Our Father God fills us with all joy and peace when we trust Him with our whole heart. This causes us to overflow with hope in the power of His Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13). We receive the Holy Spirit when we admit that we are sinners and accept Jesus as our substitute in payment of those sins.
The indwelling presence of the Spirit does not occur as a second work of grace, because if this were true, we would not be God’s child until this second encounter. Romans 8:9 makes it very clear that if we do not have the Spirit of Christ dwelling within us, then we are not God’s child.
The Holy Spirit provides us with His fruit that sustain us through every adversity and blessing alike. We go about our day filled with God’s abiding joy and peace, which leads us in the way in which we should go. Even all of nature burst into song, and the trees clap their hands (Isaiah 55:12).
I personally experienced trees clapping in praise to God on a sunny day deep in the forest. Our church family spent the week fellowshipping, eating together, praying, and sharing the blessings of God in our individual lives. We called it Camp Koinonia, and we enjoyed this blessing in the spring of every year.
At one point, I stood outside of the community center and drank in the beauty and peacefulness of the surrounding woods. As I did, I heard a knocking that I first thought was the sound of someone chopping wood for our collective campfire.
As I stood in this surreal position praising our Savior for His goodness and mercy, God drew my attention to the actual source of this sound. Two limbs of a tree were clapping together as the breeze swayed them from side to side. This verse immediately came to my mind, and I started giggling and praising the Lord for this glorious experience.
Prayer:
Father God, Your Holy Spirit dwells within each authentic Believer, and provides us with all Your wisdom, power, guidance, and comfort. We are so blessed to know that every attribute of spirituality in Your entire Godhead resides within our spirit. We are comforted in realizing that You are our ever-present help in any time of trouble that we experience. This provides us with unlimited hope.
Remind us to pay attention to You each moment of our day, and to fine-tune our spiritual eyes and ears in order to hear You when You speak to us (Matthew 11:15). Teach us to focus our entire body, soul, and spirit on Your presence within us. Help us to declutter our life so that the reality of Your intimacy with us can penetrate our consciousness. We delight in Your Word, Your Spirit, and our intimate daily union with You.
Thought for the Day:
Simplifying our activities, needs, and expectations allows us to enjoy God’s presence in our life, which makes everything more intensely beautiful and filled with His peace, joy, and love; He delights in His Saints and prunes us of unwholesome thoughts, words, and behavior so we can live a holy life of hope as well as His continual presence.
- 1 Peter 1:16
