Do you still remember how I explained the Gospel message to you using an A4?

Here is the link to the video I made about it on YOUTUBE:

In Afrikaans: https://youtu.be/HdkMuyRQ5pM?si=QPBW714UlcCmVQbt

And in English: https://youtu.be/j1Esf66ke-E?si=p07ZbMVhN6tuqc2z

I showed you how a life without Jesus is “HELL” in this life and then also after this life on earth. Because if you choose not to accept Jesus as the Crucified One and Savior in faith, “HELL” is a terrible reality after your death!

Jesus, God the Son, is the Promised Messiah, as 322 verses already promised prophetically in the Old Testament.

He is also the final Passover Lamb of God, who gave His life and His blood so that a Holy God could be justified in forgiving your sins and acquitting you.

Accepting Jesus in faith as your Savior means that He took your sins and punishment upon Himself, and with His life and blood paid the full price for what you actually deserved.

By accepting this Gospel message and Good News about Jesus and what He also did for you, in faith, you receive from God's great grace the "LIFE", "life and it in abundance" as Jesus promised there in John 10:10b!

That is why we can write two words on the CROSS: JESUS ​​on the front, and MESSIAH on the back.

Today I want to remind you of another reason and another name that the One who hung on the cross had according to Scripture.

Listen a little to what John the Baptist prophesied about Him:

John 1:29 – “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

And then in John 1:32-34 – “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. I myself did not know who he was, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”

Jesus who hung on the cross was not only the Promised Messiah and Savior! Yes, He was the Messiah who became an ordinary man and lived among us on earth for 33 years.

Yes, He was also the One who, as the totally innocent, perfect Lamb, gave His Blood and His Life on the CROSS so that He could also be your Savior. To also give you ‘LIFE’ that you can experience for the rest of your life here on earth.

Of course, this “LIFE” does not only have meaning for this piece of life here on earth – whether it is just a life of 10 or 90 years. No, this ‘LIFE’ is also “eternal life”; it is “life” that also has meaning, and that is a reality after this life on earth.

Jesus came so that on this side of the grave, while you live your 10 or 90 years here on earth, you will not only experience “LIFE”. You will already experience “LIFE” here on earth, and it will be “abundant”!

See, Jesus was not only the Messiah and the Savior who was to come. He also died on the cross to be the BAPTIST WITH THE SPIRIT!

He is the One who, as He already promised here on earth in one of His last messages to His disciples, will ask the Father to send the Spirit of the Father and the Son to come and live in each of His believing followers. Yes, so that each of His followers will experience and experience God Himself, Jesus Himself, being in and with them!

Yes, Jesus will ascend to heaven, and we will thus go ahead to be in the direct presence of the Father.

So He will not leave us behind as orphans. He Himself will come to us again to be in and with each of us 24/7. To still be Immanuel for us. Not only in the sense of “God is with us”.

No, in and through the coming of God the Spirit, He will now be “Immanuel” in the superlative degree, as God-with-us, but also now as God-in-us!

Of course, you will not only experience God as Father, Son, and Spirit here on earth as Immanuel, God-with-you. You are going to experience it in a superlative degree, in a perfect sense, beyond the grave!

You are going to experience “LIFE” in every sense of the word and “it in abundance”, in every sense of the word, when, after death, beyond the grave, as a spirit-and-soul-person, you experience “heaven” and God’s direct presence, in and with you, in the real heaven.

Let's think together about what Jesus could have meant when He said the following in John 10:10

“I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved. He will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

At least what I understand from these words of Jesus is the following:

That when we choose to grasp with the empty hands of faith what Jesus did and said and choose to believe it for the rest of our lives here on earth, this “door” to a new life, and a life of abundance, literally opens for us!

Yes, like sheep led by their shepherd to where there is nutritious pasture for them and plenty of clean and calm water, so every person who has accepted Jesus in faith truly comes to rest in every sense of the word and a peace break through that surpasses all understanding.

Someone once tried to put it into words: Here inside me there was this hole that nothing I could do could ever fill. But the day I truly discovered Jesus as my Savior and Lord and accepted him in faith, everything changed! It finally miraculously filled and healed this hole!

What I discovered further was that it not only meant that I could now be sure once and for all of my salvation, and that God had forgiven and healed me, no, but that there was so much more than that!

Did you hear? There is so much more than just that! Don’t think that you have already discovered and experienced everything that this “life and it in abundance” entails!

No, there is so much more waiting for you, every day!

Just be faithful and disciplined and make time for silence and for focusing on Jesus! Then you will become aware of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit there and in you!

Then just be sensitive and listen with an open and willing heart to hear His voice, the voice of God the Holy Spirit.

Yes, then you will experience the miracle of experiencing the presence of the Living God, already here on earth, in the midst of all the brokenness, every day!

