Ephesians Prayer Guide - Day 6

We have been marked and sealed by the Holy Spirit – a promise in anticipation of what is yet to come!

Read and pray and give thanks through Ephesians 1:13-14 in these different translations:

And because of him, when you who are not Jews heard the revelation of truth, you believed in the wonderful news of salvation. Now we have been stamped with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit. He is given to us like an engagement ring is given to a bride, as the first installment of what’s coming! He is our hope-promise of a future inheritance which seals us until we have all of redemption’s promises and experience complete freedom—all for the supreme glory and honor of God! TPT™

In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the good news of your salvation, and [as a result] believed in Him, were stamped with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit [the One promised by Christ] as owned and protected [by God]. 14 The Spirit is the [e]guarantee [the first installment, the pledge, a foretaste] of our inheritance until the redemption of God’s own [purchased] possession [His believers], to the praise of His glory. AMP

Because you, too, have heard the word of truth—the good news of your salvation—and because you believed in the One who is truth, your lives are marked with His seal. This is none other than the Holy Spirit who was promised 14 as the guarantee toward the inheritance we are to receive when He frees and rescues all who belong to Him. To God be all praise and glory! VOICE

The promised Holy Spirit! As Jesus was sitting around the table with His disciples at the Last Supper, He spent much time teaching them, preparing them, comforting them and encouraging them. He also told them He would not leave them orphaned, “comfortless, bereaved or helpless” (John 14:16=8 AMP). In lieu of His presence and He even said in preference of His presence, He would send a Helper, the Spirit of Truth “to guide us into all truth”… He talks about this beautiful relationship with the Trinity, and how if we know one, we know the other.

And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another [c]Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive [and take to its heart] because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He (the Holy Spirit) remains with you continually and will be in you. John 14:16-17 AMP

But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the [a]Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him (the Holy Spirit) to you [to be in close fellowship with you].
But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth [full and complete truth]. For He will not speak on His own initiative, but He will speak whatever He hears [from the Father—the message regarding the Son], and He will disclose to you what is to come [in the future]. 14 He will glorify and honor Me, because He (the Holy Spirit) will take from what is Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Because of this I said that He [the Spirit] will take from what is Mine and will reveal it to you.
John 16:7, 13-15 AMP

Watch this beautiful dramatization from the Jesus Film Project (some of us can process better when we have a visual to go along with it) of this passage:

Jesus, the Trinity, saw it fitting, saw it best to leave us with a Companion, One who would always have the ear of the Father and the Son – one to guide us into all Truth and help to understand and discern what is yet to come. Our faithful, ever-present God never wanted us to be alone.

Jesus rejoiced in the gift the 70 had of walking with Him and of seeing and experiencing what they did from having walked with God Himself. As you read this, imagine this… We, daily, walk around with God ourselves. We have the promised Holy Spirit with us!

In that very hour He was overjoyed and rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and He said, “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things [relating to salvation] from the wise and intelligent, and have revealed them to infants [the childlike and untaught]. Yes, Father, for this way was [Your gracious will and choice, and was] well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been transferred and turned over to Me by My Father and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him.”
Then turning to His disciples, Jesus said privately, “Blessed [joyful, spiritually enlightened, and favored by God] are the eyes which see what you see, for I say to you that many prophets and kings longed to see what you see, and they did not see it; and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” Luke 10:21-23 AMP

Now, we ourselves, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, should also hear “Blessed [joyful, spiritually enlightened, and favored by God] are the eyes which see what you see”. What are YOU seeing? Ask God to give you clear vision to see as He sees.

The word ‘advocate’ appears five times in the New Testament – four times in these chapters of John’s Gospel and once in the first letter of John. The Greek word parakletos, ‘to be called alongside’, has no real English equivalent. We will never find one word to do justice to the majestic, multiple ministry of the Holy Spirit. We know from Scripture that he teaches, convicts, leads, guides and helps; that he can be grieved, resisted and quenched; and that he is a person, not a force or an ‘it’. So the translators come up with words like Counselor, Advocate, Paraclete, Helper, but none of them completely describes the great work of the Holy Spirit.
Who is the Holy Spirit Jesus promised his disciples? Simon Manchester, Christianity Today

Praise God for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Praise God for the gift that lives within you!

The mature children of God are those who are moved by the impulses of the Holy Spirit. And you did not receive the “spirit of religious duty,” leading you back into the fear of never being good enough. But you have received the “Spirit of full acceptance, ”enfolding you into the family of God. And you will never feel orphaned, for as he rises up within us, our spirits join him in saying the words of tender affection, “Beloved Father!” For the Holy Spirit makes God’s fatherhood real to us as he whispers into our innermost being, “You are God’s beloved child!”
And since we are his true children, we qualify to share all his treasures, for indeed, we are heirs of God himself. And since we are joined to Christ, we also inherit all that he is and all that he has… Romans 8:14-17 TPT™