by Abraham Smith<\/p>\n
There are many false ideas about the work and influence of the Holy Spirit. In my estimation, the vast majority of these false ideas are rooted in the fact that people do not understand the connection between the Holy Spirit and the word of God. Ephesians 6:17 reads, “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God…<\/em>” The Spirit does His work in our hearts and in our lives exclusively through the word that He gave! He placed a power in His word that is activated by us hearing it (reading it) and having a fertile heart (an honest, seeking, humble, yielding heart).<\/p>\n One of the great problems with men is that they made devastating and destructive substitutions for the hearing (reading) of God’s word. One of those substitutions is to submit to men, who often are not readers of the whole Bible themselves), and thus they are guided by men who often claim, “The Lord told me to tell you thus and thus,” but in that they are not readers of the whole Bible, they are incapable of doing what Paul said he did. In Acts 20:27, Paul said, “For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God.<\/em>” These supposed spiritual leaders have taken their thoughts, labeled them as God told me thus and thus, and then substituted those thoughts in place of God’s word.<\/p>\n Another substitution we often make is to substitute our will when we read parts of God’s word that are difficult for us to accept. When we do this, we are not yielding to the Holy Spirit. In Acts 6:9-11, men heard words of Stephen that were hard for them to accept. So, they disputed with him and spoke against him. The same happens today. We need to be like Jesus, who said, “Nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done<\/em>” (Luke 22:42). If we don’t get our will out of the way, we will find ourselves perverting the Scriptures to fit our will!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Abraham Smith There are many false ideas about the work and influence of the Holy Spirit. In my estimation, the vast majority of these false ideas are rooted in the fact that people do not understand the connection between the Holy Spirit and the word of God. Ephesians 6:17 reads, “And take the helmet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[78,219,86],"class_list":["post-70603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-authority","tag-bible","tag-holy-spirit"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":24354,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-girlfriend-thinks-she-blasphemed-the-holy-spirit-and-cant-be-forgiven\/","url_meta":{"origin":70603,"position":0},"title":"My girlfriend thinks she blasphemed the Holy Spirit and can’t be forgiven","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My girlfriend some time ago after reading a Benny Hinn book about the Holy Spirit, whom she heavily disagree with, found herself unable to resist thinking against the Holy Spirit. I'm not sure what she thought, but she assures me that it was terrible. Since then she has had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7111,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-work-of-the-holy-spirit\/","url_meta":{"origin":70603,"position":1},"title":"The Work of the Holy Spirit","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We have spoken at length in the past about the exactly who is the Holy Spirit \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We have shown that he is a being who is a part of the Godhead, just as the Father and the Son. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He is made more mysterious by men because of our lack\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sermon"","block_context":{"text":"Sermon","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/sermon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23062,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-the-holy-spirit-operated-directly-on-mankind\/","url_meta":{"origin":70603,"position":2},"title":"If the Holy Spirit Operated Directly on Mankind …","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 31, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Douglas Hoff Many people's concept of Christianity includes some mysterious work of the Holy Spirit to change one's life. The Bible does teach the Spirit operates upon man to create faith, convict of sin, and covert the soul. Does he operate directly on man or does he work through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/Sword-216x300.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":33614,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-can-you-know-you-are-filled-with-the-spirit\/","url_meta":{"origin":70603,"position":3},"title":"How can you know you are filled with the Spirit?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How does a person become filled with the Holy Spirit and know they are filled? Does everyone who is filled with the Holy Spirit have the gifts that Acts speaks about? Answer: A Christian receives the Spirit by the hearing of faith. \"This only I want to learn from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55863,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/direct-operation-of-the-holy-spirit\/","url_meta":{"origin":70603,"position":4},"title":"Direct Operation of the Holy Spirit","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bryan Sharp In Acts 16, Luke relates what happened when he, Paul, and Silas arrived at Philippi on Paul's second preaching trip. Beginning in verse 13 he writes: \"And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2323,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-the-holy-spirit-only-work-through-the-word\/","url_meta":{"origin":70603,"position":5},"title":"Does the Holy Spirit only work through the Word?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 22, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hey brother, I know God and Christ work today, I read an article from Truth Magazine in regards to the Spirit. They used scripture to defend the Spirit only works by the word. Does the Spirit only work by the Word? Is He active in regeneration, renewing, and divine\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}