If you are not a Christian, you do not know the Holy Spirit, nor can you know him (John 14.17). He belongs to the children of God. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2.14).
But dear Christian, you know the Spirit, for he dwells within you and helps you in many ways.
The Holy Spirit indwelled you at your baptism.
“Repent,” Peter preached, “and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2.38 ESV). This is connected to the baptism of the Holy Spirit from Acts 1.4–5. Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, “which…you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” This promise was not just to the apostles. God had spoken through Joel, “I will pour out of My spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy” (Acts 2.17–18 NKJV). Peter told all the Jews there on the Day Pentecost that the promised Holy Spirit was “for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2.39).
Paul goes so far as to say, “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, The Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8.9–11).
This is also what Paul meant when he wrote the Galatians, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” (Gal. 3.2)
The Holy Spirit sanctifies you.
We all were at one time revilers of God, set against him, interested only in fulfilling the desires of our flesh, just like the rest of mankind. Paul says, “But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6.11). Peter addressed his first epistle to the “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit…” (1 Pet. 1.2).
Praise be to God who “from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thes. 2.13)!
The Holy Spirit comforts you.
All the early Christians walked “in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9.31). Indeed, on the eve of his death, Jesus promised his disciples, “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper (Comforter), that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14.16–17).
The Holy Spirit teaches you.
To the apostles, Jesus promised, “But the Helper (Comforter), the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14.26). “When the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me,” (John 15.26). “When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come” (John 16.13).
Jesus kept this promise, and the Holy Spirit guided the apostles into all truth. They spoke the word and wrote it down, so we are now led by the Spirit as we read their inspired writings.
The Spirit helps you in your weakness.
You still live in your flesh, so you still walk among the living dead. Your flesh is still weak; though it is being redeemed even now, it still has not been perfected, and for that you will have to wait. With incomplete knowledge and wisdom, you still wrestle with life’s decisions. It’s a great assurance, therefore, that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8.26–27).
How do you know the Holy Spirit lives in you?
The Holy Spirit helps us put to death the deeds of the body (Rom. 8.12–17). We walk by the Spirit and in the Spirit when we have the Holy Spirit living in us. Paul said in Galatians 5.16, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit…”
How are you walking? Are you walking in the flesh or in the Spirit? This is a great way to know if the Spirit of God dwells in you.
While we mortify the deeds of the flesh, the Holy Spirit leads us in righteous living. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5.22–23).
Are you experiencing peace and joy in your walk? Is your attitude towards those around you an expression of kindness and patience? Are you able more and more to control your fleshly desires? Do you have a desire to control yourself, and do you repent when you fail?
The knowledge that you are a temple for the Spirit of God should motivate you to keep yourself pure (1 Cor. 6.18–20).
Folks in the world laugh when we tell them the Holy Spirit of God lives in us—they laugh because they cannot see him and we cannot show him to them. We say we feel his guidance and see the evidence of his work in our lives. It is something personal only we can know! Jesus himself said the world cannot receive the Spirit because it neither sees him nor knows him (John 14.17), so we should not expect the world to understand. But we certainly understand each other. When you meet someone who also has God’s Spirit, you connect in a special way, don’t you? You talk of spiritual things and share your love for the Lord deeply and intimately. What a wonderful gift God has given of his own Spirit!