It's not over, you know? Jesus stayed with the disciples for 40 days. I am working through a very personal focus during these 40 days; perhaps I'll share with you when the time is over. For right now, though, please pray that I will be able to hold fast during this period! I want to experience Jesus in a whole new way!
Anyway, I wanted to talk about the way Jesus breathed on the disciples. What I love about the Bible is that from Genesis to Revelation, God is the same. Nothing written about Him in Revelation contradicts what was written in Genesis. I also love that the Godhead - the Trinity, the Three-In-One, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - has always been talked about, right from the beginning of Genesis:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Genesis 1:1-2
The following is taken from an article on cbn.com, called, "The Holy Spirit: the Breath of God":
The interesting part of this is the Hebrew word for spirit. We almost get a little spooky talking about the Holy Ghost, but the Hebrew word behind spirit is ruach, and it means "air in motion." It is the same word for "breath." It also means "life." By resemblance to breath and air in motion, it means "spirit." That’s where we get the translation, and the Hebrew word contains all those different meanings. If we just leave it with our English word "spirit," we’re not getting the full attributes of what the Bible is trying to describe. It’s trying to describe that there’s a breath involved.
Interesting. So the Spirit of God is the Breath of God . . . and God breathed our being into existence: "Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Genesis 2:7
When God speaks, He breathes. Every time God breathes, His Spirit is, in essence, moving and working. When Jesus breathed onto the disciples, He was putting the Spirit in their hearts so that they did not have to exist without Him.
Think about breathing for a moment. More accurately, think about how we don't think about breathing. You don't purposely decide to breathe - you just do it! The only time you probably think about breathing is when it's hard to do!
When we live in the Spirit, with the Spirit, and by the Spirit, being one with God becomes our nature. We don't think about it. We just are.
And I think on that day, when Jesus introduced the disciples to the Holy Spirit, He was saying: Be like this all the time. Work like this all the time. Stay like this all the time. Live in the Spirit. Die in the Spirit.
You don't have to have some days that are spirit-filled, and some days that are not. We should live in the Spirit, as Paul said in Galatians 5:25: "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."
Jesus continued to give Himself to the disciples - now He was giving them His Spirit. Just by breathing on them!
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