I want to share with us the Word of God in this short piece and the title of our consideration is: Finding Our Completeness in The Holy Spirit. And we are going to start our observations from the book of Ezekiel chapter 36 and we will read from verse 26-29. The Bible says: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you…” Now, if you take a look at that phrase “I will give you…” this is God speaking to prophet Ezekiel saying, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.” You see, that statement presupposes something and I want us to get it very clearly, that before a new heart and a new spirit comes, it means there was an old heart and an old spirit.

 

When God says “I will give you new”, it means there is one you possess right now that is old. You know in the book of Hebrews, when the Lord was speaking about the Old Covenant, the Bible says there wouldn't have been a need for the New Covenant if the old was not faulty. So, when God says: “I will give you something new”, it is simply because the old, what you simply process right now; is not complete, there is something fundamentally wrong with it. Now, the reason why God was speaking to Ezekiel here is simply because there were a set of people who truly were not serving God with their spirit and with their heart. They were supposed to know God in their hearts, they were supposed to know God in their spirit. But because of the stiff neck of their heart and the stubbornness of their heart, they are finding it very hard to be able to relate with God.

 

So, at a point in time, God felt that what is going to be the solution to that problem is that they should have a new heart and a new spirit. So, God said to Prophet Ezekiel that he should speak to the people that God said He is going to give them a new heart and put a new spirit within them. It says, “I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh.” So, God was still speaking further that the problem with their hearts is that it was stony. Biologically speaking, not that there is a stone in their heart so-to-say, God was using that as a picture of the state of their heart. I believe you know what a stone is; a stone is very hard. A stone sometimes can be very difficult to penetrate. So, God was saying that the current state of their heart is stony and because of that, they find it very hard and very difficult to be able to relate with God.

 

So, God said He would take away that stony heart and replace it with a heart of flesh. Verse 27 says, “I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statute.” Their old spirits were not regenerated, their old spirit was not connecting with God because it was dead, it couldn't pick the signals of God. So, God said, I am going to bring my Spirit to come and live within them. Maybe per adventure that is going to help them to be able to find out how relate with Him. God was going to do all these to the intent that man will be able to relate with him, will not struggle with Him, will find it very easy to have a relationship with Him. So, it says the stony heart I will take away, I will replace with a heart of flesh, I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.

 

So, by the time my Spirit comes within you, you will find it very easy to walk in my laws. Before that time, they couldn't walk in the laws of God, they were always violating it. You know, the law at the time was supposed to bring them righteousness. But at that, they find it very hard to be able to attain that righteousness because they were not yet saved, they were serving God on the surface. The basis of their relationship with God was on the basis of the law. So, they were superficially serving God. The law was unable to get to their heart and cause a regeneration to take place because they want to please God on the outside. They were satisfied with the fact that “if I'm able to fulfill the law, if I'm able to follow the law, then I think I'm going to be worthy in the sight of God.

 

But the more they do that, the more they stumble at the same statute. But the Bible says when God says He we put His spirit in them, it says it will cause them, that spirit we enable them to be able to naturally inclined to God, they will not struggle anymore, to be able to relate with God, they will begin to see God not from afar, but from within themselves. Because it says “my Spirit will live within them and you will keep my judgment and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”  So, at the point when my Spirit comes upon you, it is going to facilitate our relationship. At that point God was saying that when I see my Spirit upon you, I can be able to identify with you. I can be able to call you my children, I can be able to relate with you because what will facilitate that relationship, and that enablement has been released on to you, which is the Spirit of God.

 

Now I want us to look at the New Testament experience of this Scripture. Let's see Romans chapter 8:9-11, and then we will jump to verse 26-27. When that prophecy was given to Ezekiel, let's look at the experience in the New Testament. The Bible says, “But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit if indeed…” Now, the word ‘indeed’ there has a number of synonyms. It says if indeed (if certainly, if really, if undeniably, if definitely, and if truly) the Spirit of God dwells in you. In the book of Ezekiel that we read, God says, “I will”, in this place that we are just reading, the assumption right now is that the Spirit is supposed to have come and be indwelling in you and be living in you. As at Ezekiel, it was a promise, but as at Romans 8:9-11, it was no longer a promise. It was supposed to be a reality. And that was why Paul used that word ‘indeed’.

