In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: Before you and I became a Christian, we would never have trusted Jesus as our Savior apart from the Holy Spirit, who was not on the inside of us, but rather from heaven, convicting us of our sin. What was He doing? He was showing us what we are like. He was showing us our sinfulness. He was showing us our separation from God. He was showing us our rebellion. He was showing us our pride. He was showing us our desperate need of forgiveness. He was showing us we needed Jesus Christ in our life.

Guest (Male): Have you ever prayed, "Lord, I need help?" Well, for believers in Jesus, that cry never goes unnoticed. Today's edition of In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, reminds us that the Spirit is present and always available to assist you in every situation.

Dr. Charles Stanley: How many times in your Christian life have you said, "I need some help. I mean, Lord, I need some real help." How many of you have ever felt that way? "I need real help." Maybe it was a decision you were trying to make, or maybe it was something you had to do that you felt so inadequate about, or whatever the challenge may be. All of us have felt, not just once in a while but many, many times, "God, I need help."

The wonderful thing about needing help is that God's provided it. So, what I would like to do is to take a few moments just to ask you to turn to John chapter 14. I want us to look at this Helper that God has given us because He knew you and I would never be able to live the Christian life. Therefore, He said He gave us a Helper. I want you to turn to the 14th chapter, and I'm going to take you through some verses here.

I just want to say one thing in essence, and that's this: every single one of us has an intimate, personal, omnipotent, available, ready, adequate, sufficient Helper. I mean, He is instantaneously there every single time you and I have a need. Listen to what Jesus said about Him in John chapter 14. He says, "And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, allos, just like Himself, that He may be with you forever."

So, He said the Father is going to give us a Helper. He's going to be like Jesus in the fact that He is deity. He says, and He will be with us for how long? Forever. That means whether it's morning, noon, or night, you and I have a personal Helper, who is the Holy Spirit, living on the inside of us. Jesus called Him a Helper.

So, what I would like for us to do is I would just like for us to go through a few very simple things because I just want to bring something to your attention. Sometimes it's so simple we forget it. I want us to see just for a few moments, how does the Holy Spirit help us? He has been given by the Father to us forever to live with us, to assist us. How does He help us? That is, what's He going to help us do? There are some very specific things He says in the word.

The first thing I want you to notice, in the 16th chapter of John, the eighth verse, one of the first things He does is He helps us see ourselves just the way we are. Listen to what He says in this seventh verse. He says, "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage, it is expedient that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you. When He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment."

It is the Holy Spirit who opens your eyes and mine and helps us to see us just like we are. Before you and I became a Christian, we would never have trusted Jesus as our Savior apart from the Holy Spirit, who was not on the inside of us but rather from heaven, convicting us of our sin. What was He doing? He was showing us what we are like. He was showing us our sinfulness. He was showing us our separation from God. He was showing us our rebellion. He was showing us our pride. He was showing us our desperate need of forgiveness. He was showing us we needed Jesus Christ in our life.

That's why He says, "Don't be conformed. Don't continue to be shaped by this world." But He says rather being transformed by the renewing of your mind. What's the renewing of my mind? The renewing of my mind is this: as the Holy Spirit enlightens my thinking and shows me how to think, this is the way God thinks. This is the way I want you to think. By the renewing of your mind, He says you and I are transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. So, one of the first ways He helps us is to show us what we are, to reveal ourselves to us.

The second way He helps us is this: He shows us who Jesus is. Look, if you will, in the 15th chapter and the 26th verse. "And when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of me." Jesus said He's going to talk about me. How do we understand that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? It is the work of the Spirit. How do we know that you and I are followers of Jesus Christ and that we are the sons of God? How do we know that we have this relationship? He says the Holy Spirit bears witness with your spirit, my spirit. That means the Holy Spirit is testifying continually to us that you and I are the sons of God.

The Spirit of God doesn't send out conflicting messages. The Spirit of God sends out the truth. The truth He sends out is always compatible with and in absolute perfect agreement with the Word of God. So, one of the ways He helps us is to understand what we are like and who we are and our need. The second way He helps us is to understand who Jesus Christ is. He is the Son of God. He is the Messiah. He is our Savior. He is our Lord. He is the King of Kings. He is the Lord of Lords. He is the eternal Judge. He is our Intercessor. He is our Great High Priest. The Spirit of God is always magnifying and lifting up Jesus and glorifying Him.

