What is the indwelling Holy Spirit like?
The indwelling Holy Spirit is warm and loving, embracing and encouraging rather than cold and severe. He becomes the believer’s guideline for Christian living through His influence and power, not rules and regulations. He creates the desire to please God and removes the desire to rebel, accomplishing what the powerless Law could not.
Les teaches that the indwelling Holy Spirit is not a set of rules and regulations but becomes the believer’s guideline for Christian living by His influence and power. Unlike the Law, which sat in cold stone, was severe, condemned, and did nothing to help a person keep it, the Holy Spirit is warm, loving, and embraces us. As He does, He gives the desire first and foremost to live pleasing in God’s sight. He takes away the desire to be a rebel, obnoxious, and wicked. This is the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit, not me or you. The Law was like a mirror: it could show what was wrong and needed cleaning up, but it could never reach out and clean the person. The Law was perfect but powerless.