Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness—Psalm 5:8

Can you see the fluency in this when you read also Jesus words in the Gospel of John, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” (John 16:13) There is no mistaking what the good Lord is saying to us here in each portion of Scripture. The person who is guided by the Spirit into all truth is also led by the Good Shepherd away from all darkness and deception, in Christ’s righteousness. He or she is desirous to be separated from all unholiness; anything that is offensive to God the Father, uncharacteristic of the Son, Jesus, and counterproductive to the work the Holy Spirit is doing within their being. When the Holy Spirit comes there is also a spirit of cooperation and submission that enters in as well.

As Paul wrote in Philippians 1:6 he was confident that the one who began a good work in us will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ” In other words we are all works in progress. And, as the old saying goes “we may not be what we are going to be, but we are not what we were.” The moment we have become the Holy Spirit’s possession and temple is the moment the work of transformation begins.

Here is a conversation our Lord had with his disciples about true character, “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit.” (Luke 6:43,44)

We also will be known by the fruit we bear. Not just our speech, but our actions define and convey to others and God who we are. We cannot claim to be gentle, humble, compassionate, hopeful little lambs but bear the fruit of hostility, pride, arrogance, mean-spiritedness and hopelessness. The outer fruit will always match the inner, hidden heart.

We can be encouraged to ask the Lord to give us our own, personal undeniable Pentecost where the Holy Spirit comes to be our Lord and Master, comes with his purity, power and unquenchable presence to convert us from what we were to what we are becoming more and more: reflections of our beautiful Savior Jesus in every manner. Let’s Pray

Jesus you have sent your very own Spirit to transform us from our lowly selves to your higher character and nature. May we each experience our own personal Pentecost so we may possess not only outwardly, but inwardly, your power, purity and presence through him. In your name we pray, Amen.