 

If indeed you claim right now that the Spirit of God is within you, it says, you are not supposed to be in the flesh, you are supposed to be in the Spirit. Did we see that? Now, it says, “Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ…” as at now, in this New Covenant, because it is possible. It is possible, although it's not supposed to be possible. But it could be possible that you claim you are born again and you don't operate in the Spirit. The ideal is not supposed to be so. But we find it that in certain instances, it could be so. You know, somewhere in Act, the Bible says the Apostle Paul met certain disciples, and He asked them, “have you been baptized by the Holy Spirit?” And they said, “No, we have not so much heard about any baptism of the Holy Spirit.” So, it is not the ideal, but it could be possible.

 

Paul said, now if anyone who claims to be a believer, who claims to be born again, a child of God, in the New Testament, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, He is not His. Meaning that if there is no vivid and traceable presence of the Holy Spirit in you, Paul said such a person cannot be said to belong to Christ. So, in other words, how do we know that you belong to Christ? By the visible presence of Christ in you. This is the ideal. You should have the presence of God within you.

 

Ephesians 1:13-14, in case you don't understand what I'm trying to communicate. The presence of God should be in you in the New Testament as a believer, as a Christian, and as a follower of God, a follower of Christ. Look at what the Bible says, we will soon go back to that Romans chapter 8. It says: “in Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” The seal of God upon your life in the New Covenant is the Holy Spirit. This is how God identifies you. This is how God knows that you belong to His family. It says when you were taught the gospel, and you believed, it said, there was supposed to be a transformation almost immediately, there is supposed to be a seal that comes upon you and that seal is the Holy Spirit. So, it is the ideal. He calls him the Holy Spirit of promise.

 

It reads further: who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory.” So ideally speaking, so to say, you were supposed to be spirit filled. You were supposed to be a carrier of the Holy Spirit in this dispensation. The Holy Spirit to you should not sound as a promise as in Ezekiel. It should be a reality, a present hour reality, not something that we are looking for, are far off.

 

Now let's go back to Romans 8 from verse 10 and conclude on that thought. The Bible says: “And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies, through His Spirit who dwells…” He is not supposed to start coming, He is supposed to be dwelling already. It didn't say he comes and go; He dwells, He is presently tabernacling there. Who dwells, who lives, who resides, who lives in you.” Verse 26 says: “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses…” there is a reason He is there. You know we are looking at Finding Our Complete Completeness in The Holy Spirit. There is a reason why He dwells. There is a reason why He is not going and coming. There is a reason why He tabernacles, He is supposed to complete you, He is supposed to make you whole, make you a perfect believer, establish you.

 

It says: “He helps in our weakness, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. ²⁷ Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” So, what does that tell us? The Holy Spirit indwells us, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. The Holy Spirit resides in us, He tabernacles with us.

 

Now let me show us something very briefly. You see, there are two sides to enjoying the fullness of God in the kingdom of God. If you're going to enjoy all the benefits that the kingdom of God has to offer us, there are two ways in which you can enjoy it. The very first way you can enjoy it is by being saved, or receiving salvation, or what is known as being born again. You see, being born again is the entrance into the family of God, into the kingdom of God. What guarantees you that you are a child of God is that you are born again. John 3:3, Jesus said to Nicodemus, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. In other words, it is not even close to you. So, if you're going to enjoy the fullness of God, the very first side to that is you being born again, receiving salvation.

 

You know, you can't claim to belong to a family that you were not born into. What makes you belong to your family is simply because you are born into that family, I can't come and claim your lineage because there are no traces. I was not born into your family. So, I can't claim your surname. You can't claim surname because you are not born into my family. What can make you claim that God is your Father, and you belong to him is that you have been born again and that the Spirit of God have sealed you. That is the first side. Now the second side to enjoying that fullness of the kingdom of God is by receiving the Holy Spirit. Now, the Holy Spirit is the sole administrator and the one in charge of this fullness of God that we are talking about. The Holy Spirit is the one who administers it, He is the one who gives us our inheritance, He is the one who is in charge of these resources.

 

You want to enjoy the depth of God, you want to enjoy the height that is in God, you want to enjoy the fullness of God, these things cannot be a reality outside of the administration of the Holy Spirit. And that's why Jesus cried in John chapter 7:37-39.  The Bible says: “On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. ³⁸ He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” That talks about the depth of God. It is not going to be a pipe borne type of experience, it is going to be a gusher. ³⁹ But this He spoke concerning the Spirit…” How do you experience this depth that Jesus spoke about in the previous verse, it says by the Spirit.

