Holy Spirit 2: Where Does the Holy Spirit Live?

What does it actually mean that the Holy Spirit "lives inside of us"? It's a phrase many of us have heard so many times. It sounds warm but vague, like being told a loved one lives on in your memories. In this episode, we push past the sentiment and dig in to what the Bible actually says about this.

Building on our conversation about spiritual anatomy, we turn to John 20, where the risen Jesus appears to his disciples and breathes on them — the same word, the same life-giving gesture, that appears in Genesis when God breathes life into Adam from the dust. The Hebrew word ruach holds "spirit" and "breath" together in a single syllable, and what Jesus does is theologically deliberate: the mechanism of first creation becomes the mechanism of indwelling. 

We also trace the long arc of how God has chosen to dwell — from the Garden, to the Tabernacle, to the Temple, to the body of Jesus, to the body of every believer. With the gift of Jesus' life comes the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. This is not a memory or a feeling. To "dwell" means to take up permanent residence. It's alive, it's active, and it never leaves us. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is one of the most radical claims Christianity makes, and here we wrestle with the understanding of this and come to take it at its full, undiminished weight.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Hi and welcome.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

This is episode two of our series on the Holy Spirit. Yeah. So last week we talked about the different areas in our body. So you hear a lot these phrases body, mind, and soul. And we wanted to talk about what is the soul, what's the difference between your heart and your mind and your spirit. And what we found through that is the ancient Israelites actually did not look at our body system as all these different pieces and parts. It was they saw these sort of whole single bodies. Holistic body machines. Right. And so I think for us, we like to pick apart pieces and be like, well, what's this piece and what does it do? For them, it was more about how is my whole functioning and what is it supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

So individual words were harder to come by, but we did also learn that Hebrew was very holistic. And then the Greek tradition started to turn into more specific body parts. Let's define what this means exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

There's a different word for the functional heart versus Right, like our organs, yeah, versus what we will say almost metaphorically, like my heart.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

My heart means like what I love, what I believe. Exactly. So that's kind of what we're coming from from last week. And today we want to center more specifically on the Holy Spirit within that purview. Right. So I have questions. Oh, good. Excellent. I don't know if I'll have answers.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

That's okay. That's why we're here, right? Yeah. What I want to know is so we already kind of understand that the Holy Spirit is part of God that lives within us. Yeah. And it's meant to guide us and help us. I think my question is, is the Holy Spirit a different version of my spirit? Like, is my spirit the same thing in essence? And the Holy Spirit is God's spirit. And so I have two spirits living in me. Right. Or I actually have a feeling it's gonna not gonna be that cleanly compartmentalized. Sure. And then I have heard this before and I don't know where I've heard it. I really liked it, but I don't know if it's true or not. Or if it's again something that our brains are just trying to like tidy it up and make it neat. Does the Holy Spirit live specifically in our gut?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Absolutely. And we've heard a lot of in the book How to Be Led by the Spirit of God that I've recently read talks a lot about following your gut as almost like that is the way the Holy Spirit is guiding us in moments of peace and reflection, not in moments of anxiety, but when we're feeling grounded, we can, in fact, be guided through the Holy Spirit through our gut.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

You hear a lot about the gut-brain connection. Totally. You get a lot of healing that happens through your gut. A lot of your immune system lives in your gut. Totally. And then I get all of my fear and anxiety also sit in my gut. I know it can go different places for people. Yeah. So I think my question is is the gut kind of the seat for the Holy Spirit? Or is it is this Holy Spirit not actually something that can be contained to a region? Is it more just a force that is everywhere and nowhere?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Yeah. So today we hope to answer in this podcast. One, where is the Holy Spirit indwelling within us? If it is a specific part of our body, is it everywhere? And is our spirit tied in with the Holy Spirit? Are they two separate defined spirits? Are they melded? What happens if we're doing something that conflicts? You know, our spirit is maybe working and doing something that might be conflictual against the Holy Spirit. What does that look like? So I think that's a good direction to go today. So let's open it up with a scripture. Would you say this is one of the first verses in the New Testament that references the Holy Spirit directly?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Or well, there's actually a lot that is preparing, it feels like it's preparing the people to receive the Holy Spirit. And then this is more, I would say, the moment that the Holy Spirit is sent to them. Oh, okay. So tell us. So John 20, 22, and with that he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. Nice. What what comes after that? So this is in John 20, after Jesus has appeared to the disciples. Yeah. Before he has ascended. So verses 21 through 23.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Okay. And wait, and this is before Jesus has ascended. But it's after the resurrection. Yes. So this is Jesus coming back to the disciples. How many days was that? That he was actually. I know this is not the point, but No, that's a good question. I don't know. I was gonna say, I bet it's 40 days. Yep. Really? Yeah. That's cool. In Acts 1.3, it says Jesus remained on earth for 40 days after his resurrection before ascending into heaven. Okay, so this is within this scripture verse that you just read is within the 40-day period. Okay. So tell us.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yep. So John 20, 21 through 23, and I'm reading out of the ESV version. Okay. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. So he basically is saying God sent him to be with people, and now he's sending the Holy Spirit to be with people. To be with people.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Yeah. I like that. Yeah, so essentially then the first knowledge that we have of the Holy Spirit is I don't want to say it's taking Jesus' place, but it how do we kind of formulate that idea in our minds?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah. What I am understanding it as the Holy Spirit is Jesus even refers to it as the next helper or advocate or guide. So in Jesus' absence on earth, this third part of God is not just on earth, but it's in us, so that everybody now has access to that guidance, basically.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

