“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:13
Fathers know how to give good gifts to their children. Even if fathers aren’t good to their children, they know that they’re doing wrong.
Unlike our earthly fathers, God is good all the time and he gives good gifts to his children. God is so good he gives more and better gifts than the best earthly father thought possible. These are gifts like pure grace, total forgiveness, a new nature, and eternal life!
Many of us have a laundry list of gifts we would ask from God the Father, a list that doesn’t include the Holy Spirit. Our lists typically include money, things, promotion, and favor with others. The greatest gift that we could ever receive, however, is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Everything that Jesus has done for us is applied to our life by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13). Jesus’ sinless life, his righteousness, his substitutionary death, his payment for the penalty of our sin, his resurrection to conquer enemies of Satan, sin, and death—all of that is applied to us by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit not only applies the work of Jesus to our life, he also takes up personal residence within us. If you have trusted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, then you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13).
He will help you. He will guide you. He will convict you of sin. He will direct you to Jesus (John 14; 16).
God is not far off and aloof of your life. He is not a distant judge sitting on a throne critiquing our every move. He is personally and intimately involved in every detail of our life.
The same God that rules and reigns over all of creation indwells the child of God to help us live the life he has called us to live with the same power that Jesus lived with, the power of the Holy Spirit.
Today ask God the Father, through Jesus Christ, to fill you with the gift of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18).
Adapted from the 2010 sermon “Asking for the Holy Spirit,” part 48 of the 100-part sermon series on the Gospel of Luke.
