The Spirit of Grace
The Bible says the Holy Ghost will be poured out as “…the Spirit of grace and supplication” (Zechariah 12:10, NKJV).
In the book of Titus, we read that grace is given to us as power over sin so that we can live sober, holy lives. “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” <(Titus 2:11-13).
There has been a marvelous measure of this grace in God’s people since Pentecost. The Holy Spirit has sent conviction of sin on all nations, teaching believers of every race and tongue how to forsake ungodliness and worldly lusts. The result has been a people who live soberly and righteously in this present world and who long for the coming of Jesus.
I believe Zechariah 12:10 prophecies that, in the very last hour, the Holy Spirit will fall mightily on God’s people with a spirit of grace that turns them completely from all worldliness. It will produce in them a cry for purity of heart.
A dear brother in the Lord, the head of a ministry, once called to tell me that leaders in his ministry had been gathering to seek the Lord. The Holy Spirit began exposing sin in their midst, and several of the ministry team had to be dismissed. The brother told me, “Now that the Holy Spirit has come down, there is a pressure to do right.”
His phrase struck me, and I couldn’t shake it off: a pressure to do right. When the Holy Spirit comes down and reveals sin, those who have been lukewarm or in compromise become convicted. Ministers will wake up to true “grace preaching,” the kind that convicts people of every hidden thing in their lives.
Beloved, the pressure to forsake sin and to do right is going to become more intense each day in God’s last-day church! May we all be ambassadors of grace to one another.
