The B Team God

08.12.12

John 14.26 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. NASB

God the Father sent His Son to become one of us. And to this day and forever, Jesus Christ will be a man. God said I will become one of them and remain with them so that they can understand that I truly know them and that they can identify with Me.

And God sent His Spirit to be within us. And to this day the Holy Spirit has chosen to dwell in the icky cesspools that we call our lives with all of the brokenness, fallenness, and sin that is ours. That is the love of our God who said our lives will be incomplete without His. Every sin, every hurt, every pain, every heartache is a reminder of not only who we are but also Who dwells within us. The Holy Spirit was sent to us in Jesus’ Name to dwell within us and help us to know God truly.

I have always wanted to think of the Holy Spirit as the “B” team God. I have always wanted to place His presence as somewhat beneath that of the Father’s or the Son’s. How foolish! How shortsighted; how ignorant to misunderstand the power and presence of the Very Spirit who hovered over the formless and void planet called earth and said, Let there be light! And in seven days created something of such magnificence; everything was considered and nothing was left out.

The Holy Spirit is as courageous in dwelling within us as Jesus was in becoming One of us. When God sent His Spirit to be our Helper and the Resident of our hearts, there was no one more eager to do something in all of creation throughout all of eternity. There was no one more creative to take the brokenness and fallenness that is ours and make such beauty out of it – out trash became His treasure.

There is no one who brings such light to our minds to enable us to think of God, or to hear God in the wind and the waters. There is no one who helps us to recognize our own sin and incapacity as Him who says I will be with them and will dwell in them – I will find my home in the wreckage of all they are and do and I will faithfully, forgivingly remind them of all He said and all He does. A Teacher and Reminder is He – thank God for His Holy Spirit, the Spirit who dwells within.

I think what got me this morning is when Jesus said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name…” He was sent because from eternity past His love for us has been to be with us and within us. God created us to live within us and complete us in a way we never could be complete without Him. And His Holy Spirit is God who fills us, and completes us in every way.

He isn’t the Second-Rate God; He is God the Merciful and Kind to live in hearts like yours and mine. He isn’t the Reluctant God; He is God Eager, to remake our messy misery into something of astounding beauty. He isn’t God Who of the short stick to take on the crap; He is God the Completer filling in every low and voided place in these broken lives we call our own. And He is God the Welcome Who accepts us as the formless and void lives we are, and then turns us into the perfection we were always meant to be.

Father, what a Gift in Your Son and in Your Spirit and in Your love and desire to be with us even in the mess we are…