Because my husband is a counselor, we’re often asked the question, “Can people really change?” The short answer is, “Yes, absolutely, through the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.” Sometimes during the conversation I ask the person about their own life and whether they have experienced change through the Spirit’s work in them. If they can identify it in themselves, they will likely be able to have the same hope for others and pray and act accordingly. Do they really believe that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword…(Heb. 4:12)? All too often, the response is weak, reflecting the person’s unawareness of who the Holy Spirit is and what his work is. It’s no wonder so many of us feel hopeless about ongoing sin in our lives or in the lives of others if we believe so feebly in the third Person of the Trinity. While thinking about this recently, I came across the following paragraphs in a sermon by Charles Spurgeon. I thought it such a helpful admonition and encouragement.

Of the Holy Spirit, Spurgeon writes,

Common, too common, is the sin of forgetting the Holy Spirit. This is folly and ingratitude. He deserves better from us, for He is good, supremely good. As God, He is good essentially. He shares in the threefold ascription of “Holy, holy, holy” that ascends to the Triune God. He is unmixed purity, truth, and grace. He is good benevolently, tenderly bearing with our waywardness, striving with our rebellious wills, quickening us from our death in sin, and then training us for heaven as a loving father trains his children. How generous, forgiving, and tender is this patient Spirit of God.

He is good operatively. All His works are good in the most eminent degree: He suggests good thoughts, prompts good actions, reveals good truths, applies good promises, assists in good attainments, and leads to good results. There is no spiritual good in all the world of which He is not the author and sustainer, and heaven itself will owe the perfect character of its redeemed inhabitants to His work.

He is good officially: Whether as Comforter, Instructor, Guide, Sanctifier, Quickener, or Intercessor, He fulfills His office well, and each work is filled with the highest good to the church of God. Those who yield to His influences become good; those who obey His impulses do good; those who live under His power receive good. Let us then act toward Him according to the dictates of gratitude. Let us revere His person and adore Him as God over all, blessed forever; let us own His power and our need of Him by waiting upon Him in all our holy enterprises; let us hourly seek His help and never grieve Him; and let us speak His praise whenever occasion occurs.