We all have access to guidance that initially was being delivered from Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yes. And before that, delivered through God's presence himself, which would happen either in the temple, right, or before that when he was like on the mountain and he was like in the cloud traveling with people. Well, and if you go all the way back before that, in the Garden of Eden, God lived there with them. But then once the once they were exiled from the garden, then God had to actually come down as the cloud of smoke to be with them.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

And then they built the tabernacle, and then later the temple, which was a place of dwelling for God's presence. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

And I think too, it it also says that in the Old Testament you could seek prophets as they were almost like, you know, like a messenger from God. And then in the New Testament, instead now we have the Holy Spirit, so you don't have to take the step to go to, like you said, the tabernacle to a prophet. Um, you have it inside of you. So now the question is we know in John it says, okay, now that Jesus is about to ascend back to heaven, he's gonna be gone, but now we have the Holy Spirit in us. Okay, so where now is the Holy Spirit? What does that look like inside of us? Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

And you know what is cool. I never realized this before. The words that it uses Jesus breathed on them. That's how God created in the beginning was he spoke and he breathed over things to make them basically what he wanted. He created humans by forming them out of the dust and then breathing into it. Oh, that's a really good connection. I wonder if, well, I'm sure that's calling back to that, but it gives me this visual that Jesus is using that same mechanism. God previously has breathed life into us, and now Jesus is breathing the Holy Spirit into us. Yeah, which is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

And it kind of goes back into how important breath in our respiratory system is in terms of the anatomy that we talked about last week, how it's kind of like our life. Because didn't we talk about how throat in life the words sometimes are the same?

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yes, he's leaving a little bit of him behind. Right. And then to my understanding, when Jesus comes back, it's not because we need him to come save us, he's already done that, yeah, and now we have the Holy Spirit, so we have that power. Yeah, and when he does come back, what that second coming is, is actually reclaiming the kingdom. Right. So we are now prepared and equipped, we can go do the work that we need to do, but then Jesus is the only one that at the end of the day can claim the kingdom. Yeah, absolutely. In the meantime, we're using the Holy Spirit to do the work that we've been asked to do until it's time for Jesus to come actually claim the whole kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yeah, and I think talking about like where in us the Holy Spirit Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, a lot of the scripture that regards the Holy Spirit coming inside of us uses the word dwell, and dwell literally means live permanently. It's not he's coming to just visit or like he's coming to kiss our gut and then leave.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

When when I did I did like a word study a while back on the word dwell, and there was like almost stubbornly permanent nature to it. Like it's not, it's not even just living, it's like digging in and like permanently rooted, so you actually can't be removed.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Like it's part of you so deeply that it can't be removed. Like even Galatians 2.20, it says Christ lives in me. Very specific, right? It's not he's not talking to us or inspiring us. It's Christ lives in me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

One thing I've struggled with that when you hear someone say that, like he lives in you, or I'll be with you forever, or I'll always be in your heart. That always felt so flat to me. And so I would kind of think of the Holy Spirit in that way. It almost feels like a consolation more than anything. It's like Jesus is like, I have to go, but don't worry, I'll be with you. And I'm saying that in air quotes. No, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Like he's just like, because I always thought like him leaving and like him being with us, air quotes, was that just his spirit was around in the air.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Right. And like, don't worry, God can speak to your heart if he needs to. Totally. And like, you're not alone because I'm always here. And it actually makes it feel, yeah, it almost makes you feel the loss more. Right. Or at least me. And maybe I'm more cynical, but because I always just feel like a person telling me, I'll always be with you, like I'll be in your heart and your memories. It feels like a cop-out to me because I'm like, no, what you're actually saying is you won't be with me, and I'm gonna have to pretend like you're with me still to make it through.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

