I feel so blessed at the moment. I have been given the privilege of interviewing guests this week on topics which vary from God’s healing of anorexia, the experience of singleness as a Christian, a “feeding of the 5,000” experience in Sierra Leone, and God’s restoration of a business destroyed by a natural disaster. If anyone has ever doubted the existence or reality of God, they should hear these stories! In fact, God is a bit more to the point when He says “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” in Psalm 14:1.

Tomorrow I am interviewing a pastor about the role of the Holy Spirit - His role in the ministry of Jesus, and His role in the lives of believers today. As I prepared this afternoon, I was powerfully reminded that the Holy Spirit is truly the key. I believed in God for years before I knew about living for Him. Jesus only began to matter in a real way for me when I realised that Jesus died for me personally. So that when I stand before God to give an account of my life my sin will not be held against me, because Jesus paid for it by His own blood. That is the ultimate gift and ultimate expression of love (John 3:16).

The Bible describes the way that when we go under the water in our baptism, we symbolically identify with Christ’s death. We die to “self” and to self-oriented living. When we come up out of the water, we symbolically identify with the Resurrected Life of Christ. We enter into that new life and live for Him (Romans 6 describes this).

But it doesn’t end there. And if you are feeling dry and out of love with God, or never had the passion for God in the first place, this is the key – the Holy Spirit. If you ask God for His Holy Spirit, He will give it to you and everything will change. Your faith will be injected with life. You will experience God in a real way. In a way that matters.

The thing that got me thinking about all of this was this one thing that John the Baptist said in Matthew 3:11,

I indeed baptise you with water and repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire.