Are you ready for some good news?
The Holy Spirit’s first and most important gift to you is not a particular talent or manifestation or even a fruit – it is a revelation. The first and most important thing you need from the Holy Spirit is a revelation of your adoption in Jesus Christ.
God has been pursuing you, not only with His benevolence, kindness, and good gifts, but also with His hesed, His covenantal love. His love is not rooted in your performance, but in His covenant with you, and the Holy Spirit longs to teach you the depths of what that means.
This is what Paul refers to when he says, “The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God.” (Romans 8:16) This does not just mean that the Holy Spirit bears witness to you that you are saved, and that you are going to Heaven, although He does that. The witness of the Spirit to your spirit is also to show you that you are an heir.
If you never receive any other revelation, or any other gift from the Holy Spirit – if there never were a gift of healing, a gift of a prophecy, a tongue, or a teaching – it would be more than enough.
When you start becoming convinced that you are an heir of the Father, the Holy Spirit teaches you an absolutely essential truth for any level of victorious living: God’s goodness has been pursuing you all of your life, in the past and in the present. As you yield control of your life to God and allow God to speak to you, you will hear the Spirit say, “God is good. Life is good. Good things are intended for you.”
If we never hear that, then the clatter and distraction of a world filled with troubles will convince us that our life is filled with bad things. The assumption of an unblessed life inevitably leads to hopelessness.
God’s love has been set upon you in Christ. When you say “yes” to Christ, you are also saying “yes” to an inheritance of every spiritual blessing in Christ. Listen. The Spirit is whispering: “You’re forever a child of God.” And that’s the Gospel!