But like a family member dies, and they're like, Oh, they're always with you in your in the memories that you have of them, and like the pictures on the wall, and you're like, this space is not with me. Right. Well, this is very different. Quite literally, we're missing the point. Yeah. If we don't understand that we have the Holy Spirit within us.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Right. And it's not actually just like a consolation or like a comfort for the heart of like, don't worry, he'll be with you. Right. It's actually a literal and active indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

And I think scripture is specific in that the spirit indwells with our whole embodied being, it's not a specific body part. There's not really scripture that says like he like the gut.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Yes, he will be coiled in your gut. Do you like to picture like little coiling of love in there?

SPEAKER_00 12:45

So it's interesting to me the phrase go with your gut. I don't think it's wrong to think that we can listen to the way that we feel in our gut and to follow that if we're asking the Holy Spirit to guide us, because I think that's where our feels are, right? It's not like you feel your head, the top of your head, guiding you per se, right? Or like your ear. Right. Our gut literally is what guides us generally. So is that a bad thing then to see the Holy Spirit helping you through one body part? Is that problematic?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah, I don't know if it's problematic because it gives us like a vehicle to think through. What's interesting too is if you go back to the soul being the throat, and then so that's really the gateway to life. Yeah. Right? Air comes through our throat, water comes through our throat, food comes through our throat. But then it all does go into our gut area that air goes into your lungs, food goes into your stomach, and then your intestines. And then that's where we actually process those life elements. Yeah. And then they go other places, right? Like we breathe back out the carbon dioxide, and nutrients are processed and absorbed into our bloodstream. Yeah. So it kind of makes sense to think about if Jesus breathed the spirit into us, we're taking it in through our throat or our soul, and then it's sort of being processed in there with those like vital gut organs. No, absolutely. And that doesn't necessarily mean that's where it's sitting, like it's like coiled up in there, like our intestines. Right. But it makes sense that that's where we would start to kind of feel some of the output or maybe effects from it.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

And I think it's fair to say we do have inklings in a lot of ways that that are in that region of our body. So I don't think it's inherently problematic to use that as a guide. But I think like all things in the Bible, we use it like we need to be discerning with it. Like if we have a dream, God's not just going to give you one dream to change your life, right? He's gonna give you a full experience and knowledge and nudges. He'll be like, if you have a dream about something, you're also gonna get maybe clarity from a Christian friend. You might also have a gut instinct. It's like a full picture. So if you're having a gut instinct about something, I think it's also fair to ask a friend or prey on it more, you know what I mean, rather than just only using the gut as the tool. I think it's purposeful that they don't give a biology part and do it more holistically, the writers of the Bible through God. Because if you if God did say something like, I live in your heart, it would reduce God to only that.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah. So do you think that listening to your gut is different than listening to the Holy Spirit? I mean, I think you make a good point.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

I think how do we discern what's our spiritual leanings versus the Holy Spirit? But I think, like in the book that I read, you have a full piece about it. And I feel like you wouldn't have a full holistic piece if both your spirit and the Holy Spirit weren't working together.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah, that makes sense. So I remember this is a little bit of a story. Ooh, tell me a story. I had just had my daughter, she was two months old, so she was brand new. I had no idea still what I was doing. I had a lot of depression, anxiety, and also just confusion. I just didn't know what was what. And I was living in a very reactive state.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Sometimes we say reactive and it sounds emotional. It was more like literally everything that I did or decision that I made was a reaction in the moment. Because every single moment, something needs to be reacted to.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Which I think is like the first year of parenting is you're always looking for cues. Okay, what am I to do next? Versus you can't really plan a lot of that.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yeah. Yep. So we were road tripping, my mom, my sister, and the baby and I. And she was just crying in the car seat, just nonstop. And we tried switching seats, we were trying to like entertain her, we tried milk, like we tried all these things. All the stuff. Yep. I looked over at my mom and I was like, What do I do? My mom goes, I don't know, what does your mom gut say? And I was like, I don't have a mom gut. And she was like, Yes, you do actually. Yeah. Like, so I tried to be aware of my mom gut. Yeah. And I said, Okay, I think we need to pull over and we need to change her, even though we had just changed her like 30 minutes ago.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

