I have been experiencing the tugging of the Holy Spirit to dive deeper into a better understanding of how I can become more effective for God's kingdom plan and purpose for my life and the life of the Church! Before leaving to return to the Father, Jesus said to His disciples, "Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you." What an appropriate time of the year to contemplate how all of us can fully access the power of the Holy Spirit, which has been freely given to us as an advocate, helper, teacher, and comforter!

I have a couple of resources that I would like to share with all of you about this subject. One, is the devotion from Billy Graham on the Holy Spirit which is down below, and the other is the upcoming Book Study from Max Lucado's new book "Help is Here, which begins May 11th.

"Your body is the home of the Holy Spirit God gave you, and that he lives within you." -1 Corinthians 6:19
"Who is the Holy Spirit? He is God, just as God the Father and God the Son are also God. We speak of them as the Trinity. You ask me to explain the Trinity. Our minds can but dimly grasp these great spiritual facts, because we are finite and God is infinite.  It may help to remember that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have all existed from eternity. The work of creation was given to the Son and we are told that, "All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made." But when you read the second verse of the first chapter of
Genesis, you will find that the Holy Spirit was also there, moving upon the face of His creation. In time, the Son of God came into the world as a man, to redeem the world which He had created. After His death on the cross, and His resurrection, He went back to the Father in heaven.  During His earthly ministry His work and life were spent within a circumscribed area in Palestine. When He went back to heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to exercise a worldwide ministry. Today the Holy Spirit illuminates the minds of people, makes us yearn for God, and takes spiritual truth and makes it understandable to us. All over the world the Holy Spirit is wooing men and women to Christ, and He lives in the hearts of believers and helps us each day. To be Spirit-filled Christians is to be the kind of Christians that God wants us to be!

I pray that all of us will draw closer to the Holy Spirit as we move toward what Christ has called us to be as, a body of believers- effective for Him!

In His grip, 
Larry