God the Holy Spirit, Mentor's Guide, MG14

/ 1 4 1

G O D T H E H O L Y S P I R I T

who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us,” Acts 15.8.

(2) Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus, 1 Tim. 3.13.

c. Experiencing doubts about whether we are saved does not mean that we do not possess the witness of the Spirit.

(1) 1 John 3.19-20

(2) A sensitive conscience and deep awareness of sin, guilt, and inadequacy is a sign of the Spirit’s work. The person who has a “seared conscience (1 Tim. 4.1-2)” or “boasts of their own adequacy (Luke 18.11; John 9.41)” is the one who must be concerned about right relationship with God. The pastoral impulse is always to “comfort the afflicted” and “afflict the comfortable.”

3. Sealing reminds us that our salvation is future as well as present.

4

a. And put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come, 2 Cor. 1.21-22

b. With whom you were sealed for the day of redemption, Eph. 4.30

c. Who are being saved, 1 Cor. 1.18 (cf. 2 Cor. 2.15).

d. Until the “day of the Lord” when Jesus returns to judge the world; conquer sin, death, and hell; give us new bodies, and recreate the heavens and the earth, we must live by faith and hope rather than sight and experience. The Holy Spirit allows us to taste the power of the “age to come” (Heb. 6.5) and his work in our life is a kind of first-fruit that assures us of the harvest to come.