John 16:13

Because I am a Christian, I choose to dedicate my Sunday posts to the worship of my God.  I love to explore the Bible and listen to what God is trying to tell me about how to live this earthly life.  I hope you can glean some Truth from my words and apply it to your own life.  Blessings!

However, when He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, 

He will guide you into all truth;

 for He will not speak on His own authority,

 but whatever He hears He will speak; 

and He will tell you things to come.

     This Scripture has great personal meaning to me in this season of my life.  I will be honest in telling you that I have become disillusioned with the Modern Church.  Throughout the last few years, my husband and I have sought a church that would tell us the Truth .... that would actually teach from God's Holy Word and guide us to a greater understanding of Jesus and the Father.  We wanted more than the "feel good" messages of God's love and grace.  We wanted to understand more of the roots of our faith and what, specifically, Jesus wants to tell us for this time and place in history.  

     Unfortunately, we found that the churches we were attending were actually leading us away from our spiritual roots and either into a new belief system that discarded the ancient truths, or into a form of ritual and mechanical worship in which we didn't even feel the presence of our Lord.  Both were virtually mind-numbing.  We wanted to be fed with God's Truth!

     That's where John 16:13 comes in.  We have both been blessed by the Holy Spirit as He has become our guide and our revealer of Truth.  As we have asked for more understanding and knowledge, the Spirit has complied and led us where God would have us go.  I truly believe that God determines our maturity and ability to handle more knowledge of Him, and breathes His truth into our souls through the Spirit.  

     I am reclaiming knowledge that the first century Believers knew about our faith.  They were the closest to the Apostles and the early church fathers, and their faith was based on understanding how God's ancient covenants with his chosen people merged with a renewed covenant through His Son, Jesus Christ.  Through the Holy Spirit, I am learning that man has contributed to a loss of the depth of God's Truth through the translation of the Holy Scriptures from Hebrew to Greek to English.  

     That does not mean that I discount the Bible, as it stands, as God's Truth!  It simply means that I want to rediscover the complexity and the scope of what was lost through the ages.  For instance, we modern Christians tend to separate the Old Testament and New Testament; often proclaiming that we are under the "New Covenant" of Jesus Christ, and the laws and the prophets of the Old Testament do not pertain to us.  But did you know that the Hebrew name for the Gospels and the books that follow (Matthew through Revelation) is B'rit Hadashah.  B'rit means "covenant", and Hadashah means "renewed" or "a cycle of restoration", or "to return to a previous state".  Therefore, a more accurate title for the New Testament would be "Renewed Covenant", or "Renewed Relationship", not "New Covenant".  

     If Jesus came to renew our relationship and covenant with the Father, and not replace the old one, shouldn't we understand everything we possibly can know about the previous relationship?  Instead, the modern Church acts as if the only thing that matters is knowing the resurrected Christ.  But if the Holy Spirit is guiding and leading you, as He is my family, then you already know that Jesus appears and speaks to us throughout the Old Testament as well.  Wouldn't you want to know everything about this relationship He is trying to renew?  

     So I am so grateful that my Father in heaven gave the Spirit the authority to speak to me; that He is revealing not only the Truths from the past that have been hidden from Believers, but that He promises to tell us of the things to come.  Has my hunger to know Him been satisfied?  Not in the least!  As He reveals more of Himself, my appetite just keeps growing... and the taste of His Truth is, oh so sweet to the soul.