers both knowledge of God and communion with God on whom He will. The Institutes is, accordingly, just a treatise on the work of God the Holy Spirit in making God savingly known to sinful man, and bringing sinful man into holy communion with God...""...The Institutes...constitute Calvin pre-eminently as the theologian of the Holy Spirit.
Thank you for all of your encouragements, and I too see the power of the Holy Spirit in your life through the words you speak on this forum. (I Cor 2)
To God be the glory.