 

So, enjoying the fullness of God in the New Covenant as a child of God is made possible by the Holy Spirit, He distributes, He ushers you into your inheritances, into that fullness of God. So, for you to be able to enjoy all that God has made available for you, these two sides must interact, been born again and receiving the Holy Spirit. Now, when you receive the Holy Spirit, the very first thing that the Holy Spirit does is that He carries out what is known as regeneration. When you receive the Holy Spirit, the very first thing that He does is that He carries out what is known as a work of regeneration because when you are born again and you receive the Holy Spirit, that is not an end in itself. It is a means into another kind of experience. Now for you to be able to enjoy that experience with the Holy Spirit, He starts a work in you known as regeneration.

 

Titus 3:4-7 says: “But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, ⁵ not by works of righteousness which we have done…” That was talking about what we were trying to do in the law called self-righteousness. After we were done with it, when it was not working, God had to do away with it. Let us read further: “but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit…” A work of regeneration and renewal of the mind by the Holy Spirit begins in you the moment the Holy Spirit comes. So being born again is not all there is to it. There is a work that is ongoing inside of you. He calls it regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. ⁶ whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

 

The Holy Spirit is completing us. This is how it happens. So, he begins a work of regeneration. Now, what exactly is that regeneration? Let me show us in two definitions. Regeneration is the impartation of a spiritual life to those who are dead. Now he was not talking about physical death here, he was talking about spiritual death. Those who are dead spiritually through their trespasses and sins. Now why does the Holy Spirit have to carry out a work of regeneration? It says because you were dead in sin, your trespasses and sins. And if the work of regeneration is not done, you see, there is every tendency for you to carry your old mindset into this new life. This new life is not the physical life that you have. It is a spiritual life. There is a way to make the spiritual life work. And what begins that spiritual life is the work of regeneration. The Holy Spirit imparts you.

 

Now, look at this Scripture. Ephesians 2 from verse 1. Paul said: “And you He made alive…” Now, when you became born again, were you dead and then you came back to life? No! you were physically alive. But Paul said He made you alive. It says:

 

“who were dead in trespasses and sins, ² in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, ³ among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. ⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), ⁶ and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

 

Now, I believe somebody's getting something. If you read the latter part of that Scripture, verse six to seven, it says, there is a hope. There is an inheritance in Christ Jesus, but there is no way you can walk in that inheritance if there is no renewing of the spirit, regeneration and renewal of the spirit by the Holy Spirit. When you became born again, you see, you must understand that your mind is still the same mind. There must be a renewal of the mind that must bring you into a state that tells you that I'm now saved and I belong to the Spirit. Paul said, “renew your mind. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.” Why was Paul telling believers to be transformed by the renewing of his mind? If the mind was perfect at salvation, why should you renew it every day? Because there was an old conditioning of your mind. Paul said, there was a way your mind thinks in the flesh. And now for you to be whole, for you to be complete in the kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit must help you to renew that mind, He must work on it. He must regenerate it, your spirit must understand and come to a place that it is confident that it is born again, that it was not the old spirit.

 

Do you understand what we're saying? It says the Holy Spirit is carrying out a work of regeneration and renewing of the mind by the Holy Spirit. If you are born again, why must you renew your mind? Isn't your mind born again? Do you want to claim your mind is born again? It is your spirit that the Bible says is born again not your mind. Your mind is an aspect of your soul. So, if your mind is going to understand that your spirit is born again, it must be renewed. It must be worked upon, it must come to the state of newness, that something has taking place in your spirit by regeneration. And so that mind cannot remain the same. It cannot remain the mind of the flesh. It must now become the mind of the Spirit. That was why Paul said, now we have the mind of Christ, not the mind of the flesh, we now have the mind of Christ. Why did he say that? He is trying to let you understand that your old mind is not the same as the new mind. How do you bring your new mind into this reality? By constantly renewing your mind.

 

So, the Holy Spirit imparts us, He regenerate us and impart us with that spiritual life, so that when we live that spiritual life, every other thing is able to take dressing from that spiritual life, not in the deadness of the flesh, where we were coming from, but in the newness of life. And that is why the Bible says He made us alive. He quickened our mortal bodies to understand that something had taking place, a spiritual exercise has taking place that is now the basis for every other thing that flows within us.

 

Secondly, regeneration is the impartation of a new nature, the very nature of God. How are we able to receive the nature of God, that divine nature? It is by the Holy Spirit. Peter said in 2 Peter 1:4: “by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” How do you partake of that divine nature? By the regeneration that the Holy Spirit carries out in you. So, you tell yourself, “I no longer have that nature, that old nature. Old things are passed away, all things are become new.” So, we no longer have the nature of the devil, we now have the nature of God by the work of regeneration.

