Fruit of the Trilogy

Sequels are rarely good.  Trologies...is more rare.  If the sequel is good, the trilogy is either take it or leave it.

Admittedly, that’s how the Trinity has been for me until recently.

God, the Father.  I have an earthly father.  My “daddi” is protective, loving, treats me like a princess. I understand the “traditional” father-daughter relationship.

God, the Father, protects, loves, treats me like a princess.  He desires a relationship with me and He pursues that, like my daddi does.  He made me. He loved me before I was a physical being. And so did my daddi.

The “sequel” to the Father is a Savior, Jesus.  I’ve been rescued in my life - by my parents, by authorities that be, by my boss or company.  People have had my back.

This rescuer-rescued relationship is a little harder to grasp.  What Jesus did is a little above my brain capacity, but I accept it.

And if I thought the “sequel” was hard to understand….the “trilogy” - rough.

———————————————

The “trilogy” here is a Spirit - the Holy Spirit.

I grew up in a church that touched on talking about the Holy Spirit.  What I knew from that church was two things: “it” was my “helper” and “it” was abstract.

As a grew older and went to other churches, I understood that the gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12 were called “Spiritual Gifts” and they came from that Spirit.  However, not all those gifts (like prophecy and tongues) were a “thing.”

This is what I understood….until January.

This didn’t happen overnight - it happen through prayer, [“ironically”] a sermon series that aligned with the prayers I’d been praying, visions, sermons to confirm those visions, discussions with my small group, more prayer, and more prayer, another vision, online sermons, and a lot more prayer.

And today, I realize that in what I learned in church (from the building) was rooted in Truth, but was not the complete Truth.

The Holy Spirit is my Helper, but it is a defined Being.  He is a “He” not an “it.”

Holy Spirit does give the Church Spiritual Gifts, but He gives them all.  Not just some of them apply - all of them do.

See, when a Spirit becomes a Being and not an abstract thing - He suddenly is “scary” or “weird.”

See, when the Spirit gives gifts, including prophecy and tongues - He suddenly is “scary” or “weird.”

Or maybe….He just becomes unexplainable.  But so is God and Jesus.

How could God create all of it?  How could God love me so much? How could God love the bad guys?  Why does God want a relationship with me? Why would Jesus die for me? Or for that bad guy? How could He be dead, but be alive again?  How could He perform miracles?....the list goes on.

It’s all a little confusing, but here is what I know...

Though all Three are one, a relationship with each part of the Trinity is important. Ben Armstrong of Bethel Church says that connection is what produces fruit.

Like I said before, connection with my Father is easy because I understand the relationship.  Connection with my Savior, is harder, but is still easily understood. But connection with a “Spirit” seems….hard.

When God created Eve, He said that Adam needed a suitable helper.  In the original text, the word for this “helper” was ezer.  Hundreds of years later, Jesus tells his disciples He is going to leave them a Helper - Jehovah-Ezer, the Holy Spirit.

Adam was married to Eve - his ezer.  We, too, then should be so connected (married, even) to our Ezer.

Marriage….yet another relationship we (even as singles) can relate to.  It’s something conceptually, we understand.

Beyond that, we understand a “helper relationship.”  We have all stood on the side of both the helper and the person being helped.  Quite frankly, between father-daughter, savior-saved, and helper-helped relationships, the one we see the most is the latter.

Doesn’t this, then, mean that the “easiest” connection should [keyword “should”] be the Helper relationship?  Furthermore, the Father and the Savior are in heaven, while the Help is on earth - even more relatable.

When I realized this - the strained relationship...or rather the lack-of-relationship...with the Holy Spirit started to bloom.  Okay, really, it started to sky rocket.

While my relationship with the Father and the Savior are important, I realized that Holy Spirit was the missing link between them and I.

And get this….last year I wrote about my own “life trinity” - abide, delight, and dwell.  If you read back on those blogs, you’ll realize how comfortable was writing about abiding and delighting in my life.  They were concepts I understood. But dwelling was hard.  It seemed (ironically) abstract.

In the churches, bible studies, youth groups, I attended throughout life a go-to opening prayer is “Holy Spirit come….” - come be with us, come fill this room, come dwell among us.  It’s not a wrong prayer….it’s actually really powerful. Holy Spirit be here….be present. It’s true - He is here; He is present.

But because of that prayer, I’ve found that I’ve made Him something to be called on - something only in our midst.

The full Truth is that He (get this) dwells within.

Bam - DWELL.

And if all of this is true - that Jehovah-Ezer (Holy Spirit) lives within me, we are married, then through that marriage comes gifts - gifts of the Spirit.  I cannot live just in those gift, but live connected to them.

Apart from Him, using the gifts are about the gift itself - about me.  With Him, using the gifts are about producing fruit - about Him, the Gift Giver.