The Spirit of Promise
By David J. Stewart
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Do you remember when God gave mankind the rainbow as a token of His promise
never to destroy the earth again with water? God thought it was important to
backup His promise with a token of His honesty.
Did you know one reason why God gives us the Holy Spirit is so that the Holy Spirit will be a “pledge” to us that we belong to Him? (Ephesians 1:13). The moment you receive Christ as your personal Savior (John 1:12), you belong to God. Jesus loves you so much that He wants you to know you belong to Him. God has placed a “down-payment” on each and every one of His children, and that “down-payment” is the Holy Spirit. Amen!
“That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:12-13)
My
friend, “YOU” are the purchased possession if you are a born-again child of
God. The word “earnest” in Strong’s
Concordance means: “money which in purchases is
given as a pledge or down-payment that the full amount will subsequently be paid.” Hence, the Holy Spirit is God’s constant reminder within our soul that
we have a great inheritance in Heaven awaiting us. The poorest believer in Heaven will be richer than the richest man who
has ever lived upon this earth.
Notice
from Ephesians 1:12-14 that we are “sealed” with the Holy Spirit of
PROMISE!!! God is a promise-making
God, and a promise-keeping God by the way. The Holy Spirit is God’s PROMISE to us that He will finish what He has
started, that we are His property indeed, that we have an inheritance awaiting
for us in Heaven, and that the Devil cannot touch us with a ten-foot pole unless God
Almighty permits it. We are God’s
property! Jesus has placed the
down-payment of His Spirit within you (Romans 8:9). He is coming back to claim you as His
rightful property when the time comes.
“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1st Corinthians 6:19).
We belong to God! God has given us His Holy Spirit to prove it. This is God’s token of promise to us. God calls His Spirit, the “Spirit of Promise.” What a wonderful truth!!! God is a God of His Word—He says what He means and means what He says. This is why we should make a fuss over the Bible—Because God didn’t write hundreds of Books, He wrote just ONE! I believe the King James Bible to be that Book in English.
John 1:12, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name."
