The Holy Spirit Our Helper – Part One

I was 16 and sitting in study hall at school with two friends, one a believer and the other not. I felt compelled to share the gospel with my unbelieving friend. As I shared with him, I also felt great freedom and facility in communicating. Study hall ended and we left. My believing friend told me she had been praying the entire time I was sharing and commented that she had never heard me explain the gospel so clearly before. And I have to admit it did seem like I was operating beyond my normal self in those minutes. I think now that this was my first experience of being filled with the Spirit, my first experience of being helped by Him in this way, though at the time I was clueless that this is what was happening.

Jesus told his disciples:

¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

Jesus had been their “advocate,” their helper, but he was leaving. He wasn’t, however, going to leave them without help. He was going to give them another helper, the Holy Spirit, who would be with them and in them forever. Like Jesus, the Holy Spirit would help them to become all Jesus wanted them to be.

That has happened! Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit as our Helper. Every believer has the Helper, the Holy Spirit, in his or her life. He is helping us to become all Jesus wants us to become. And there are several ways the Holy Spirit is helping us. I’d like to show you what those ways are that the Holy Spirit helps us.