Three In One

This week we are discussing the Holy Spirit as our Counselor.
Imagine that you are planning a long journey on foot, on a limited budget, using only a compass for a guide. (Note for younger readers - a compass is like a GPS that doesn’t need a battery and doesn’t get fussy if you pull off the highway for lunch.) You head down to your local compass dealer and find that they have $10 compasses and $200 compasses. Neither is guaranteed to work forever, but the $200 model is way more reliable. What to do?
Easy! Purchase two of the cheap ones, so that if one fails you still have the other one as a backup. This seems smart and would leave more money in the budget for other supplies. But let’s think this through. When your two cheap compasses start pointing in slightly different directions, how do you know which one to follow? One of them must be inaccurate, but you have no way to know which one. If you walk in just slightly the wrong direction for a long enough time, you end up far from your intended destination.
So, are you stuck buying the $200 compass? Not necessarily. How about you spend $30 and buy three of the cheap ones. You wake up one morning halfway through your journey, and one of them is pointing a little off from the other two. Now the decision is easy. You follow the two that are pointing the same as each other. It’s way more likely that one failed than it is for two of them to fail in the same way to the same degree. Three for $30 might be better than one for $200.
So now we have a plan for walking on foot. What about walking in faith? How about three compasses that cannot fail?
Jesus Christ – He is the One who came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood. And the Spirit is the One who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and these three are in agreement. (1 John 5:6-7 HCSB)
Navigating this side of eternity is not easy. Where do we go? What do we do? How do we do it? If God’s Word, Jesus’ example, and the Holy Spirit’s urging are telling us the same thing, we don’t need to wonder.
We just need to go.
By Mark Stuart
Imagine that you are planning a long journey on foot, on a limited budget, using only a compass for a guide. (Note for younger readers - a compass is like a GPS that doesn’t need a battery and doesn’t get fussy if you pull off the highway for lunch.) You head down to your local compass dealer and find that they have $10 compasses and $200 compasses. Neither is guaranteed to work forever, but the $200 model is way more reliable. What to do?
Easy! Purchase two of the cheap ones, so that if one fails you still have the other one as a backup. This seems smart and would leave more money in the budget for other supplies. But let’s think this through. When your two cheap compasses start pointing in slightly different directions, how do you know which one to follow? One of them must be inaccurate, but you have no way to know which one. If you walk in just slightly the wrong direction for a long enough time, you end up far from your intended destination.
So, are you stuck buying the $200 compass? Not necessarily. How about you spend $30 and buy three of the cheap ones. You wake up one morning halfway through your journey, and one of them is pointing a little off from the other two. Now the decision is easy. You follow the two that are pointing the same as each other. It’s way more likely that one failed than it is for two of them to fail in the same way to the same degree. Three for $30 might be better than one for $200.
So now we have a plan for walking on foot. What about walking in faith? How about three compasses that cannot fail?
Jesus Christ – He is the One who came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood. And the Spirit is the One who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and these three are in agreement. (1 John 5:6-7 HCSB)
Navigating this side of eternity is not easy. Where do we go? What do we do? How do we do it? If God’s Word, Jesus’ example, and the Holy Spirit’s urging are telling us the same thing, we don’t need to wonder.
We just need to go.
By Mark Stuart
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