{"id":6082,"date":"2024-01-21T04:56:59","date_gmt":"2024-01-20T23:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/21\/why-is-it-so-hard-to-discern-the-work-of-the-holy-spirit-in-my-life\/"},"modified":"2024-01-21T04:56:59","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T23:26:59","slug":"why-is-it-so-hard-to-discern-the-work-of-the-holy-spirit-in-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/21\/why-is-it-so-hard-to-discern-the-work-of-the-holy-spirit-in-my-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is It So Hard to Discern the Work of the Holy Spirit in My Life?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"content\" role=\"main\">\n<article class=\"post\">\n<section class=\"post-content\">\n<div class=\"video\">\n<div class=\"graphic alt-ratio\">\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Why Is It So Hard to Discern the Work of the Holy Spirit in My Life? (Fred Sanders)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TRPfm59PaiM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<h2>The Pervasive Work of the Spirit<\/h2>\n<p>The Spirit\u2019s work in the life of a believer is pervasive. I call it prevenient. It goes before; it\u2019s always there. The Spirit is always already at work in the life of any believer. What\u2019s tricky about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is that he is often anonymously at work.<\/p>\n<p>So think about conversion. When you become a Christian, it\u2019s because you come to know something about Jesus Christ and confess that about him. And your attention and your faith are focused on Jesus Christ, the Son. If you start to think more broadly, you\u2019ll start to think, <em>Well, because the Son was sent by the Father, in Christ I have God the Father as my father<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"product-placement list-item clear\">\n<div class=\"product-placement-image\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.crossway.org\/books\/the-holy-spirit-tpb-2\/\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The Holy Spirit\" src=\"https:\/\/static.crossway.org\/studio-files\/media\/f4e020585d7d94df51c65e50606859723cc2e434.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"post-excerpt\">\n<h3>\n<em><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.crossway.org\/authors\/fred-sanders\/\">Fred Sanders<\/a><br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\n<\/h3>\n<p class=\"copy-excerpt\">In this addition to the Short Studies in Systematic Theology series, Fred Sanders teaches readers how to hold a proper understanding of both the person and power of the Holy Spirit, exploring his role in both the Old and New Testaments.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>And then the third thought you\u2019ll have is that you may begin to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a mistake. I think that\u2019s actually the design of biblical faith\u2014to focus on Jesus Christ. And then as you grow in your awareness, you don\u2019t meet the Holy Spirit for the first time as if he was not at work. You come to an awareness of him eventually in which you realize he was always already there. So I think this is what explains the kind of slippery or tricky nature of awareness of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n<p>And it explains why Christians often feel like they\u2019re always playing catch up on understanding what\u2019s going on with the Holy Spirit in their life. It\u2019s because of that two-step nature of faith. You come to awareness and confession and belief in Christ and then gradually become aware that if you are successfully believing in Jesus, it\u2019s because the Spirit is at work within you and has been all along.<\/p>\n<p><em>Fred Sanders is the author of<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crossway.org\/books\/the-holy-spirit-tpb-2\/\">The Holy Spirit: An Introduction<\/a>.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"clear\"\/>\n<div class=\"blog-post-author clear\">\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/static.crossway.org\/authors\/small\/1145.jpg\" alt=\"Fred Sanders\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"author-bio\">\n<p><strong>Fred Sanders<\/strong> (PhD, Graduate Theological Union) is professor of theology at the Torrey Honors College at Biola University. Sanders is the author of <em>The Deep Things of God<\/em> and blogs at <a href=\"http:\/\/fredfredfred.com\/\">fredfredfred.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<hr class=\"clear\"\/>\n<h2>Related Articles<\/h2>\n<hr class=\"clear\"\/>\n  <\/section>\n<\/article>\n<h2>Related Resources<\/h2>\n<hr class=\"clear\"\/>\n<div class=\"ministry-copy\">\n        Crossway is a not-for-profit Christian ministry that exists solely for<br \/>\n        the purpose of proclaiming the gospel through publishing<br \/>\n        gospel-centered, Bible-centered content. Learn more or donate today at<br \/>\n        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crossway.org\/about\/\">crossway.org\/about<\/a>.\n      <\/div><\/div>\n<p><script>\n        !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n        n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\n        n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n        t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\n        document,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n        fbq('init', '506435969522616');\n        fbq('track', 'PageView');\n      <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crossway.org\/articles\/why-is-it-so-hard-to-discern-the-work-of-the-holy-spirit-in-my-life\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pervasive Work of the Spirit The Spirit\u2019s work in the life of a believer is pervasive. I call it prevenient. It goes before; it\u2019s always there. The Spirit is always already at work in the life of any believer. What\u2019s tricky about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is that he is often anonymously [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[]},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}