The Holy Spirit is also the spirit of comfort who comforts us in all our afflictions. No one knows our pain, our grief and our hearts more than the Holy Spirit. Only He alone can heal and comfort us as He is the parakletos (the Comforter).
The word "comfort" is "paraklesis" referring to "exhortation, admonition, encouragement". Note that this relationship may not all be lovey-dovey. In fact there will be times when the Holy Spirit will admonish us or tell us off. I have experienced this many times especially when I have done or said something to others that have caused Him grief. There are often times when even my very thoughts were thoroughly displeasing to Him and He had to tell me off!
While we were ministering to the different families of the church, the one family that really touched me the most was Sis L's family. She gave us a wonderful breakfast of rice with a special vegetable plucked from her garden. Apparently this vegetable is not available elsewhere except in the Philippines.
Sis L had a daughter named J. After finishing our meal, we will normally ask whether the family had any prayer request. J started to us ask to pray for her husband in Africa. He had been working there for a few years to support the family. We laid hands on her and prayed for her. Suddenly the comfort of the Holy Spirit flooded her heart and she started to weep. She really poured out her pain, her grief and her sorrow to the Lord.
I felt such pain was in her heart. Now I do not operate so much in the word of knowledge but there and then I thought there must be some discord in their relationship.
We prayed for reconciliation. I asked her to forgive her husband whatever he may have done to her.
I gave a word to her mother to pray together with J for J's husband. I felt that was what God wanted them to do, to establish the family altar in their home.
5. The Spirit of Holiness
Studying the lives of great men of God who spend hours in prayer before they minister to others, none touched me more than David Branaird, the missionary to the American Indians.
He was consumed with two things in his entire short life:
- "hagiosyne" or the holiness of God and
- the salvation of souls, in this case, the souls of the American Indians, a group of people in respect of which he had a burden for.
He fasted and prayed for days often for them at the expense of his health. Often he fell sick due to the ravages of being out in the harsh terrain, praying and fasting for this group of people. As a result of his prayer life, many American Indians came to the Lord.
What is holiness?
Holiness is to love God with all our hearts, our minds and our soul and to live in right relationship with others (to love others as we love ourselves) on which hinges all the law and the prophets. These are the two great commandments that Jesus commanded us!
This is what David Branaird said:
"O it is sweet disposition to forgive all iniquities done to us, to wish our greatest enemies as well as we do our own souls"
If we can pray this for our enemies, we can truly lay a claim to holiness.
Some quotes from DB:
"I love to live on the brink of eternity"
"I care not where I go, or how I live or what I endure so that I may save souls. When I sleep, I dream of them, when I awake, they are first in my thoughts"
"No amount of scholastic attainment, of able and profound exposition, of brilliant and stirring eloquence can atone for the absence of a deep impassioned sympathetic love for human souls"
"If you hope for happiness in the world, hope it from God, nor from the world"
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