Who Is the Holy Spirit?
Meet the Holy Spirit: the personal presence of God who lives in and changes believers.
Many people who are new to faith find the Holy Spirit the most mysterious part of the Christian story. The Father and the Son are easier to picture, but the Spirit can feel vague, like a force, a mood, or a feeling that comes and goes. This lesson is a gentle introduction to who the Holy Spirit really is, why Christians speak of the Spirit as God and not just an influence, and what difference the Spirit makes in an ordinary life. You do not need any background to follow along. By the end, the Holy Spirit should feel less like a puzzle and more like a Person you are beginning to know.
By the end of this lesson
- Explain in plain words that the Holy Spirit is a Person and is fully God, the third Person of the Trinity, not an impersonal force or feeling.
- Retell the promise of the Helper in John 14-16 and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2, and say why Pentecost matters for the whole church.
- Identify the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5 and describe it as something the Spirit grows rather than something a person manufactures.
- Recognize that all historic traditions confess the Spirit as God while differing charitably on the filioque and on spiritual gifts.
- Begin one concrete spiritual practice that depends on the Spirit, such as praying before reading Scripture or seeking growth in a specific fruit.
Scripture
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