Notice He made skins for them: something died to yield up the skin; so whenever God works in our life, inevitably there's a cost. There's something you have to face. There's pain involved, and always there's the price of what Jesus paid at Calvary, to bring healing, deliverance, freedom, release for us. So that's where we've been in this last couple of weeks, and we saw that if we wanted to get out, or make changes in our life, one of the first keys was to just become aware of our life. You need to develop an awareness of what you feel, what you think, how you behave, how you react. Many people are unaware. If you're not aware, ask someone to give you feedback, and then they'll make you aware of things that you're not aware of. You may not want to hear it, but if we want to grow, then let someone around you talk into your life. Make them welcome, welcome their feedback, start to notice what you feel, what you're facing, what you're experiencing.
The second thing is, we have to commit to the process of change. Change is always a process. Although God does a miraculous part, there's the part we have to work out in changing our thinking, owning our mistakes, becoming honest with people. Sometimes there's confession, we need to come free and talk to someone about what we've done. Sometimes we need to put a relationship right, and always we need to change how we think. But then the third aspect of this process of change is, we need to develop intimacy with the Holy Spirit, and that's where I want to go today. God made a covering. His covering for us is found in a relationship. What Adam lost was relationship and dominion; what Jesus came to restore to us was relationship and dominion. Notice what Jesus said in John, Chapter 14. We want to just look, in this one session, on developing intimacy with the Holy Spirit. We need to do more on that next year, but right now we'll just do one, just to get you started.
So Verse 16: I will pray the Father, He will give you another Helper or comforter, that He may abide with you forever - the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it doesn't see Him or know Him; but you know Him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. Notice what Jesus has made a promise. He's about to go into heaven, and He said: now I'm making a promise to you of this. Here's the promise: you will not be orphaned or abandoned, and have to do life on your own. Now of course, one of the problems of the fall is, we do life on our own. We build walls around us, fig leaves around us. We hide from relationship, and we do life alone. How many people understand what that's like, you've had to find your way through life, and to really work at things, and find out many things the hard way, because there wasn't anyone to coach you - you had to do it on your own? How many found that? A lot of people like that aye? A lot of us like that.
But Jesus said: you don't have to do life on your own. I'm promising you a comforter. That word 'comforter' is one who is called near, to be an intimate friend with you; so God's answer to our dilemma in life, is to bring and impart to us His own spirit, the Holy Spirit, the spirit of God - not some force. The Holy Spirit's a person. He's a person that Jesus has given to you, in order that you will have a friend, a comforter, someone to coach you through life. So one of the great challenges as a Christian, is to come to love and respect and to be aware of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, very clearly, that this was the promise that He's made for us.