How well do you know Holy Spirit?
by Charles Bertelsmeier
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… the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you (John 14:17).
Read John 14:15–21
How well do you know Holy Spirit? Some have commented that Holy Spirit is the forgotten member of the Holy Trinity.
Now you might find it strange that I leave out the definite article ‘the’ in front of Holy Spirit. The strangeness may be because we have rarely heard it omitted, but I have noticed it more often recently.
So, I did some research, and a rule I found applicable is that the definite article is not used with proper nouns – that is, names of people and countries. So, if Holy Spirit is the proper name of the third person of the Holy Trinity, maybe we should not be putting a ‘the’ in front of the name. Beyond that comment, I wouldn’t argue with anyone about it.
For me, putting a ‘the’ in front of Holy Spirit tends to depersonalise him and could be part of the reason why some treat Holy Spirit as the least important member of the heavenly family.
If you have been baptised into the Christian faith, in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you received the gift of Holy Spirit into you as God’s presence with you. As he is one with the Father and Son, he is working in your life on their behalf, leading and guiding you towards being and becoming the person God is developing you into.
So, if Holy Spirit is living in you and being your guide and tutor, how aware are you of his presence? Are you actively listening to his guidance? Do you talk to him and seek his guidance? Do you treat him as a person or a vague spiritual force?
Your response may be that you talk to God and listen to God throughout your day, but not to Holy Spirit. Or the person you talk to and listen to may be your Heavenly Father or even his Son, Jesus. This is so ripe for a complicated theological discussion, but I don’t want to go there. The point I want to make is that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the one God, and communicating with any of them individually is communicating with all three.
So, in a sense, it doesn’t matter which member of the Holy Trinity we have in our minds when we talk to God and listen to God. The important thing to remember is that God has decided to take up residence inside us through Holy Spirit, provided we accept his invitation. And he is committed to guiding and growing us the same way Jesus did with his disciples, guiding and growing them in their relationship with him.
Holy Spirit, are you really living in me and guiding me every day of my life? I apologise for ignoring you and your advice. I often like to think that I have the answers to all life throws at me. Thank you for not growing impatient with me and giving up on me. Thank you for still being there with me when I finally give up and ask for your help. Amen.
Charles is a retired engineer who has worked on telecommunications projects for the air force, army and navy. He lives in a retirement village in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney with his wife, Diane. Together, they have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom they love spending time with. Charles keeps busy caring for their pot plants and a community vegetable garden, researching his family history and volunteering in the community and at LifeWay Lutheran Church.
A place of abundance
by Linda Macqueen
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Praise be to God, who has not … withheld his love from me! (Psalm 66:20)
Read Psalm 66:8–20
This week’s devotion texts have been ping‑ponging us back and forth across the Scriptures, and I’ll admit, I’m feeling a little dizzy. We began with the disciples trembling in the upper room (John). Then we visited the exiled Judeans in their exhaustion (Isaiah), before joining the early church (Acts) as they tried to understand what it meant to follow a crucified and risen Messiah. We bounced off Paul’s encouragement to two young communities learning how to live faithfully within pagan cultures (2 Corinthians and Ephesians). Yesterday, we reflected on how the Old and New Testament covenants meet in our High Priest, Jesus (Hebrews).
How can all these threads possibly belong to one story?
Thankfully, the psalmists often know how to gather scattered strands together, and today’s Psalm 66 does not disappoint. This is a song rising from the far side of trouble. The hearers are not people unfamiliar with suffering. They have known oppression, bewilderment, fear and the long ache of waiting. Yet the psalm is not a lament – it is a testimony. Standing on the other side of trial and testing, they declare that God has brought them ‘to a place of abundance’.
Across all the readings this week, did you notice the same heartbeat? God’s steadfast love for his people, even when their path leads through fire and water. His protection covered them, whether or not they could feel it. His refining work, his preserving hand, his refusal to abandon those who call on him.
Psalm 66 does not offer easy answers, but it does offer a way of seeing: God’s love is not proven by the absence of struggle but by his faithful presence within it. Like the psalmist, Christians today pray in the dark silences; we cry out, we wrestle – and we discover that God has been listening and loving us all along, leading us steadily toward his abundance.
God of all seasons, as I face the world’s turmoil and my own, I cling to this anchor: you are not withholding your love from me. Your ear is open to my cry. Your presence is steady, holding me close. And you are leading me, even now, toward a place of abundance. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
Once and for all
by Linda Macqueen
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… he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12a).
