The Holy Spirit works to make us holy

This next part from my lesson from the book The Pursuit of Holiness talks about the Holy Spirit's role.

The Holy Spirit's work is to make us holy. One step at a time. He shows us our need of holiness. He shows us God’s standard of holiness. He shows us our specific areas of sin. We begin to notice our unforgiving nature. Our critical spirit, our tendency to judge others, our pride. Where before we never thought about it.

David was like this when he committed adultery and had Bathsheba’s husband killed. He was spiritually blind to what he had done, until Nathan the profit came to him and told him. Then David repented.

The Holy Spirit comes to us, like Nathan did to David. And pointing our sin out is the beginning of the ministry to make us holy.

Seeing that our sins are really against God, makes us sorry. Makes us repent. Makes us want to do better. Makes us hate sin and desire holiness. And we’ll never get there without the strong desire to do so. Our old habits and the attacks of Satan are strong.

One of the ways the Holy Spirit stimulates our desire for holiness is using scripture, so we need to be in God’s Word a lot! And we need to study it humbly, with a teachable spirit.

We also need to pray for the Holy Spirit. Paul prayed continually for the working of God’s Spirit in the lives of those to whom he was writing:

Ephesians 3:16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

Colossians 1:9-10 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

1 Thessalonians 5:23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

Clearly Paul knew we depend on the Holy Spirit for holiness and he expressed this dependence through prayer! And by the way; these last 4 verses are GREAT prayers to pray for other people!

New Christians think they just need to read the Bible to see what God wants them to do and then do it. Mature Christians know better.