Cheeky Charlie

TO READ: John 14:15-21

He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

John 14:17

Did you know the Holy Spirit can live in you? When Jesus told the disciples this, they couldn’t grasp what Jesus meant; and sometimes it’s hard for us to understand, too.

I remember listening to a street preacher trying to explain how Jesus could come and live inside the heart through the Holy Spirit. A man in the crowd, called Cheeky Charlie, a professional heckler of open-air speakers, shouted out, “Nonsense! How can Jesus come and live in your heart? Why, I’ve just passed a butcher’s shop and seen a heart hanging in the window —it’s nothing but a blood pump!” The preacher, well used to Cheeky Charlie’s interruptions, asked him if he ever went “courting,” and if he ever looked deep into his sweetheart’s eyes and said, “Darling, I love you with all my blood pump.” Charlie got the point.

The word heart is used as a figurative expression for the seat of the mind, will, and emotions —the deepest part of our being. God, through the Holy Spirit, wants to invade that region and live there! This is what makes a person a true Christian.

Jesus described the experience of the infilling of the Holy Spirit both as a well and as rivers of water. Doesn’t that sound like a refreshing experience? Do you want to know how the Holy Spirit comes to live in you? You simply have to ask him. Invite him to come into your life. He will. Jesus promised he would.