As we have been studying the Holy Spirit these last couple of months I have to come to realize that our relationship with Him, or how we expect to build a relationship with Him has been largely backwards, or to use a phrase I like to use, it’s been upside down. As I shared at the beginning of this series, too often we start our relationship with the Holy Spirit at Acts 2, when the first church was baptized in power to be witnesses rather than in John 14-16 when Jesus comforted His disciples with the promise of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence. Before Jesus revealed that the Holy Spirit would empower the church to be witnesses He promised that the Holy Spirit would bring comfort, would offer peace, would reveal truth, remind us we are loved, would be our adoption, would fill us with strength, convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment through the lives we live and would lead us and guide us in every step we need to take. The promise of the Holy Spirit is power, but not until we understand that He is a person, given to us as a gift, desiring to be in a relationship that first and foremost provides us with peace. Colossians tells us that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” and Jesus told us, in John 14:16 that He would pray to the Father and the Father would send to us “another Helper”, whom He referred to as the Holy Spirit. I know I have talked about this often, but I don’t believe it can be overdone and I believe it is too often overlooked. In John 14:16 we see the entire Godhead working together to live in us; Jesus prays to the Father and the Father sends the Holy Spirit—God lives in us. This is a truth that can’t be minimized and I believe we have overlooked it for far too long. If you are in Christ then the Holy Spirit, God lives in you. Stop and consider that each time you are anxious, nervous, worried or afraid; each time you are angry, frustrated, disappointed or overlooked; each time you are betrayed, rejected, deceived or confused . . . God lives in us, those emotions and experiences are real, they can’t be avoided and they shouldn’t be minimized as if they don’t affect us but at the exact same time there is a truth that trumps and desires to counteract all those feelings and experiences and that truth is that the Holy Spirit of God lives in me, He loves me, He has chosen me and He will not leave me. The Holy Spirit was not only purposed to fill us with power and gifts, He was first purposed to fill us with peace and security, peace in the midst of a tumultuous world and our easily influenced emotions and security in the one relationship that is eternal and has been promised to never change. This morning as we move a little bit deeper into our relationship with the Holy Spirit I hope that we will see that He is a person promised to bring peace and that we are a people purposed to live in, walk in and preach peace to the world we live in.