That's the way He helps us. He helps me understand and see who Jesus is and how He is to be involved in our life. Well, the third thing that I notice here, as you just look through the scriptures and ask yourself the question, well, how is He going to help us? Well, one of the ways He helps us is this: He helps us do what God has called us to do. His helping us isn't limited to preaching and teaching the Word of God or singing the gospel or serving in some fashion in the church.

The helping work of the Holy Spirit reaches to every single aspect of our life. I believe He is just as willing and ready to help a mother raise this precious little bundle of joy as He is to help someone preach the gospel. He is our Helper. Remember, He was sent by the Father from heaven to assist us, help us, live on the inside of us, live through us, express through us the life of Christ, assist us in every single challenge that we have in life. He is there as our Helper.

You and I have the wonderful, matchless, awesome privilege that anytime we face anything, anywhere, under any circumstance, we know we have sovereignty. We have omnipotence. We have omniscience living on the inside of us, ready to equip us, ready to assist us, ready to stand, willing and ready and able to do through us whatever is required of us. You have the promise, God's divine promise, that the Spirit of God will be in you, with you, and upon you, assisting you to do well what you do, assisting you to live holy before Almighty God, assisting you in your witness, and assisting you that whatever you do, whether it is a student in school or maybe in some place of prominence, the Spirit of God is there as your personal assistant to help you do and do well to the glory of God. A job poorly done by a Christian is a horrible witness and a horrible testimony.

So, He helps me see myself as I am. He helps me see the Lord Jesus as He is. And He helps us to do the things that God has called us to do. One of the things He helps us to do is to understand the Word of God. Listen, there's not a single one of us can understand any of this apart from the Holy Spirit. Somebody says, "Well, I understood John 3:16 before I was saved." How much of it did you understand? Did you understand that His death was substitutionary? Did you understand that His death was vicarious? Did you understand that He was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world? Did you understand that you were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world? We could just go on and on and on in things that I know that you did not understand and could not understand apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

That's why some of your friends, for example, who will open the Word of God and you may be reading and saying, "Let me show you what God said to me," and they say, "Well, you know, I never saw that. I've been reading this for a long time." Why? Because you're open to the Spirit. You understand that apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit, there is no understanding of the Word of God. He is the only ultimate teacher. Nobody can teach you apart from the Spirit of God.

The more that you and I walk in the Spirit and walk in obedience to Him, then the more the Spirit of God can give us enlightenment and understanding. Some things become very simple and clear and plain to us. It has nothing to do with education. It has to do with the Spirit of God unfolding the Word of God and doing what? Lifting out the truth. When the Spirit of God reveals the truth of God, He intends that you and I believe the Word of God and then do what? Apply it. Exactly right.

You want your understanding of the Word of God to increase? Apply the last thing He told you. I don't believe God just keeps giving us understanding of the things of God, giving us understanding of truth, if back here He says, "Now, here's what I want you to do," and you say, "Well, Lord, thank you very much. I'm going to pass that by, and I'm moving on up here in my growth." God says, "No, you're not. You may think you are, but right here is where you stop." You can go on and you can serve. You can do a lot of things. But as far as your understanding of the ways of God, listen, the understanding of the ways of God is some of the most precious truth that God could possibly reveal.

That is, you know what He's doing? He's letting us in on the inside of Him, understanding how He thinks. These are the ways of God. You think God is going to cast His pearl, as He says, before swine? That is, is He just going to dump out these precious truths to people who say, "Well, I'm fulfilling my curiosity, and I do like to know those things"? God does not give us truth for consideration. He gives us truth for obedience. That's what God is up to, not fulfilling curiosity. The work of the Holy Spirit is not to satisfy my curiosity. The work of the Holy Spirit is to reveal truth in order that once that truth has been revealed, the next step is that I am willing to be obedient to the truth. Until I am, I cannot expect God to keep giving me deeper understanding of Himself.

