February 16, Evening
C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling
"Thy good Spirit." — Nehemiah 9:20 · KJV
Common, too common, is the sin of forgetting the Holy Spirit. This is folly and ingratitude, for He deserves well at our hands: He is good, supremely good. As God, He is good essentially; He shares in the threefold ascription of "Holy, holy, holy" that rises to the Triune Yahweh. He is unmixed purity and truth and grace. He is good in His kindness, tenderly bearing with our waywardness, striving with our rebellious wills, quickening us from our death in sin, and then training us for the skies as a loving nurse cares for her child. How generous, forgiving, and tender is this patient Spirit of God! He is good in His working. All His works are good in the highest 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 in His offices; whether as Comforter, Instructor, Guide, Sanctifier, Quickener, or Intercessor, He fulfills His office well, and each work is full of the highest good to the church of God. Those who yield to His influences become good; those who obey His promptings do good; those who live under His power receive good. Let us then treat so good a Person as gratitude dictates. 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 on Him in all our holy undertakings; let us seek His aid hourly, and never grieve Him; and let us speak to His praise whenever the occasion comes. The church will never prosper until it more reverently believes in the Holy Spirit. He is so good and kind that it is sad indeed He should be grieved by slights and neglect.