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Every major facet of the life of Jesus is a Spirit event-so much so that we need to see that the more Christlike we become, the more Spirit-ual we become. What often has been overlooked needs to be made clear.
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The highly regarded Wheaton College professor, the late Gerald Hawthorne, summarized his study of Jesus and the Spirit in these words: “The Holy Spirit was the divine power by which Jesus overcame his human limitations, rose above his human weakness, and won out over his human mortality.” Unlocking the doors to so the Spirit can come in begins with Jesus, the perfectly wide-open human. Jesus, as a human, did all that he did-living, eating, praying, conversing, healing, teaching, doing good, rebuking, defending-by the power of the Spirit. Peter and others who wrote the New Testament don’t leave us any room for doubt. with the Holy Spirit and power.” Jesus did these things “because God was with him.” Jesus’s kingdom powers were at work in him because he was wide open to the Holy Spirit.
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First, what Jesus did is accurately characterized as “doing good” and “healing.” How Jesus did these things is clear: God anointed Jesus. You know… how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him. In his sermon, Peter said this about Jesus: Peter gave a sermon that was heard by a gentile named Cornelius, who himself had experienced a life-altering vision. How did he do these things? I will begin with Peter, a disciple who knew because he was there. He knew things in people’s hearts before they expressed them. Jesus healed people he exorcised demons and unswirled a storm at sea. If this is true, then it is true that you and I need the Holy Spirit. So I’ll say it again: Jesus was human and because Jesus was a human, he needed to be empowered from day one with and by the Holy Spirit. Most of us, however, would prefer to not explicitly deny a plain reading of the Gospels. Other Christians would like it not to be true, so they choose to avoid the truth. I know busloads of Christians who deny this was true of Jesus. Jesus was a real human being, which means he grew Spirit-ually by learning to be open to the Spirit. Lewis, Volume II: Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931-1949, 764.) Of His great humility He chose to be incarnate in a man of delicate sensibilities who wept at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane.” ( The Collected Letters of C. Frank Jones, rejoiced over Jesus’s real human emotions: “God, had He pleased, have been incarnate in a man of iron nerves, the Stoic sort who lets no sigh escape Him. But he also expressed victory and triumph. In fact, the Gospels let us in on how Jesus felt: he was exasperated, he wept, he wailed, he got angry with other people, and he even cried out in despair. However, we know that the human Jesus had to learn mathematics he had to learn the names of friends and he had to grow in wisdom and knowledge like the rest of us. It doesn’t portray the real, human Jesus of the four Gospels. For example, there is a story about Jesus as a boy making mud birds in a puddle, and then, to dazzle those around him, waving his hands and sending the birds off flying. The New Testament Gospels are unlike the other gospels that didn’t make it into our Bible.