Yes, and it is all possible in Jesus, through the working of the Holy Spirit.

Let's think a little about the place of the law (understand it in the sense of what we speak of as the “Ten Commandments”) in this new season that has arrived with the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Let's talk about the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of every believing follower of Jesus.

How does Jesus describe it to us there in John 10? He will lead us with His voice.

Let's start with what is written there in Matt. 19.

“A man came to Him and said, 'Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?"

He said to him, "Why do you ask Me about what is good? There is only One who is good. But if you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments.”

“Which commandments do you mean?” he asked Him. Jesus said, “These: You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

Jesus answered him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had many possessions.”

You see that this young man thought that he had kept the entire law, everything that is written in the “Ten Commandments.” Yet Jesus shows him that he actually did not understand the heart of what the “commandments” are actually about, namely, to love God above all else!

Let me ask you a few questions in this regard:

Have you ever discovered in your study of God’s Word, and specifically what the New Testament says about the Holy Spirit, how the Holy Spirit is now spoken of as the “Law” in your life as a believer?

Have you, for example, also discovered that what we know as the “ten commandments” is described in this new season, for example in Galatians 3, as the “tutor to Christ”?

But then specifically in the lives of unbelievers!

The Holy Spirit is therefore going to use the “law” or “ten commandments”, as we know it, in the lives of unbelievers to make them aware of their sin and, as it were, lead them to Jesus as the Savior!

Do you understand what this means?

This means that God the Spirit uses what is written in the “Ten Commandments” to make every person who does not yet know Jesus and understand what He came to do for us aware that he or she is totally lost and sinful. Yes, that we as humans cannot satisfy God in any way.

The law (in the sense of the “Ten Commandments”) is going to make lost people aware that they need Jesus as Savior! Yes, that He also died for them and their sins, and that only those who believe in Him and trust in what He also did for them will be saved and will not be lost and go to hell!

When people then accept Jesus as Savior and Lord and believe that He also came to die for them and their sins, God’s Spirit comes to live in their lives, to be in and with them every day as God’s Spirit. Yes, then He Himself, as God the Spirit, will guide them and teach them exactly what God’s will and heart is for their lives and for every day.

Thus God becomes the Spirit, then Himself “the Law” in the life of every believer in this new season.

This is what God already promised in the Old Testament, in passages such as Ezek. 36, will happen.

Then listen with this “new” understanding to these well-known prophetic words:

“I will give you a new heart and a new spirit; I will take the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and obey my judgments and do them.”

That is why Paul writes the following in Romans 7:6: “But now we have been released from the law, because we died and are no longer under the law by which we were bound. Now we can serve in the new dispensation of the Spirit, and not in the old dispensation of legal prescriptions.”

Finally, can I challenge you to think about this a little in the Lord’s presence?

Today I want to talk to you from the Lord's Word about how God the Holy Spirit, after His outpouring, comes to play this key role in the life of every believing follower of Jesus.

Jesus talks about it in passages such as John 14-16. I would like to mention a few important things to you about this.

Our relationship with Jesus himself, and everything He said and did, and continues to say to us and do in us, is the essence of this "life" and "eternal life" that we are currently talking about.

This also includes what Jesus tells us in John 14, from verse 6 onwards.

"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you knew Me, you would know My Father also. And from now on you know Him and have seen Him."

Therefore, Jesus goes on to say the following about the Holy Spirit and when He comes to dwell in the body and life of every believing follower:

“I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.” (Verse 18)

Then Jesus continues in verse 25: “...when the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, is sent in my name, he will teach you all things and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

The more I read and meditate on God the Spirit and His role 24/7 in the life of every believer, I realize that ...

We in the "reformed" tradition from which I come struggle to make everything that God says in His Word about the Holy Spirit and His role in our lives a practical part of our faith and life as followers of Jesus.

Do you realize, for example, that Jesus himself says, in my own words, that people can say anything about Him, but that it is literally deadly, and can even be "unforgivable," what they say about the Holy Spirit and about His work!

Go and read for yourself what is written in Mark 3:28,29:

"Truly I tell you, everything will be forgiven people, whatever blasphemy they may speak.

But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but remains guilty of sin forever."

Therefore, we must listen carefully to what Jesus himself, and the rest of the New Testament, says about the Holy Spirit and what He will do in us as believing followers of Jesus.

It is also important to hear that everything the Spirit will do in us and tell us will always focus on Jesus, everything He did, and what He said!

Because God the Spirit, in this new season, after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, of which Acts 2 tells us, dwells in us, but is also “upon us” to equip us with “power from on high”, equips us with the gifts of the Spirit, that is why we hear Jesus promise us the following in verses 12 to 14 of John 14:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do also; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”

Do you now understand why I said that, in many church traditions, we have not yet fully assimilated and made our own everything that is said about the Holy Spirit and His work?