Strengthened by His Spirit

A week ago I wrote about the prayer Paul gave for the Saints at Ephesus in the first chapter of his epistle to them.  He also described how he prayed for them later in the epistle in these stirring words: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:14-19).  I love this heartfelt plea for these people Paul cared so much for, and these are blessings we should all seek in our own struggles.  All of us desperately need to be strengthened by His Spirit, to have faith in the Savior in our hearts, to be rooted and grounded in love and to know the love of Christ.    

             To be given this strength in the inner man through the Spirit of the Lord is really the essence of this marvelous promise in the Doctrine and Covenants: “The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever” (121:46).  Each week we partake of the Sacrament, seeking again to qualify for this great blessing to have the Spirit as our constant companion: “That they may always have his Spirit to be with them.”  It’s easy to question, though, whether we really have the Spirit with us, whether we are indeed guided and strengthened by the Lord, whether this great promised has ever been realized in our lives.  In times when we don’t feel that we have the Spirit with us it can be easy to believe that the Holy Ghost has never been with us to guide us.  Paul’s list he gave the Galatians can help us to see the influence the Spirit has indeed had in our lives: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22).  If we have experienced those feelings and attributes in our lives, then surely we have been blessed with the Spirit of the Lord.  I think King Benjamin also gave us a related list that helps us to evaluate whether we are being changed by the Spirit of the Lord.  We know that we are yielding “to the enticings of the Holy Spirit” when we “becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19).  The Spirit will engender in us patience and love, gentleness and goodness, meekness and faith; when these describe the state of our heart then we can be certain that the Spirit of the Lord is refining and blessing us.  These divine attributes will keep us “rooted and grounded” in God’s love and love for all God’s children around us, filling us with the fulness of God as we strive to keep the Spirit of the Lord in our lives.