Do Not Neglect Your Advantage

We are prone to grinding out a form of religious Christianity. We try to read our Bibles enough, pray enough, and attend church enough, yet we find ourselves deeply frustrated and exhausted in our walk with God. We struggle and grind through life just trying to make it, operating without a conscious awareness of the One who was sent to empower us.

To live the Christian life this way is like trying to turn a steering wheel without power steering fluid. It requires immense, agonizing human effort to make the slightest turn.

We don't just endure the friction. We accept it as normal.

But our relationship with God was never intended to be an exhausting chore. True religion is not a list of duties to perform; as Bono once profoundly observed, "Religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building". When we reframe our current struggles, we realize the problem is not that the Christian life is simply too hard, but that we are leaving our true advantage completely on the table.

It Is to Your Advantage That I Go Away

In John 16, Jesus sits with a ragtag group of disciples who have left their families, their jobs, and everything they knew to follow Him. They are completely dependent on His physical presence. Yet, in the middle of His final words to them, He drops a bombshell that fills their hearts with deep sorrow:

Consider the gravity of that statement. How could anything be better than having the Lord of the Universe standing right next to you in a physical body? How could you possibly feel more secure, more powerful, or more at peace than walking beside Jesus every single day?

The disciples could not comprehend what Jesus meant in that moment. The words made them sad because they could not see the future. And yet, Jesus always knows what is best for us, even when His plans cause temporary sorrow or seem impossible to understand.

Jesus operates with a divine necessity. He had previously cried out during the feast, promising that rivers of living water would flow from the hearts of those who believe. John explicitly notes that the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus was not yet glorified.

The departure of Jesus was the mandatory catalyst for the arrival of the Spirit.

By leaving, Jesus was not ending His influence on earth, but exponentially expanding it. Because the Holy Spirit has come, a modern believer has an extraordinary reality: the Spirit inside of you is better than Jesus beside you. Through the Spirit, the presence of Christ is distributed everywhere, transitioning from living beside us to taking up residence inside us.

Encountering God in the Gospel

The first profound advantage of Jesus returning to the Father is that it marked the absolute completion of His saving work. For Jesus to go away meant that His life, death, and resurrection were entirely finished. The cross was not a defeat; it was the very means by which God accomplished His eternal purposes.

Being saved by faith in the completed work of Jesus is our ultimate advantage.

It is to our absolute benefit that Jesus was betrayed, mocked, whipped, and stripped. It is to our advantage that He wore a crown of thorns, was nailed to a tree, was pierced in His side, and breathed His last. He endured the grave so that on the third day He could rise again, making full forgiveness possible and bringing the kingdom of God directly to us.

Without the glorification of Jesus, there is no sending of the Spirit, and without the Spirit making that work alive to us, we cannot be saved. The Spirit seals our salvation and anchors our identity in the good news.

Experiencing God in daily life

Encountering the gospel restores our broken relationship with God, but the advantage does not stop at our justification. The power line that was snapped by human sin has been perfectly fused back together by Christ. Now, the supernatural currents of heaven are distributed straight into our ordinary, daily lives.

When the Holy Spirit moves into a human heart, He brings five distinct, supernatural realities:

• Supernatural Power: Jesus promised that those who believe would do the works He did, and even greater works, because He went to the Father. This power equips us to break the chains of darkness, proclaim the gospel, and participate in the supernatural rescue of human souls.
• Supernatural Peace: The Helper teaches us and brings Christ’s words to our remembrance, leaving us with a supernatural peace that the world can never replicate or understand.
• Supernatural Joy: Though we experience temporary sorrows, Christ grants a joy that is sealed by the Spirit; a deep gladness that no boss, no ex, no toxic friend, and no past abuse can ever strip away from us.
• Supernatural Help: Our assistance is not lingering in the distance; the Spirit of truth dwells directly within us to help us navigate every complex scenario of life.
• Supernatural Presence: God does not remain a distant deity; the Father and the Son come to us and make our very hearts Their permanent home.

Four Ways We Neglect the Advantage

If these supernatural resources are fully available, why do so many Christians continue to stutter and stall? The reality is that we regularly pull up the emergency brake on our spiritual lives, severely limiting the Spirit's influence through our own behaviors.

Let's look at this from another angle. Scripture explicitly warns us against four distinct responses that quench, grieve, neglect, or resist this divine advantage.

Do Not Quench the Spirit

Paul warns the Thessalonians, "Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good". To quench the Spirit is to harbor a cynical, skeptical heart toward His supernatural work and His gifts. When we become deeply cynical about how God speaks or how others express their worship, we throw a wet blanket over the fire of the Spirit.

Do Not Grieve the Spirit

In Ephesians 4, we are commanded not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption. The context of this warning is clear: we grieve the Spirit when we willingly choose to live in consistent, unrepentant sin. When we harbor anger, bitterness, corrupt talk, and refuse to repent, we harden our hearts and choke out the Spirit’s vibrant flow.

Do Not Neglect the Gift of the Spirit

Paul urges Timothy not to neglect the gift within him, but rather to "fan into flame the gift of God". We neglect the advantage when we succumb to laziness, passivity, and modern distractions. God has uniquely gifted and anointed every believer by the Holy Spirit; failing to practice, refine, and actively deploy those gifts for His kingdom is a quiet form of rebellion.

Do Not Resist the Spirit

In Acts 7, Stephen confronts the hard-hearted religious leaders, stating, "You stiff-necked people... you always resist the Holy Spirit". We fall into this ultimate danger when we flatly reject the message of the gospel. To hear the good news of Jesus Christ and walk away is to actively push back against the striving of the Holy Spirit.

The antidote to a dry, grinding, and stalled spiritual life is to drop the emergency brake and obey the text of Ephesians 5: "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit". We don't achieve this fullness by striving harder in our own human strength, but by cultivating a heart of deep gratitude, continuous worship, and total surrender to the work of Christ.