The fifth thing He helps us to do is He helps us to live the Christian life. I want to put quotes around "help" here. When I say helps us live the Christian life, that's what most people would probably say, but I want to clarify what I mean by that. You'll recall, for example, Paul said, "What I want to do, I find myself doing the very opposite. What I don't want to do, I find myself doing." He was really struggling in his Christian life. Then Paul said, "I've been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but now Christ lives in me." Listen to this. "And the life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

The apostle Paul understood what it meant to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul talked about the fruit of the Spirit. This Holy Spirit who lives within us, who is assisting us, what is He doing? The Holy Spirit doesn't help me to just live the Christian life in terms of "do this, don't do that." The Holy Spirit on the inside of us, in essence, is doing what? He, as we surrender to Him, lives through us the very life of Jesus. He will convict us and point out things in life that are not right, things that are good, things we ought to be doing. But listen, the power to live the life, the strength to overcome sin, the power to say no and the power to say yes is what? It is the release of the Spirit of God on the inside of us.

The way He helps us in living our Christian life is to live it out through us. When the Spirit of God is helping us, when He's living through us the life of Christ, then what's my focus? Jesus. So what happens is I yield to Him. The Spirit of God just naturally, normally lives His life through us. Well, we could say a lot about that. Let me move on to the next one.

One of the things the Holy Spirit helps us to do, He helps us do something every single one of us desperately needs. How many times have you said to Him, "God, I don't know how to pray"? You ever told Him that? Turn to Romans chapter eight. One of the helping works of the Holy Spirit, He says in verse 26, "And in the same way the Spirit, that is the Holy Spirit, also helps our weakness. We don't know how to pray as we should. But the Holy Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

What does He do? There are times when you and I get on our knees or get on our face before God, and some things I know exactly how to pray about. But sometimes when I think, "Lord, I don't even know how to ask You. I don't even know what to say, God." You say, "Well, you mean to tell me you don't know how to pray about some things?" Absolutely. If you're honest, so will you say the same thing. Sometimes there are people you don't know how to pray for them, situations you think, "God, now I have such little knowledge of what's going on. Lord, show me how to pray and show me what to ask."

Sometimes, even when you ask, He doesn't always give you the answer immediately. But what does He say? He says because you and I are weak and we have to deal with these weaknesses, the Spirit of God on the inside of us does what? He groans. He knew that you and I would face situations and circumstances in which we absolutely do not know how to pray. So what happens? When we don't know how to pray, we don't have to be absolutely desolate and throw up our hands in despair. What do we need to do? We just thank Him, and sometimes I just have to say, "Holy Spirit, You do the praying. I don't even know how to pray, but I'm going to lie here. I'm going to sit here. I'm going to just kneel here until You finish."

What I've discovered is this: if I'll keep on praying, there will be a breakthrough. It's like all of a sudden, curtains pulled back, and then all of a sudden, what happens? What happens is the barrier's gone, and there He is. He's been there all the time, listening and watching and covering you as you've prayed. You see, the reason our prayers are so weak is because we do them in our own strength. When I get on my face, I ask the Holy Spirit to sanctify me for this period of prayer, set my mind and my heart away from everything but You, God. All of us can be barraged with a thousand things to think about. Sanctify me unto Yourself during this time of prayer, shutting out everything.

Spirit of God, I want You to pray through me. I don't know how to pray, or even if I do, Holy Spirit, I want You to guide my praying. If my praying gets off track, I know if I ask for something, Lord, You don't want me to have, You're going to ignore it anyway. When somebody says, "Oh, I'm afraid I asked for the wrong thing," don't you worry about it. Everybody in heaven isn't going to jump to all of our requests because we make them. But here's what'll happen: when you and I are praying in the Spirit of God, that doesn't mean we're speaking in some unknown language. It means the Spirit of God is in such absolute control of our spirit, there'll be a sense of oneness in our prayer. There'll be a sense of harmony in our relationship with Him.

