Worship
As you begin your quiet time today, I encourage you to listen to “Where the Spirit of the Lord is” by Hillsong Worship and Ben Fielding. You can find the playlist of all the music from our daily devotional with the links to your preferred platform here.
Scripture
2 Corinthians 3:17-18
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Devotional
What a jam packed couple of verses this is, there’s so much gold in this to mine that brings such richness to our understanding of the Holy Spirit and His work in our lives. The first amazing thing that this passage tells us is a beautiful insight into the interconnectedness of the Trinity. Have you ever felt as though you were more connected to one member of the Godhead than another? It’s actually quite common, and I myself can often fall into thinking this way - however, the bible tells us that the Lord is the Spirit. Similarly, this reminds me of our passage earlier this week where Jesus tells Philip that if you have seen Him, you have seen the Father. We also read elsewhere that “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3). Our engagement with each member of the trinity is always a direct experience with all the members of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
What I love about this is that it really helps me to connect the Father’s love to my own personal experience of the Spirit. Because the Spirit dwells in us and we get to commune with and converse with the Holy Spirit every day we can easily feel like we’ve got a stronger relationship with him than the Lord - and yet, the Lord is the Spirit. They are the same being! Anything we receive from the Spirit, we are receiving from the Father! On the other hand - I think that we can easily fall into only attributing the fear of the Lord to the Father and the Son, but not the Spirit. We would do well to remember to apply our holy reverence, trembling and awe to the Spirit as well!
The second wonderful nugget of gold in this passage is the phrase ‘where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’. Wow - what a grounding anchor for our souls, especially as we embark on our journeys to overcome sin! Remember how the book of Romans teaches us that we are no longer slaves to sin? This passage is a wonderful partner verse for this, in that where the Spirit is, freedom is. Where the Spirit is, the bond loosing, chain breaking power of God to set captives free from sin is! We can see this outworked in verse 18: “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
We are being freed from the law of sin and death and get to experience liberty through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who enables us to properly behold Jesus in his glory and to be transformed into his image with ever increasing glory!
Maybe this is something to ground yourself in today, to see the further renewing of your mind - that because of the power of the Spirit in your life you can expect to see further freedom in your life. Because of the presence of the Spirit you can expect to be transformed more and more and more into Christlikeness.
Prayer
Lord I thank you again today for the wonderful gift of your Spirit. I pray for more freedom today Lord, to experience more liberty from sin in my life. I pray today Lord that you would transform my life, my inner being to Jesus’ image today, in his precious name, Amen.