Right now I’m going through a daily devotional with several friends from church that is based on John Piper’s Life in the Spirit. It’s ten days of meditation on the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. This morning I was struck by this line from Piper:
God sends the Holy Spirit as a preserving seal to lock in our faith.
Pastors and teachers are always looking for fresh metaphors to help us understand the Holy Spirit. This sentence made me think of a new one:
When a fighter jet locks in on a target, the computer helps the pilot stay on target, no matter how many shots the enemy fires at him. If he gets off course, the targeting computer corrects him.
If you know me, you know I am a huge Star Wars fan. And if you’ve seen the original movie, you remember the scene of Luke making his final attack run on the Death Star. His targeting computer is locked in on the tiny exhaust port. He’s about to launch his photon torpedoes. Suddenly he hears the voice of Obi Wan in his head: Trust your feelings. So he switches to manual and lets the Force guide him.
It would be tempting to stop there and say, “See– that’s the Holy Spirit!” But there’s that troublesome line: Trust your feelings. And that’s the problem. Your feelings will get you in trouble. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things.”
I need to not do what Luke Skywalker did when he switched off his computer and trusted his feelings. My feelings can and will lead me astray. If (in this very random analogy) the Holy Spirit is my targeting computer, then I’m never gonna blow up the Death Star by switching to manual.
Leave a ReplyCancel reply