 

Now, once the Holy Spirit achieves this, once He is done with this work of regeneration, the next thing He does is that He begins to lead you, He begins to direct you into this fullness of God, into experiencing the possibilities that is in the kingdom for you. And that is why as a believer you can't live without the Holy Spirit. You can't say “well, I am okay, I am whole, I am complete without the Holy Spirit”, there is no way you can be complete without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit continues to work on us until we attain that measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Except you want to tell yourself and deceive yourself in the process that you attain that stature at salvation, you did not. Because if you claim you attain that stature at salvation, then there will be no need for the for the ministry gift. Nobody attains it, you grow into it, you mature into it. It is a process that takes place in time and, and what facilitate this process is the Holy Spirit.

 

Let's read 1 Corinthians chapter 2:9-15 and then we conclude. Now when the work of regeneration has been done, what exactly takes place? Look at what the Holy Spirit does.

 

“But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” ¹⁰ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit…” How do you rightly know what belongs to you in God? It says, The Spirit of God reveals it to you. The Spirit of God does not reveal it to you in the flesh, he reveals it to your Spirit, to your regenerated spirit, to your renewed mind and then your mind is able to capture it. He reveals them to us not by the angels but by the Spirit. That same Holy Spirit indwells you; He dwells in you. It reads further:

 

For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. ¹¹ 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. ¹² Now (right now, in this present dispensation) we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God…” God said in Ezekiel, “I will give them another Spirit.

 

that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. ¹³ These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. ¹⁴ 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.” ¹⁵ But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. ¹⁶ For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.”

 

We have the mind of Christ because we have the Holy Spirit of Christ. So, we are nothing without the Holy Spirit, we are incomplete without the Holy Spirit. But with the Holy Spirit, we are complete, we are made perfect, we are made whole. In conclusion, I want you to take this away with you: You are not complete as a believer until you begin to enjoy the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the fullest. You are enjoying it at a level right now and it is producing the result that you are seeing right now. But if you want to see more results, more than what you have experienced right now, you have to maximize that ministry of the Holy Spirit. You want to change levels; you want to move into realms that is beyond now, it is by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. How do you enjoy the ministry of the Holy Spirit? It is in the place of fellowship. How does the Spirit of God reveal to you the fullness of God? In the place of fellowship, in the place of intimacy.

 

You can't share certain things with certain people if there is no intimacy. What will make a friend share his deepest fears and secret with his other friend is because there is fellowship, the Holy Spirit wants to reveal to us the depth of God in the place of fellowship. And this is what is missing in the body of Christ. Believers are not growing; believers are not maximizing the ministry of the Holy Spirit simply because they are not fellowshipping with him. There is relationship but there is no fellowship. What then is the essence of the relationship? I am in a relationship with you but we don't communicate, we don't talk. At best we talk once in a while. It means there are certain things I can't tell you until you come closer.

 

So, the Holy Spirit wants to fellowship with us. He wants to lead and guide us. But many times, we allow our willpower to take the best of us and render the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the background. This is why it appears we do not feel Him him the way we should feel him. You know, sometimes we ask:  How does the Holy Spirit even talk to us? How does the Holy Spirit even minister to us? It is simply because you have not fellowship enough. If you have fellowship enough with Him, you will know how He talks to you. Recently, I was asking somebody, I said how do you know when your mind is talking to you and when the Holy Spirit is ministering to you? How do you differentiate between the two? Like this is not my mind. This is the Holy Spirit. If you are a believer and you are yet to decipher, you are yet to understand the difference between the two, then you are not enjoying fellowship the way you should.

 

You should know when something is coming from your mind, although your mind is regenerated, it is renewed and you should know when the Holy Spirit dropped certain things into your heart. So, if you will enjoy the fullness of God that this kingdom has to offer, if you are going to be complete and whole and be perfect, you can't do it outside of the Holy Spirit, finding our completeness in the Holy Spirit. If you think there is a missing link or a missing gap in your life as a believer, the problem is not about your salvation, you are saved. The problem is about your intimacy and your fellowship with the Holy Spirit. So, what do you do? You pick up that fellowship, you pick up that intimacy, you make it look as if your life, your spiritual life and your entire physical life depend on it.

 

I pray the Lord will help us in Jesus’ name. We cannot be complete outside of Him. He is the one that leads us into that perfection. Without Him, we can't be perfect. But with him we can attain that perfection. Jesus said in Matthew 5:48, “be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Perfection in the kingdom is attainable. In the world, they may tell you perfection is not attainable, but in the kingdom of God; perfection is attainable if you will surrender yourself to the making and the walking of the Holy Spirit in you.

 

May the Lord help us in Jesus’ name.

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Obayomi Abiola Benjamin!

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