And we need to just sit there for a while. And like a break let her reset. My mom was like, Okay, then that's what we're gonna do. That's what we did. It helped, but I just remember it was so impactful. Her being like, No, you do. Like, even if you don't know that you have access to this thing, it's there. And after that, it wasn't always easy, but when I would get in those moments of like, I don't know what she needs, or I don't know what I'm supposed to do, yeah, I could sort of just turn inward. So at that time, I had already been saved as a Christian. So in theory, I would have already had the Holy Spirit in me, but I was not sort of practicing or even aware of what the Holy Spirit really was. And I don't know if that means the Holy Spirit was active yet, yeah, or maybe I was just not aware of it yet. I don't know. I think I'm just wondering that place where just like so deep inside you, you just know something, yeah. Even when sometimes you have to actually go access it because it's not yeah at the front of your brain or in your emotions.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, it's like not even in your brains. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

You have to access it. You have to actually like look all the way inward and be like, it's not something I'm deciding or finding out, it's something that's already there, you already know it, and you have to just like let it surface for a second.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

What people refer to when they say, What does your gut say? It's like, let's give it a moment to come out and and speak and guide. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

So do you think it's the same with the Holy Spirit that it's so deep in there that you have to just find the space to give it to let it work?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

I don't know if this is mentioned in scripture, but generally I feel like known that the Holy Spirit won't necessarily guide us in moments of us being anxious or panicky. I mean, he might guide us if we're like literally being chased by lions and he's like, go left, you know. But like generally speaking, right? Like we give it space intentionally. Yeah. That you brought up another good question that we haven't actually talked about. Who has the Holy Spirit indwelling? At what point do you get the Holy Spirit? Right. And what does that process look like? Because we know in John, he said Jesus ascends, and now we have this helper, this Holy Spirit inside of us, but does everyone at that moment get the Holy Spirit? Right. And I think scripture says this is something that happens as you grow a relationship with Jesus and accept Jesus into your life, right? And so in John 14, 17, Jesus himself says the world cannot receive him because it neither sees him nor knows him. And so this is prior to Jesus' ascension. And so basically, this means the world here means those who do not belong to Christ. So the spirit is not universally indwelling in all people. And in Romans 8 9, Paul says, Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. Once you accept Jesus in your heart, then the Holy Spirit comes as a package with that. So I guess the next question is, does every Christian then receive the Holy Spirit?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Yeah, I think the Bible is saying pretty clearly that every Christian does receive the Holy Spirit if they are in fact Christian, by what that means in believing in Jesus and that Jesus is the way to eternal life. Right. If you are actually believing that you do have the Holy Spirit, those two things can't be separated.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Right. I mean, I think it's hard because the word Christian is like so can kind of be ambiguous in our society, right? It can mean a plethora of things. And that's not necessarily all bad, right? Because people can practice in different ways and it means different things to different people. So I think for us that's hard to be like, well, what does it even mean to be a Christian? It's like a whole nother's a podcast for another podcast for another day. And no judgment either way on how people practice, right? But I think in terms of this, it says if you accept Jesus as your savior and have a relationship with Jesus, that's the moment that you get the Holy Spirit. Or is it not that clear?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

I think there is a moment, but I don't know if maybe we are always aware of that moment. And just because there has been a moment doesn't mean that we're good to go now. We still have to develop that relationship and learn how to become aware of the Holy Spirit and also how to listen to it.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Right, because the spirit is described as a seal, not the seals on Pier 31. But the sea mammal, not the sea mammal, thusly sealed. It's a guarantee, right? 2 Corinthians 1.22 says it's a guarantee. But also I think it's fair to say all Christians have the Holy Spirit, but being filled with the Holy Spirit can be an ongoing relationship with it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

So you can have both. Are you listening to it? But I think people can absolutely ignore it. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

You can have something your whole life and not really even notice it until it needs to be noticed, you know, or until you start to have a relationship with it.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Yeah. So this is where this might be a little bit of a different topic too, but I think modern Christianity does not talk enough about the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

And giving a lot of people this understanding. Yeah. Because I think what can happen when we're we talk about it being a seal or a moment, it becomes like a transaction and it's something that you just have to do. If you want to go to heaven, you have to get saved. So you have to make this decision. Yes, I believe Jesus. Cool. Now you have the Holy Spirit, you're good to go. Yeah. And then from there, like what like what does that even mean? Like, release me into the wild. Right. And that's what happened to me. When I was 12. Yeah. And then I was released into the wild and I did nothing. And I felt nothing. Yeah. And I didn't know what had changed other than the fact that now supposedly I'm going to heaven when I die. And I didn't feel anything. So I still sometimes have the question of what was my moment? Was it then when I said the words and I just wasn't there was no sensation change. Right. But was that still the moment and I just wasn't aware of it? Or did I have the actual moment sometime later? I don't know. I know I had the moment at some point because I feel it now.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Yeah, and I think the Bible says the moment that you get the Holy Spirit is that belief. But I think people might not even know what that means. Like what if you start to have questions about Jesus and then you're like, yeah, that sounds like that could be true. And you're like, Yeah, you know, I mean, I think it not often for people a singular moment where you go from not knowing anything about Jesus and then acceptance and you feel the Holy Spirit suddenly just in you. It's a process for people. Or like some people might be baptized and not really understand what that process means for them or have a full belief. I guess I can't really answer that.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

