Parakletos

Thursday, 15th November 2007

God never ceases to amaze me :-)

Because the same Holy Spirit is in everyone of us who are children of the Most High, He can and will use any one of us to minister to another one of us, because we are all part of the Body of Christ.

At the end of Jan 07 and start of Feb 07, I was feeling very discouraged. Friendships that had taken time to build were suddenly on stony ground because I had started to begin to embrace grace teachings unreservedly. For example, I used to be very close to my ex-pastor, but we started to drift apart, and now he does not want to have anything to do with me.

It all cumulated on 4 Feb 07 while I was taking Holy Communion, and I sobbed uncontrollably while holding the elements in my hand. The irony was that a prayer was being said over me to the effect that I was crying tears of repentence, but nothing could be further from the truth! I was tearful because I was wondering whether this was the cost of discipleship? That because I had embraced grace teachings, those who did not would keep their distance?

Anyway, that prayer provided little comfort, if any at all...

But the Holy Spirit is the true Comforter, and He was working in the most unexpected way.

In Jn 14, Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as "parakletos", which is translated as "comforter" in KJV and "helper" in NIV and NASB.

That very evening, a brother who calls himself CybeRanger left a note on my cBox, telling me that my blog was just given the Best Christian Blog of the Week award! You can read more about that here.

Sure, some may dismiss this as a mere coincidence, but by doing so, they do not realise they are undermining the work of the Third Person in the Trinity.

Even though this chap was a total stranger to me and I to him, both of us are part of Christ's Body. He had no idea the extent of my discouraged state, but He responded to the Spirit's prompting, and was according used by Him to lift me up.

If you are not convinced, then how about this testimony of how the Holy Spirit prompted another total stranger to do a search of "Pastor Prince" on YouTube sometime in Aug 07, and the first one to come up was the video I put up offering free copies of Destined to Reign. She and another friend responded to the offer.

Just last week, I received feedback that some in my church's leadership were upset about my continuous promoting of the grace gospel. That again caused me to be discouraged because I realise that it is a real uphill task to "change things from the inside".

Yet again, the Holy Spirit, being the true Comforter, prompted this particular recipient of Destined to Reign to send me an email, and the contents of her email really lifted my spirits. You can read more about that here.

And the most wonderful thing is that same Parakletos is available to each and every one of us. Don't let the fact that someone out there may be a total stranger to you limit what our awesome God can do. What may be coincidences in the eyes of the world are actually God-appointed divine arrangements. Amen?