A Great Gift

 The Holy Spirit enables us to pray and to enter into the same relationship with God that Jesus had  (Alan Schreck: Your Life in the Holy Spirit, 46).

What was Jesus' relationship to God while he was in the flesh?  It was the same relationship He has in heaven, before the beginning of time.  Jesus relates to God as "Father." 

His relationship to God was a scandal to the Jews and the Pharisees: "We want to stone you because you,  a mere man, make yourself equal to God." they said.  And how did He make himself "equal" to God, but that He called God "Father?"  

And how is it that we, mere mortals, can call God our Father?  Jesus Christ came in the flesh to make us children of God, giving us the ability, the power, to call God "Father."  We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into his grace in which we now stand....because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us (Romans 5).

...those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children (Romans 8).

At the Last Supper, Jesus promised to send us the Holy Spirit -- the Helper, the Advocate, the Paraclete. The word Paraclete is from the Latin "para" (alongside of) and "caleo," (called).  The Holy Spirit is "called" (by Jesus) to be beside us, as a companion, a Teacher, a Counselor, an Advocate for us.  He is the continuation of Jesus' earthly mission, a mission not just for 33 years on earth, but for all of us, for all time.  And Jesus' mission was to gather us in, to bring us to His Father, not in fear of retribution or punishment, but in a community of love for the Father and for one another.

Jesus called the Holy Spirit "the Gift of the Father" (Acts 1).  Surely Jesus meant for us to open the Gift, to ask for Him, to seek Him.  Our relationship with God should be the same as Adam's before the Fall -- walking with God "in the cool of the evening," as Friend and Companion.  But after sin, our relationship tends toward Adam's after the Fall --- hiding from God in fear.  How then is it possible for our fear to be overcome?  

Only if the Spirit of Jesus, who knows the Father so well, lives in us can fear be destroyed once and for all.  And He in a way begged us to seek the Gift -- Matthew 7 and Luke 11 both report Jesus saying, "Ask for the Holy Spirit.  If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask!"