But it is a curious thing, right? Because I was baptized at nine also by choice. But I felt like I had a belief before I was baptized. So did I have the Holy Spirit in me through that process, you know?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Do you feel like that it was a moment for you? Oh, like feeling the Holy Spirit or baptism? Or receiving it, whether you felt it or not. I know. I think it's interesting because I didn't know ever that the Holy Spirit indwelled in us literally until the last five years of my life. Yeah. And so it's it's hard to really know. Like, was he coiled up in my appendix? Maybe, you know? Yeah. And I just, again, I wasn't accessing it. Like I had the seal, I'm sure, because I was a believer, but I just didn't have the relationship with the Holy Spirit. But I think I've had intuition. I've had a lot of intuitive moments in my life that I think that was the Holy Spirit. But unfortunately, I think in our society, we water that down to you're just an intuitive person rather than no, that's God actually giving you a message.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Yeah. And then you can also receive messages from other forces, right? Oh yeah, and even ourselves. So that has to become a practice of kind of identifying.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Like how do you hear the Holy Spirit?

SPEAKER_00 24:58

I think the process of discernment is a lifelong skill and process that will always happen. And we talk about this too when we feel like, oh, I think I'm getting a nudge from the Holy Spirit. Okay, that's a good time then to reference scripture. Does this nudge align? That's always like the rule, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Yeah, because we know very clearly the Holy Spirit will never go against Scripture. Right. And in fact, the scripture says the Holy Spirit is our guide and our helper of basically pulling us back to scripture. That's like a it's like a dual function there.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yeah, the Holy Spirit's a a messenger in a way, but it's also a guide to lead us back to the truth. So to your next point, is there a big difference between our spirit and the Holy Spirit? And if we discern the two?

SPEAKER_01 25:43

And are those words spirit actually two different things even two different words? Like, yeah, that's that's where I'm like, if I have a spirit, which is basically like my life force, is the Holy Spirit actually the same kind of thing? Or are we just using that same word spirit in both places? And it's actually a very different thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Right, it's like actually you're talking about the difference between like an apple and a rock. Right. But we're just using the same word. Using the same word.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Or is my spirit my life force? I've always had that, I always will have that. And then when I received the Holy Spirit, it actually changed my spirit.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Oh, true. I mentioned before that I read a book by Kenneth Hagen, he's a pastor from the 50s, and he says, quote, your spirit has a voice, learn to listen to it. The Holy Spirit speaks to you through your spirit.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Okay. So the Holy Spirit speaks to us through our spirit.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Yeah, and I think he also has another good quote that says, The conscience is the voice of the human spirit, and it is in the human spirit that the Holy Spirit dwells and communicates. So that kind of answers our question in some ways of what is the relationship between the two? Is our spirit kind of like a a telephone on the other end of the line or the Holy Spirit? You know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

So what's interesting is it looks like the word for spirit, it is the same word. Okay. So the first word that we translate to spirit being ruach, which we kind of talked about a little last time. There's a lot of cool stuff around that word that we can get into. It also means breath, which is again pretty cool. Yeah, that's super cool. If our spirit is our life force and also translated to our breath, our ruach, yeah. That's really cool that Jesus breathed into us. So he's basically adding to our breath. Yeah. And then the Holy Spirit in Hebrew would be ruach Yahweh, which would be translated to spirit of God or spirit of the Lord. So that's cool. It's the same word. Okay. And obviously God's spirit would be different than our human spirit.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

It sounds like they are a lot more closely tied together. Yeah. Like we're not just making up.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Oh, we must have a spirit because that just makes sense. But no, it's like in Romans 8 16 is a good one. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit. Yeah. So I think that's one of the most direct references to how they work together. Proverbs 20, 27 says, the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord. So both reference our personal spirits. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

So everybody has a spirit, everybody has that life force, and everybody's spirit is actually God given because that spirit is the ruach, which is the breath of life, basically. So everybody's spirit is God given.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

