Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

The Spirit of Help!

“He will give you another Helper to be with you forever – the Spirit of Truth…” John 14v16 (NASB)

Today is Ascension day – the day Jesus went back to heaven. It was a day of great loss for those first disciples as their Lord and Master was gone. But Jesus had briefed them and it was actually to be a great day of joy. Jesus was returning to the heavens to be with His Father and to rule supreme.

He gave his disciples a simple instruction – to wait in Jerusalem. They needed to wait because the Father was going to send them something better than the presence of Jesus. On earth, Jesus would come and go, but they were going to receive the Holy Spirit who would be with them all the time.

Jesus described the Holy Spirit as “another Helper.” The Greek word “paraclete” is hard to exactly translate, but its literal meaning is “one who is called alongside”, and was used of someone who helped alongside you in a legal case. The key word here, though, is “another” – meaning that the Holy Spirit is someone who is going to do the job of Jesus with us.

This is enormously encouraging. We can sometimes think, “If only I was around when Jesus was around, things would have been much better.” Jesus says that is not actually true because the Holy Spirit comes as the Spirit of Christ to be with you absolutely all the time.

As we celebrate Jesus ascended to glory, let’s also ask the Holy Spirit to fill us and help us today.

With love and blessing,

Roland