The major work of God’s holy spirit right now is the development of the church class (also called the bride of Christ). This is a tremendous work. God is taking natural, sinful people and through His mighty power and our obedience to His will is changing us into the character image Jesus. It would be impossible for us to do this without God’s spirit.
Jesus invited believers to follow Him in Matthew 16:24, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” How could we learn self-denial and cross-bearing without the power of the holy spirit? It is the holy spirit, the spirit of truth, which opens our eyes to understand and obey God’s will.
“But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God…These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:10-14 (NKJV).
One evidence that we are growing in God’s spirit is that our lives and words will reflect God’s wisdom. This “wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity.” James 3:17.
Another evidence is our Christ-like character development. Galatians 5:22-24 (RSV), “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
Finally, by the power of the holy spirit, our transformed characters will be resurrected with divine bodies. 2 Peter 1:4, “…he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.”