Read Hebrews 9:11–15
Today’s text stands at the centre of a long, careful argument (read all of chapter 9 if you have time): Christ is the High Priest who enters not an earthly sanctuary but the very presence of God, offering not the blood of animals but his own life. He has done something no earthly priest could ever do: he has opened the way into God’s presence once and for all. He has secured eternal redemption.
The original hearers – Jewish Christians – knew the staggering weight of this claim. They had grown up with the temple, the priests, the Day of Atonement, the panicked bleating and bellowing of animals aligned for slaughter, and the stomach-churning smell of blood. They also knew about the heavy curtain in the temple that marked the boundary between God’s holiness and human frailty.
For modern readers, the temple system isn’t part of our cultural memory. We don’t feel the awe of a priest stepping behind the curtain, or the solemnity of sacrifice. But we do know what it is to feel unworthy, distant or unsure of our status before God. We know the inner rituals we perform to try to make ourselves ‘clean enough’ or ‘good enough’ – and even then, sometimes, we are still not sure if it’s been enough.
Into our world, the writer of Hebrews still speaks with astonishing clarity: Christ has already crossed the distance. He has already carried the cost. He has already opened the way to God.
Matthew 27:51 gives us the image that makes this truth unforgettable: ‘The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.’ Not from bottom to top – as if we humans had clawed our way toward God – but from top to bottom, God’s own act of opening the way. The barrier rips apart, once and for all. Access is given, once and for all. The Holy of Holies is no longer a place of fear but a place of loving welcome.
We are safe with God. We are home.
Dear Jesus, my High Priest, thank you that your very own blood opened the way to the Father once and for all. Sometimes, I still feel as though I’m standing outside the curtain, trying to be worthy. Help me to step into the astonishing truth that my access to the Holy of Holies has already been given, and that I stand before my God, redeemed, once and for all. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
New clothes
by Linda Macqueen
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Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24).
Read Ephesians 4:17–24
Paul’s words in today’s text (addressed to the Ephesians) replay the same melody we heard in yesterday’s text (addressed to the Corinthians). If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation – and now Paul sketches what that new creation looks like in everyday life. He contrasts it with the old patterns of the Gentile world: darkened understanding, hardened hearts, restless desires that never satisfy. These aren’t merely moral failings; they are symptoms of life lived apart from the One who is Life.
But Paul does not say, ‘Try harder to be different.’ He says, ‘You learnt … Christ.’ You were taught to take off the old self and to put on the new – language that sounds remarkably like baptismal clothing. This is not self-improvement; it is participation in Christ’s own life. The new humanity is something God has already begun in us.
We don’t wake up each morning needing to earn God’s favour by being good. We wake up already claimed, already beloved, already joined to Christ. And because we belong to him, his life begins to reshape ours – often quietly, often gradually. It’s like a slow, steady ripening, a growing up day by day into maturity.
In Ephesians 4, Paul’s long list of examples of Christian living is not a checklist for righteousness but a description of what Christ’s life looks like when it takes root in ordinary people: truthfulness, gentleness, forgiveness, generosity and patience. These are not conditions for salvation; they are the fruit of it.
After dwelling on all this, I’m thinking about our neighbour Warren again, and his ‘What’s new?’ question every Thursday night. Maybe I should pay more attention to that question. Maybe I should ask myself that question every day of my new life in Christ. What’s new today, Linda? What did you and the Holy Spirit drown together yesterday so that something new, something that looks like Jesus, can take root and grow?
Dear Heavenly Father, take me again into the waters of my baptism. Let my old self be drowned. Let Christ clothe me again in my new life. Help me to stay alert to how your Holy Spirit is forming me into the very life of Jesus. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
What’s new?
by Linda Macqueen
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Read 2 Corinthians 5:16–21
- Every Thursday night, our neighbour Warren pops over for a coffee and a chat. Invariably, as he drops a Coles cake on the kitchen bench, he’ll ask, ‘What’s new?’ Rarely do my husband Mark and I have anything to offer. ‘Nothing much,’ we mutter. ‘Same old, same old.’ (Which, in truth, is exactly how we like it, now that we’ve retired.)
In today’s text, Paul is not asking the fledgling Christians in Corinth, ‘What’s new?’ He’s declaring, ‘You are new.’ For them, being a ‘new creation’ was a radical reorientation against the background noise of a pagan city. It meant stepping out of a world built on social status, rivalry and self‑promotion, and into a community where identity rested in Christ’s reconciling and all-embracing love. This was a seismic shift in thinking and living. This was a ‘born again’ sort of new.