And then the Holy Spirit is God's spirit. So that brings up another point that I had been thinking a lot about. The Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. And it's not like each of us billions of people have billions of little Holy Spirits running around. It's one Holy Spirit that's in all of us. Yep. Which is also kind of confusing. And I guess you can't contain the Spirit of God into like 10 billion appendixes.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Right. And it's kind of like our spirit is the receiver and the Holy Spirit is the sender. So even though the Holy Spirit is within us, it's still sending messages from God. Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Like we've been sent the package, and now the package is like living and breathing on its own in us times billions and billions.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

It's hard for us to just fathom any of this because we don't have a reference. Right. We want to be able to say, like the Greeks did from the Hebrew, no, we need specific words for the heart. We need to break this down into pieces because it's hard for us to understand that I have the same Holy Spirit in me that's in you.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

So if you actually just kind of break it open a little bit, like suspend our Western thinking reality for a minute. Yeah. And if we're saying that, first of all, the Holy Spirit is eternal and it also always has been, and it lives in us, that feels like a lot more sort of fluid and life forcey than like a little compartment that was sent to me that I have to figure out how to use. Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

It's like it's not a lockbox that there's this really confusing code to get into. Yeah. And once you do, you have to like feed the Tamagogy.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

But rather it's just it's always there. It's not judging you. How is it working? And then how much are we either listening to it or pushing back? Are we allowing it to have space and accepting it? I've been curious about this. Like, if someone who is a believer leaves the religion and does not believe anymore, what happens with the Holy Spirit that you've said is a permanent seal? What it what happens?

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah. I want to think that if your belief is true to the point where you get that seal, you can't lose that seal. So the question then is, did you ever actually believe? Sure. Or did you not? And I think that's tricky because it depends on how we define belief. But I've also learned that there's context around this word that it's not actually just belief, like I think this is true. Yeah. It's actually like a very deep-seated knowing. Like it's more knowing than I think this is true. Yeah. And so it's two parts. Number one is do you actually know that? And because I think once you know it, then you have been sealed. Yeah. But you can say you believe something or know something and not actually. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

So I think that's the first part of it is did you actually ever know it? Like I put that I know Excel on my resume and I like re-opened it twice in my life. Yeah. And I think it's fair too to say, like, it's not like the Holy Spirit's going to leave if you're having a season of doubt, if you're having a hard time. I I think the Bible is actually more relatable to people in that way, where it's like, no, it's the Holy Spirit is helping you through those seasons. You can have doubt. I mean, Mother Teresa had doubt, right? Like she had a period where she didn't. And so it's not to say, like, you're starting to question something, and the Holy Spirit has his little foot out of your appendix out the door. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

And he's like, oh, you are no longer believing. So bye.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

So bye. So I think it's fair to not have that as a worry because the Bible actually says it with Job and a lot of other books in the Bible where doubts are normal and it makes sense to have these questions. And God just wants you to bring these questions to him and be fully honest. And like that's not problematic. It's more problematic to have these doubts in secret without the conversation with God.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Yeah, we even see that with Jesus. He was literally rejected and betrayed by people that he went on to continue to bless and hold empower. Yeah, well, I think that's the second part of that question. Yeah. Like, did you actually believe or not believe in the first place? But then secondarily to that, once you have been sealed, I think that's the thing about God. It's not something that ever gets taken away.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

And I think like even in 2 Timothy 2.13, it says, if we are faithless, he remains faithful. In Matthew 12, 20, it says a bruised reed he will not break. So it's the loss of emotional faith doesn't mean loss of the spirit.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah, so I am a bruised reed.

unknown 33:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

For sure. Because I then spent 20 years basically say, and I I would even say out loud, like I would call myself a Christian, but not want to talk about what I believed. Or I would even say, I don't know what I believe. And those two things don't make sense, right? Like we define a Christian as somebody who believes that Jesus is the Son of God and the way to salvation. And I would say, yeah, I call myself a Christian, but I don't exactly know what I believe. And so I have, I believe, in effect, rejected Jesus multiple occasions. Sure. And I know for a fact that I have not lost any sort of seal that was put on me. Yeah. And and in fact, I know that like he came and got me when it was time. And so it was like all of that time, whether I even though I don't know the moment that I was sealed, I know that I was at some point. And I know that throughout that whole period of not just questioning, but sometimes even literally turning my back or literally pursuing other answers. When it was his time, he literally came and got me to the degree that it wasn't just me going, Oh, wait, God, are you there? Because you know, we hear that in the Bible a lot. If you seek God, you will find him.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

I wasn't seeking God, right? I wasn't seeking God, and he came and was like, No, it's time now and got me. And the only way that I came to the point of understanding, no, this is God talking to me is because he had to send me like 8,000 signs. Yeah. Until I was finally like, He's all Rachel. Fine. Rachel. Like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Like, I see this, I hear that. Now what? That's the Holy Spirit guiding you back. Could be a 10, 20, 30 year process for people.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Right. And so I think that's a long way to answer. But to your question before, I think unequivocally, you cannot lose that once you have been sealed. And then it's just a question of when do you receive that blessing?

