When I read the language of God’s Spirit testifying the most natural interpretation that I have is that God’s Spirit communicates with our spirit. We as independent, free-willed, and typically stiff-necked beings respond and react to those communiqués.
Is this just a nice thought? Is this just Biblical nuance? Or, is there more to it? A reality to it that all people, world over are touched by, bathed with, exposed to?
Having grown up in what could be construed as a Christain hot-pocket, I have had my psyche stamped with things like, “You are the only Jesus they will see.” Or, “How will they know unless you go and tell them?” “If you don’t share the gospel with them their blood will be on your head.” Meaning, they will go to hell, and you will be responsible for it. I doubt all of us are pockmarked with these anxieties and pseudo-compulsions, but I have been. It has left me with a sense that God only engages others when I engage them. Stamped on my innards are phrases like, “Everyone’s salvation is your responsibility.” Such buzzings threaten to make every airplane ride, every bus ride, every restaurant waitress, every line in which I stand some sort of awkward.
Those viewpoints are not all toxic; certainly, they are not all in error for we do need to be about the evangelization of the world. We are to share the good news, the gospel, of God all around us. These truths, though, are not falling on virgin soil. The Holy Spirit does cultivate and direct, shape and fertilize the spirits of all men and women. He who would invest the essence of himself in making our world and take a most bitter pill to redeem it will not neglect the spreading of his message. He knows the thoughts of all men and is divinely active inculcating truth into those vantage points. Broad swaths of souls will have little agreement with what he guides them toward but guide them he will.
What is our role in things? God brings our lives into contact with the lives of others at perfect pressure points. God entwines the lives and circumstances of Christian and non-Christian alike for the good of all. The Christian’s God-understanding gets a boost, and others get the option to join the family. Some will reject these God-offerings, but I think they will routinely know truth from falsehood. God will shine in their darkness inviting them to his cabin in the woods.
A wrap-up on verse 6
So, Jesus appeared and lived among us as a Savior of the world. He washes our bad instincts with his water and remits our sins by his blood. He has returned to heaven, but he sent his Spirit into the world to testify to the truth. If you and I have accepted this truth, then we are children of God. When we receive it, we become a testimony. Infusing all of this is God-sense. We mainly have to join up with it. Be a testimony!
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