The Spirit

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

THE SPIRIT

Luke 12:11-12

11 "When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say." 

NIV

Is this to replace education? Does the Holy Spirit give us insight into what to say without our having knowledge of the word of God? Can we defend our faith without going to some denominational institution of higher learning? Have we replaced the influence of the Holy Spirit with education? Do we put more emphasis on education then on the power of the Holy Spirit in regards to defending our faith, as well as any other aspect of Christian living? Perhaps it is the education which gives us the rules and regulations like the Pharisees and the teachers of the law tried to live by. Maybe it is the education which gives us the lists of do’s and don’ts to check off each day. Can the Holy Spirit give us words if we have never read any of the scripture? Have we put limits on the power of the Holy Spirit by believing we must first know the scriptures in order for him to remind us of them, or inspire our words? Have we replaced the power of the Holy Spirit with the power of our own mind? Do we lift up those who appear to be so intelligent regarding God’s word because they have all the degrees, but maybe have little to no relationship with the Holy Spirit? Have we been sucked into this kind of thinking? Jesus tells his disciples they should not worry what words they need when defending their faith in front of unbelievers. The Holy Spirit will teach them at that time what they should say. The key here is, at that time. We cannot prepare all our words in advance. We cannot prepare what we are going to say, rehearse it, memorize it, because then it would be our words and not word taught to us by the Holy Spirit. We cannot even sit down with him weeks in advance and try to get inspired as to what we should say at that time. It would appear all we really need to do is to wait for that time and then hear the words the Holy Spirit inspires us to speak. Talk about walking in the Spirit, this is it full out. Does this also apply to other aspects of words, like sermons, or books, or even these devotional writings? Certainly preachers spend an enormous amount of time in preparation for their sermons, with notes or even a complete text to sort of read. Certainly some authors spend hours, even days or weeks in research preparing the information they are going to write about. Does all that negate the power or influence of the Holy Spirit in their words? These are tough questions, but at the same time we should be aware of the power of the Holy Spirit and that he can and will give us the right words at the right time, even without any preparation of our own. It would make sense, at least in the mind of man that we should have, at minimum, read the scripture once. Then the Holy Spirit could bring it back to our mind so we could say the right words at the right time. But Jesus did not include that requirement as he simply told them and us to rely completely on the Holy Spirit. Certainly the Spirit knows all the words and then some. With his power he can teach us words we have never seen or heard before. This is living in the Spirit. This is real faith, this is the Spirit.