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Are you choosing to repair that relationship ever? It's the possibility is always there. One of the most beautiful stories is Peter, right? So he denies Jesus three times before the rooster crows. And you could easily say, like, oh, okay, well, the Holy Spirit left Peter, right? He literally just denied Jesus. But instead, right, when Jesus comes back after the resurrection in that 40-day period, right, where does Jesus go? He goes back to Peter, who was fishing, and which is cool because they had a fishing story before, right? So it's kind of that full circle moment. And Jesus appears on the shore and helps him catch fish. And then he makes breakfast for them. He restored peace in Peter even after he was denied three times. Like what a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

And then he called Peter the rock, right? And that Peter was basically going to be the foundation for the whole building of this new church going forward. Yeah. He even after being rejected, he just put that trust back into Peter and is like, no, this is this is what you're this is who you are and what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

So I think that's how the Holy Spirit works too, right? Like it's not something that we should be afraid of, like it's gonna slip away. And then what does that mean for my faith? It's rather, okay, well, what how do you foster the relationship with the Holy Spirit that's communicating through your spirit? And what does that look like on a daily basis for you?

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Yeah, I think in a lot of organized religion, the spirit does become transactional. And you hear a lot like basically, are you in rightness with God and you want to be when you die so that you can go be with God? Yeah. And that's not actually what the Bible is telling us. That's not what it says. Yeah. So that's not how this works. Like it's not up to us to be good or be bad. And then I would always get confused, like, so unless I am literally repenting 24-7 for the rest of my life, it's likely that I'm gonna die not in rights with God, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Right, like not in a literal the second after you repent.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Right. The lightning strikes, Rachel. Right. You gotta keep repenting, or else you're gonna go to hell when you die. Because if we're always sinning and we always have to be repenting so that we can be in the right place when we die, it's an impossible equation.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Right. So that's clearly not the point. Right. Right. And it's not transactional. God's not like you need to tithe this exact amount or you're not going to heaven, right? And not to say that that's not something that they that Jesus or God feels like is a helpful thing to do, right? I mean, he wants us to help community and help the poor, and that's something that the Holy Spirit will guide us towards, but it's also not saying that that's the only way to heaven.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Right. And I and I think what it comes down to for me, motivation. And when salvation was always framed to me as what my motivation should be for going to heaven, that didn't work for me. And it wasn't until I understood that I could shift my motivation. If my motivation is not to get to heaven, but my motivation is to build a temple for the Holy Spirit within me.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

All of that other stuff follows. Yeah. And when I was, when my motivation was get to heaven, it's like everything was just a dead end and didn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

I mean, I think a lot of religions preach it backwards, right? Of like you do all these good things, then you go to heaven. Rather than if you foster your relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, then you do good work because the fruit of the spirit just comes from that. Right. It should never be forced, right? The problem with a transactional viewpoint is that it becomes judgmental. It becomes God constantly judging us for everything that we're doing all of the time. And even going back to the Peter situation, Jesus never says, Why did you fail me? What does Jesus say instead? He says, Do you love me? And Peter says yes. And he's like, Yeah, he gives him grace. He's not like, You denied me before that rooster. Like, how dare you? Yeah. He instead was like, Okay, follow me. It's like a beautiful story of we will have these moments where we don't do things that aren't in alignment with the Holy Spirit, but that doesn't damn us. Yeah, I think that's really important. I wish I had understood that when I was twelve. I know, and not all different Christian denominations preach the Holy Spirit in the same way, I don't think. Yeah. But it is interesting to me that there are differences, that it's not a blanket discussion. Right. And do you remember the Holy like the Holy Spirit meaning?

SPEAKER_01 39:50

And and that's where what what I was kind of saying before it was just like a flat consolation. Like Jesus is ascending into heaven, but don't worry, his spirit air quotes will be with you. So basically have heart, suck it up, follow the Bible, and eventually Jesus will come back to us. That's kind of how at least how I experienced that learning. Yeah, absolutely. Which is not actually what the Bible tells us. No.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

So what are your key takeaways about the Holy Spirit to just leave for listeners today?

