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, | 07 Jun 2021 | by GEM Spiritual Life

The Word and the Spirit

by Lena Larsen

Key Verse: When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

– 1 Peter 2:23-24, NIV

My husband and I are preparing to move and that has been triggering a lot of stress, especially related to where we’re going to live. A few weeks ago, at a point when I was feeling particularly stressed about finding a house/apartment my Bible study group spent some time looking at 1 Peter 2. At the beginning of the study, I was feeling distracted and struggling to really engage with the text, but the more times we read it and the more we talked about it, the more I began to feel some gentle nudges from the Holy Spirit. He reminded me of the depth of His care for me—the lengths He was willing to go to purchase me. He reminded me that the God I follow is the same God to whom Christ entrusted himself.

Me looking for a house is less intense than the suffering that Christ experienced but the God at work during it is the same. I felt a gentle rebuke for my deep distrust and a gracious invitation to choose, like Christ, to “entrust myself to him who judges justly” and who cares for me deeply.

What marvelous gifts we’ve been given in the Word and the Spirit. We have timeless truths recorded for us in black and white and we have the very Spirit of the author living within us to bring them to life and bring them to bear upon our lives.

Reflection Verse

I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.

– John 16:12-14, NIV

Reflection Questions

  • What does it look like to engage with the Holy Spirit as you read, study, or meditate upon the Word of God?

  • How has the Holy Spirit spoken to you through Scripture recently? What is it looking like to live in light of that?

  • Take a moment to praise God for giving us access to some of the “depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Romans 11:33).