By comparison, for lifelong Christians today, the drama of our ‘new creation’ can feel muted – boring, even. Some of us don’t have a compelling ‘coming to Christ’ testimony, or a life of two distinct chapters: before and after Jesus. Yet baptism tells us that our new creation is not measured by the intensity of our conversion story but by the daily rhythm of dying and rising with Christ. Martin Luther captured this beautifully: baptism is not only a past event but also a present, ongoing reality, binding us inseparably to Christ’s death and resurrection. Each day, the old self is drowned, and each day Christ raises us into his life.
Our ‘new creation’ experience probably looks more like a slow, faithful reshaping: a softening heart, a deeper compassion, a willingness to forgive, a readiness to serve without being noticed. But the source of this new creation is the same for us today as it was for the Corinthians. Christ’s love compels us, draws us, remakes us – again and again – until his life becomes our life.
Father God, you have declared that I am a new creation in Christ. I can’t argue with that, even though I don’t always feel new. Forgive me for dragging into my new life some things that belonged to my old life. Please drown these things and raise me up once again to live into the new creation you have made me. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
Wisdom from a quiet heart
by Linda Macqueen
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… you will only find yourselves fighting against God (Acts 5:39b).
Read Acts 5:27–39
There are a lot of themes we could explore in today’s text, but I can’t miss the opportunity to talk about my second-favourite Pharisee. (Nicodemus is my favourite.) In Acts 5, the apostles stand before the Sanhedrin, accused of defying strict orders to stop teaching about Jesus. The council is furious, intent on silencing these heretics once and for all. Then, into the strained atmosphere steps a devout and highly respected Pharisee. His name is Gamaliel (who was Saul/Paul’s teacher – Acts 22:3).
Gamaliel doesn’t puff his chest out like a peacock. He doesn’t join the chorus of outrage. Instead, he offers a measured, almost understated word of caution: ‘Consider carefully what you intend to do to these men.’ His counsel is simple: if this movement is merely human, it will collapse on its own. But if it is from God, no amount of force will stop it, and opposing it would place the Sanhedrin on the wrong side of God’s purposes.
Gamaliel is not dodging his leadership obligations by sitting on the fence. His counsel is not passivity; it is discernment. It is the refusal to be swept along by fear, anger or groupthink. It is the courage to pause when everyone else is rushing to judgement.
Is it just me, or do you also see a cultural shift towards instant reactions, accompanied by fierce rhetoric? Enemies are easily named. Outrage is applauded. Nuance is dismissed as weakness. And we see Christians, too, drawn into this vortex – quick to label, quick to blame, quick to draw battle lines.
Gamaliel invites us to a different approach. One that trusts God enough to wait. One that believes truth does not need panic to sustain it. One that remembers that the kingdom of God does not advance through force, fear or frenzy, but through the quiet, steady and sometimes off-script work of the Spirit.
Perhaps the most radical witness we Christians can offer today is not louder certainty but deeper calm. Not sharper lines between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ but more space that leaves room for God to act, however and wherever he chooses. Today, my second-favourite Pharisee reminds us that wisdom often sounds like a gentle voice saying, ‘Slow down. Look again. Perhaps God is in this picture.’
Wise and faithful Father, help me to resist the pull of reactive living, of jumping quickly to judgement and outrage. Instead, cultivate in me the quiet confidence that your purposes will stand – whether or not I rush to defend them. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
Strength for the waiting
by Linda Macqueen
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Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31a).
Read Isaiah 40:25–31
Yesterday, we left the disciples quivering in the upper room, sensing doom. In the coming days, they will huddle in dark corners, fighting twin tormentors: the fear of abandonment and the loss of all hope. We’ve heard this story before. Or one like it.
Hundreds of years earlier, about 7,000 of God’s people were locked up in a foreign land, broken under abandonment and hopelessness, not for a few days or even years, but for entire generations. Into that national despair, God asks a startling question: ‘To whom will you compare me?’ Through his prophet Isaiah, God calls them to lift their gaze from their exhaustion to the One who names the stars and gives them their orders. Renewal for the exiled people of Judah begins not with pulling themselves up by their bootstraps but with a fresh vision of God’s enduring faithfulness and sovereign strength.
It’s against this dark backdrop that verse 31a – the star of countless Christian memes – shines brightly: ‘But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.’ The Hebrew verb here, qāvāh, carries the sense of hopeful, tensile waiting – like strands twisted together to form a strong rope. Waiting on God is not passive or resigned. It is the active, intentional trust of people who bind their lives to his life, drawing strength through the long, dark silences from the One who holds them.
