Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

Ponder Paul’s self-description above: “weakness fear . . . trembling.” Now, if I were to ask you to describe Paul, I doubt that you would use any one of those three words. Because when we think of Paul, we think of a man of enormous strength and capability, a man who had the ability to speak on any subject with hardly a misplaced word.

During the Last Supper, Jesus made a sweeping prediction most of us have never accepted at face value; namely, “He [the Holy Spirit] will guide you into all truth.” Imagine!

The Spirit’s filling is like walking. When we are little children, every tiny step is a conscious effort and a magnificent achievement. Soon, we learn to link two or three steps together before we fall. And then before you know it, by the time we’ve reached four or five, we’re walking and not even thinking about it. Walking has simply become a part of life.

Even though every believer has the Holy Spirit, it is possible to operate our lives apart from His control. But when that happens—which it does with many Christians every day—what is missed is nothing short of tragic.

To enter the Christian life, a person must begin at the right place: conversion. That means we must be rightly related to the Lord Jesus Christ by coming to Christ in faith, accepting His sacrifice on the cross as sufficient payment for sin.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23 NASB) Good news! You don’t have to serve our old master, sin, any longer! By the Spirit‘s filling, evidences of our new nature emerge.

Since both the Spirit and the flesh are resident within each believer, invariably there is a struggle going on beneath the surface of our lives. Every day we live, it is there, simmering on the back burner of our minds. It is like a war in the soul—a bloodless battle that won’t go away.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul does a masterful job of preparing the reader for his first mention of the Holy Spirit. For almost half the letter, the subject is sin. Sin, sin, and more sin for five consecutive chapters.

After relating the shocking, supernatural changes that resulted from the Spirit taking up residence inside the early followers of Jesus, I’m compelled to ask you: Is the Spirit of God being allowed to transform your life? In case you think that’s an irrelevant question, read the opening words of Romans 12:

Previously, we identified two transformational changes in the disciples when they received the Spirit at Pentecost. First, their human frailties were transformed into supernatural gifts and abilities. Second, their fearful reluctance was transformed into bold confidence.

The original disciples were a handful of unlikely misfits. But the remarkable fact is that they were the same ones who later “turned the world upside down,” according to the testimony of people in the first century. How can anyone explain the transformation?

As you’ve read of the apostles’ bold actions in Acts, haven’t you longed for such fortitude, such confident faith? These traits were never meant to be restricted to century-one saints. Nowhere in the Scriptures do I find a statement that limits the Spirit’s presence or dynamic to some bygone era.

We sit calmly as we read those words and as we try to imagine the disciples hearing them. But they were anything but calm! Jesus was announcing His departure, and they were struggling with feelings of abandonment. Their stomachs must have churned when He used the word “orphans,” for that is exactly how they felt.

My great hope in this exploration of the Holy Spirit is to step away from the heat of theological battle and move quietly and closely to the One who has been sent alongside to help.

When we think theologically, we find comfort in four things. First, we wait and persevere. “But if we hope for what we do not see, through perseverance we wait eagerly for it” (Romans 8:25 NASB). Let that truth sink in.

You and I could name things, specific things we’ve gone through in the last several years, that make no logical sense whatsoever . . . but that’s okay.

There is a mystery, an aura, about the living God that is designed to force us to trust Him, even when we cannot figure Him out (which is most of the time). Why? Because He is inexplicable. He is unfathomable. He is infinite.

If you’re struggling with a closed door, I have four guidelines to share with you—guidelines that have helped me in my own process of dealing with the doors Christ has opened and closed.

Our idea of the will of God is often that He leads as we would lead and plans as we would plan. But that’s not the case. His will is not like that at all. In fact, here are four simple principles we need to keep in mind regarding God’s leading.

In the mystery of God’s will we sometimes come to a place where we cannot explain why things turned out as they did; yet, amazingly, we are still right in the middle of His will. It’s not that you or I created a problem; it’s that God is in the process of surprising His people on a regular basis. The Scriptures are full of stories like this.