Please read the passage before the commentary.
Jesus speaks of the Spirit of the Father speaking through us. The first thing that came to me was how to tell if the Spirit is not speaking through me.
If I preach against my pet peeves, or if I preach judgment and condemnation on others because of their evil ways, if I blow off steam in my preaching, I am probably not speaking with the Spirit. When my preaching enhances my ego, I am not speaking with the Spirit.
We only speak with the Spirit of the Father when we announce repentance for the forgiveness of sin, We only speak with God’s Spirit when we call people out of sin into God’s mercy. When the word we speak respects the lives of our listeners, then only do we speak with God’s Spirit.
God did not send the Son in to the world to condemn the world, yet the world brought Jesus before kings, governors and religious authorities. God has given us the same mission that God gave the Son. If we speak the according to the Spirit of the Father, we shall have similar persecutions, but we shall have the protection of the God’s Son. If we speak our own words, we may still have persecutions, but we shall have brought it upon our own selves. The Gospel challenge for us is to proclaim the what the Spirit of the Father tells us to proclaim.
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