Just like the captives in Babylon, we can grow weary not only from life’s challenges themselves, but also from the pressure to solve them in our own strength. Isaiah reminds us that renewal comes not from tightening our grip, but from being held. Those who ‘wait’ in the qāvāh sense – who intertwine their hope with God’s promises – discover a strength that is not self-generated. We rise, not because circumstances have changed, but because we are lifted up by the everlasting God.
My Lord and God, who calls out the stars by name, forgive me for relying on my own vision, strength and courage to overcome the challenges I face. Help me to trust in you, to wait patiently on you and to hope only in you, until you raise me up again on eagle’s wings. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
Parting words
by Linda Macqueen
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Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me (John 14:1).
Read John 14:1–14
In the upper room, the air is thick with a dread you can almost smell. Lately, Jesus has been saying disturbing things – about betrayal, denial, even his death. And tonight, it all seems to be coming to a head. Like a deer with its nose to the breeze, the disciples sniff impending doom.
And Jesus … just imagine what he’s feeling as the sand in the hourglass runs thinner and faster. How will he use these precious final hours – these hours before everything they’d believed Jesus to be would crumble at the cross?
First, what doesn’t he do? He doesn’t give his friends a pep talk. He doesn’t give them dot-point summaries of the teachings he ran out of time to deliver. He doesn’t unlock the meanings of the parables they had failed to grasp. None of that will carry them through the future he sees for them. What they will need is Jesus himself – day by day, leading them to the Father’s heart, leading them home.
Jesus’ parting words are as gut-wrenchingly tender as they are desperately urgent: ‘Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me … I am the way, the truth and the life.’
The Greek word for ‘believe’ (pisteuō) has a deeper meaning than intellectual agreement. It means trust, confidence, leaning your whole weight on someone. On this darkest of nights, Jesus doesn’t ask his disciples to hum along with a creed, recite a teaching or sign up to a theological statement. He invites them to rest the full weight of their confusion and fear – and their future mission – on him.
Jesus’ invitation to his beloved friends on that dark night is the same as the one he offers to us, his beloved friends: ‘Lean on me. Put the full weight of your burden on me. Trust me … and me alone.’
My dear friend, Jesus. You see me when my heart trembles, when I struggle to understand, when nothing makes sense, when I cannot work out what you are doing. Help me to shun all the shaky props I have been leaning on, and to trust you alone – you, Jesus, in whom I see my Father; you, Jesus, who is leading me safely home. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
My rock and my fortress
by Glenn Crouch
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Into your hands I commit my spirit; deliver me, Lord, my faithful God (Psalm 31:5).
Read Psalm 31:1–5,15,16
When I read the words of verse 5, I hear them on Jesus’ lips as he hung from the cross (Luke 23:46). This is similar to what I experience when reading Psalm 22 (see Psalm 22:1 and Matthew 27:46). Our Lord knew the psalms well. In the depths of his pain and suffering, they were what he drew on to pray. One of my regrets is not delving more seriously into the Book of Psalms when I was younger. They are not only extremely helpful in my prayer life, but also when counselling others.
Let’s look further at what this psalm has to say to us today.
David has complete dependence on the Lord. Look at the words he uses: refuge, deliverer, rock, fortress. Are you dependent on the Lord? Is he the one you run to when things get all messed up? Can you count on him to deliver you from your fear, anxiety and sin? Is he the most stable thing in your life – your foundation and your rock? When you are with him, do you feel protected, as though you were in the centre of a mighty fortress?
Now that you’ve thought about those things. Read verses 1 to 5 as a prayer to the Lord.
Let’s not forget verses 15 and 16. Once again, think about these words. Is it not your desire to have God’s face shine upon you? Do you not rely on his unfailing love for your salvation, for your deliverance? Read these two verses as a prayer to the Lord.
As our journey together this week concludes, I encourage you to spend time praying through the Psalms and following in the footsteps of our Good Shepherd.
Great and merciful God, you are indeed my rock and my refuge. I so want your face to shine upon me. Help me bring all my problems to you. Help me to trust you more. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
Glenn is the pastor of St John’s Lutheran Church in Esperance and looks after St Paul’s Lutheran Church in Kalgoorlie–Boulder, Western Australia. Glenn and Karen have been married since 1985. They have two grown sons and are enjoying when they can get to Perth to spend time with their first grandchild.