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Well, I still, I still wish we could know, is it in my appendix? Yeah. I think the reason why I want to know that so bad, like where it is, is so that I can like caretake it. Yeah. And like nest a little bit. And like, you know, should I stop eating gluten? Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Like our bodies are temples, so our body is where he is. So it's taking, it's caretaking our entire body.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Yeah, but you know, we like we like processes and we like concrete understandings. And I don't want to be holistically healthy. I want to have like this target that I can hit of we'll keep your appendix clean so the Holy Spirit can flourish. Yeah. And like done that dude. Right. So you're good. This goes with my whole sort of journey of kind of coming back to God. I keep learning just because I want like those neat little tidy understandings, yeah, doesn't mean I get them. Right. So I think what we're kind of getting to is that the Holy Spirit, yes, it does literally live in us, but I think it may be more of a intermingling with our human spirit, which also is not in a compartmentalized place.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Totally. And I think it's not bad that we're trying to center it on something. That's us trying to understand how to have a relationship with it. But it is, it does dilute it in that process. Right. But it's so human for us to want to know what does it look like? How does it function? Let's take it apart like an engineer. What do the dials look like? Yeah. You know, the Bible verse where it says like where two or more are gathered, I am what is it? Where two or more are gathered, I am there. Oh yeah. I I want to do a whole episode on that. Again, another podcast another day. But like, do you think when like you and I are talking about the Bible, like as we do like driving in a car or something, do you think the Holy Spirit in both of us is like happy?

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Yeah, are we like are we like turning up its volume by like concentrating like there's two of us that's cool close. Maybe that's what happens in church too. Like, yeah, totally. And then when everybody is just like singing or praying, because it's if it's the same spirit, yeah, but then it's like concentrated in that place, totally, maybe it's just like it's turned up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Every time there's a baptism at church, I get the chills, like full body chills every single time.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Yeah, without failing. I I love how there's always clapping, right? Yeah. But there's a difference between people clapping at a baptism and when we clap other times. 100%. Like someone can sing like the most beautiful song and then we're clapping. Yeah. But when someone is baptized, it's just like a completely different noise. It's a different volume level. Yeah. And there's like, I can't describe it any other way. It's just like a different kind of cloud.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

Literally, as we said, it is, it's like a full embodiment. I I literally just feel like whenever a baptism happens and then I get the full body chills, it's literally just the Holy Spirit, like, ee, just getting so excited. Yeah. And imagine that times however many totally like 500 people. Yeah. That's cool. And that's literally God being like, I am there with you, dialed up.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Yeah. So that also makes me wonder. I'm in Philippians right now. And in the beginning of Philippians 4, he talks about two women. He's entreating them to agree in the Lord. And then there's not like a lot more around that story. It's just like that statement. But I wonder if that's part of why. Like they're obviously in some sort of conflict or disagreement. And what he wants them to do is not decide what's right or set it aside or agree to disagree. It's agree in Christ. And I wonder if the whole point of that is to basically just let the Holy Spirit come forward. Just like reset on the fact that you agree in Christ so that then their Holy Spirits can like be one again, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Yeah. No, I mean that's a good point. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing to think that we always have the Holy Spirit indwelling in us there as a guide. And it's just loving. To me, it feels like a loving gesture.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

The takeaway there is are we letting the Holy Spirit speak through our own spirits and sort of be, or are we trying to contain it and control it?

SPEAKER_00 44:41

Yeah. We can't tell the Holy Spirit what right, right? Like we can't. It's gonna be like, uh-uh. Yeah. No uh yeah. So I I guess that's kind of the goal is giving up that bit of control to see what possibilities can come from it. Yeah. Beautiful things can happen.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

So one of the things that we wanted to talk about in this series, which may be a good place to go for our next episode, is hearing from the Holy Spirit. So what does that look like for different people? And I really like this idea of so what's the difference between the Holy Spirit speaking directly to my spirit versus almost like vibrating off of your spirit, which also has the Holy Spirit?

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Because I think it is fair to say that we have also spiritual gifts. Does the Holy Spirit use those as a mechanism for delivering messages, right? Like we have a friend who at least at some point had the gift of prophecy or or dreams, like she seemed to know things that were gonna happen, right? Is the Holy Spirit guiding that? And that's how it's kind of speaking through her through me. Do I hear the Holy Spirit more through my gut, through my mind, through right? And is that the same for everyone? Yeah. Why are we all different? So and I I feel like just because God knows our gifts and He created us very specifically for specific reasons with gifts, that they would utilize our strengths in us to communicate in the best way that we would receive it. But I think what we will have to talk about that more next week and delve into what it looks like to talk to the Holy Spirit and maybe how to how different types of people might learn to listen. That's true. Like maybe you can tune in in different ways. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm excited to delve into that more. And we hope you join us next week. Thanks for listening. Bye. Bye.