Devotions

The world is full of books about God the Father who created the universe, and more books are written about Jesus the Son of God than anyone who ever walked on this planet. But isn’t it interesting that far fewer books have been written about God the Holy Spirit?

When teaching on prayer, Jesus declared; “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13, emphasis added). You would think that promise would create a huge desire to know more about this promised Helper—who He is and what He does. And it would be even better if we were to experience Him as a living reality the way the early believers did.

The Holy Spirit is God’s only agent on earth. He is the only experience we can have of God Almighty, the only way we can have the work of Jesus Christ applied to our lives, and the only way we can understand God’s Word. Without the Holy Spirit, we are like the disciples before Pentecost—sincere but struggling with confusion and defeat.

More than a hundred years ago, Samuel Chadwick, a great Methodist preacher in England, said: “The Christian religion is hopeless without the Holy Ghost.”

The early church provides the perfect illustration of that hopelessness. It was made up of simple men and women. The leaders were former fishermen and tax collectors who fled in fear when Jesus was arrested and needed them most. They weren’t courageous and faithful. In fact, they lacked faith and courage. They were the least likely to be put in charge of any Christian enterprise.

Yet, after the events in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit was poured out, those same nobodies were suddenly transformed. With courage and faith, they turned their community, and eventually the world, upside down. That wasn’t due to their seminary training, because they didn’t have any training. But one thing they did possess was the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told them to rely on Him for everything. The early believers knew all too well that Christianity was hopeless without the Holy Spirit.

Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson. 

“We see that they could not enter in because of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:19). Only one sin kept Israel out of the Promised Land.

Canaan represents a place of rest, peace, fruitfulness, assurance, fullness, satisfaction, everything a true believer longs for. It is also a place where the Lord speaks clearly to His people, directing them, “This is the way, walk in it.” But Israel could not enter the Promised Land because of one sin.

That sin was not adultery (and Scripture calls these Israelites an adulterous generation). It wasn’t their rampant divorcing (Jesus said Moses granted divorces to that generation because they were so hardhearted). It wasn’t rage, jealousy, sloth or backbiting. It wasn’t even their secret idolatry.

The sin of unbelief prevented God’s people from entering Canaan. Therefore, Hebrews urges us today, “Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief” (Hebrews 4:11).

I have known many Christians who decided to get serious about their walk with the Lord. They determined to become more studious in His Word, and they fasted and prayed with renewed conviction. They set their hearts to cling to God through every situation in life, and as I observed their lives, I thought, “Surely all their devotion will bring a glow of joy. They can’t help but reflect God’s peace and rest.”

But all too often, the opposite was true. Many never did enter into God’s promised rest. They were still unsure, restless, questioning God’s leading, worried about their future. Why? They had a habitual leaven of unbelief and all their devotion and activity had been rendered ineffective because of it.

The believing servant clings to God’s New Covenant promise: “I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” (Ezekiel 36:27). He also clings to this Word: “I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me. . . . I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble” (Jeremiah 30:21 and 31:9).

Luke 1 includes one of the most revealing cases of the seriousness of unbelief. You remember the story of godly Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. Zacharias was a devoted priest who suffered because of a single episode of unbelief. His story illustrates just how seriously God takes this sin.

Scripture says Zacharias was “righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1:6). Here was a pious man who wore the robes of his respected position. He ministered before the altar of incense, which represented prayer and supplication, acts of pure worship. In short, Zacharias was faithful and obedient, a servant who longed for the Messiah’s coming.

One day as Zacharias was ministering, God sent the angel Gabriel to tell him his wife would have a son. Gabriel said the son’s birth would be a cause for rejoicing for many in Israel, and he gave Zacharias detailed instructions on how to raise the boy. Yet, as the angel spoke, Zacharias trembled in fear. Suddenly, this devout man’s mind was filled with doubt, and he gave in to terrible unbelief. He asked the angel, “How do I know you’re telling me the truth? After all, my wife and I are old” (see Luke 1:18).

God didn’t take kindly to Zacharias’ doubt, and he passed this sentence on the priest: “Behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words” (Luke 1:20, my italics).

What does this episode tell us? It says unbelief shuts our ears to God, even when He is speaking clearly to us. It shuts us off from fresh revelation and it keeps us from intimate communion with the Lord. Suddenly, because we no longer hear from God, we have nothing to preach or testify. It doesn’t matter how faithful or diligent we may be; like Zacharias, we bring on ourselves a paralysis of both our ears and tongue.

“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

What is our “time of need”? It is whenever we have failed our blessed Lord. The moment we sin, we are in need of grace and mercy, and God invites us to come boldly to His throne, with confidence, to receive everything we need. We’re not to come to Him only when we feel upright or holy; we are to come every time we are in need.

Moreover, we do not have to wait to get our souls cleansed. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). John says we are not to try to work at being cleansed, over hours, days or weeks. It happens instantaneously, as soon as we come to the Lord.

So, do you have the faith to believe in God’s instantaneous forgiveness? Can you accept instant, uninterrupted communion with the Father? That is exactly what Scripture urges us to do. You see, the same faith that saves us and forgives us is also the faith that keeps us. Peter says we “are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5). What an incredible truth.

Yet, our unbelief prevents us from accessing God’s keeping power. And over time, as we face sin’s continual onslaught, we may start to despair. Beloved, this simply shouldn’t be. God has given us wonderful New Covenant promises, but they are of no use unless we believe and appropriate them. Our Lord has pledged to put His law in our hearts, be God to us, keep us from falling, implant His fear in us, give us power to obey, cause us to walk in His ways. But we have to fully believe this.

Sin makes us want to hide from God’s presence. Here is the essence of unbelief among Christians: when we sin, failing God, we tend to run from His presence. We think He is too angry to want to commune with us. How could He possibly share intimacy with us when we’ve sinned so grievously?

So we stop praying. In our shame, we think, “I can’t go to God in this condition.” And we begin trying to work our way back into His good graces. We’re convinced we just need time to get ourselves clean. If we can stay pure for a few weeks, avoiding our sinful habit, we think we’ll prove ourselves worthy to approach His throne again.

This is evil unbelief, and it’s a crime in God’s eyes. When we confess our sin, including our besetting habits, God doesn’t interrogate us. He doesn’t demand proof of repentance, asking, “Are you truly sorry? I don’t see any tears. Do you promise never to commit this sin again? Go now, fast for two days a week, and pray for an hour every day. If you make it that long without falling, we’ll commune again.”

When Jesus reconciled us to the Father at the cross, it was for all time. That means that if I sin, I don’t have to be reconciled to God all over again; I’m not cut off from the Lord, suddenly unreconciled. No, the veil of separation was rent permanently at the cross, and I forever have access to God’s throne, through Christ’s blood. The door is never closed to me: “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him” (Ephesians 3:12).

The Bible states clearly that if one of us sins, we have an advocate with the Father in Jesus Christ. We may stand outside the door of His throne room, feeling rotten and unclean. But if we stay there, refusing to go in, we’re not being humble; we’re acting in unbelief. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).