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Hello Great Family,

In preparation for our next session of Oakwood’s Family Nights, I just sat down to start a new book on marriage.  I don’t normally read the preface, instead, I skip to the first chapter.  However, today I was listening to this as an audio book and since I was driving alone, nobody was there to skip to the first chapter.  I was glad that I listened and found the following excerpt useful in our new series on the Holy Spirit.  Here is what Paul Tripp had to say,

“They were confused and afraid, facing the unthinkable. Their rabbi, the Messiah, was leaving them. They weren’t even close to having a coherent theology of his life and death, let alone any expectation of the victorious resurrection that would follow. They had forsaken everything to follow him, heard him teaching with authority, seen him rule creation in power, and watched him heal the sick with the might of the Creator. What would life be without him? So Jesus spent some of his last hours intimately, personally, and lovingly preparing them. At the center of his preparation were promises that they would cling to in the days, weeks, months, years, and generations to come.

I have thought about one of those promises again and again. In fact, if I didn’t believe that this promise was not just for those anxious disciples on the eve of the Lord’s death but is for me as well, I couldn’t do what I now do. I get up every morning and try my best to take the most glorious body of truth ever revealed and apply it to the situations, relationships, and locations of our daily lives. I know I have little wisdom of my own. I understand that any practically applied wisdom I put down on the page flows from the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I am deeply aware that the gospel is a bottomless well of redeeming, life-altering wisdom. No matter how deep I dig or how many years I dig, I will never reach its bottom.

My job is to continue to learn, approaching my life and work with the hunger and humility of a student. I must never boast that I’ve learned enough, know enough, or am a gospel graduate. In my fear that I would not get it right and in my understanding that there is so much more that I need to know, I cling every day of my life to this tender, loving promise made by the world’s best rabbi before he became the final sacrificial lamb: “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 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 have said to you” (John 14:25–26). My confidence is in my helper teacher, the Holy Spirit. Every day I take my seat in his classroom, with heart and mind tuned to him. Every day I ask him to help me see more clearly and understand more deeply. And I am required to confess that I am a work in progress.”

We will continue speaking about the Holy Spirit this Sunday.  Specifically addressing our fears concerning this topic.  Come join us.

God Bless,
P.D. (Psalm 139)