It may be that you stop asking for what you've been asking for because the Spirit of God shows you that's not of Him. Or He may intensify what you've asked for because that is of Him. The Spirit of God is our Helper. You know what it's like? When you and I kneel down, here He is beside us. Sometimes we don't know what to ask, and He'll say, working in your spirit, my spirit, "You'll start praying for things you hadn't even planned to pray on and pray about." Or we'll ask for something we never planned to. Or He'll get our mind in such oneness with Him, we won't ask anything. It's just a matter of kneeling there, sitting there, being quiet, and listen, doing what? Absorbing Him, meditating upon Him, listening to Him. Some of the most precious times are going to be those times you don't even utter a word.

Now, your first response may be, "Well, the Holy Spirit didn't help me. I couldn't say a thing." Oh, yes He did. Let me ask you a question. Which do you think is the most difficult for the Spirit, if we can put it in human terms, to keep you quiet for a half an hour or let you talk for a half an hour? It is to keep us quiet and listening to God, being quiet and just listening to Him. So He helps us in our praying. Well, you know we could go on all night on any one of these, but let me just close by saying this: when I think of all the ways that He helps us, one of the ways the Holy Spirit helps us, listen, He helps us to die gracefully.

I want you to turn to the death of a man in the New Testament. The sixth chapter of Acts says in verse eight, "And Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people." I mean, the Spirit of God was on this man, and God was working through him in a beautiful way. Well, his sermon begins in chapter seven. The High Priest said, "Are these things so?" And he said, "Hear me, brethren and fathers." And then he preaches this fantastic sermon all the way over to the 53rd verse.

But what I want you to notice is the 54th verse. "Now when they heard this, that is his sermon, and I mean it's a fantastic sermon, when they heard this, they were cut to the quick." That means the Spirit of God really convicted them deeply of their sin. "And they began gnashing their teeth at him." I mean, they were listen, they were grinding their teeth in anger. "Stephen!" That's what they were feeling. "But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God."

Here they come at him. He knows what's coming. And he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." They cried out with a loud voice and covered their ears and they rushed upon him with one impulse. In other words, they couldn't even stand to hear him say that. And they rushed upon him, the scripture says, look, with one impulse. I mean, "Get this man!"

And when they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him. And the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of this young man, listen, named Saul. And they went on stoning Stephen as he called upon the Lord and said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And having said this, he fell asleep. Friend, that's dying gracefully. Now, the Spirit of God helps us die as well as helps us live, because that death is momentary. Absent from the body, taken by the angels into the presence of Almighty God. Friend, you can't do without Him. He's the best friend you've got. What you ought to do is take advantage of that friendship.

Guest (Male): The Holy Spirit is available to every believer in any situation. Today on In Touch, you were encouraged to daily acknowledge His presence within you and ask Him to work in and through you. To understand more about what it took for God to offer us forgiveness and a place in heaven, visit in-touch.org. On our homepage, you'll find a link to "Today on Radio." You can connect to our online bookstore to order a copy of today's complete message, "Our Helper." Again, that's in-touch.org. To call or text, it's 1-800-IN-TOUCH. You can write to us at In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia 30357.

The Holy Spirit does many things in a believer's life. Learn about one of them coming up in today's Moment with Charles Stanley.

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You're listening to In Touch. How do you stay in touch with God? He's given believers a connection that never fails. Here's a moment with Charles Stanley.

I think, first of all, the Holy Spirit will bear witness. In other words, if a person is a child of God and they really and truly want to pursue His ways, the Holy Spirit's going to give them guidance and direction. If the Spirit of God sees within them this idea that they just want something else from God, "So what can I learn so I can get something else?" the Spirit of God will show them, "You know what? That's not of me." I don't think we give the Holy Spirit enough credit. He's in us, working in us, and He's always and you remember Jesus said, "He doesn't glorify Himself, He's always talking about Jesus." So I think we underestimate His effect and His work in our life, when He's so willing because He's really the Comforter. And so if I listen to Him, I'm going to know what to do next.

Learn more about the Holy Spirit, every believer's constant companion, when you visit us at in-touch.org. Do you have a story about how God's grace has touched you through this broadcast? We'd like to hear it. Bitterness and anger can destroy your life. Next time, Dr. Stanley's message helps us lay these hindrances down and find freedom from bondage. I hope you'll join us again for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley.

This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.