Pastor John, in pursuing daily joy in God, how important is the permanently abiding and indwelling Holy Spirit in me? And if indwelling is important, how do I explain my own personal fluctuating experience of joy in God when the source of my personal joy, the Holy Spirit, is constantly personally present in me at all times?

That's a really good question because its premises are right. We do have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is sovereign. He's God. And so why isn't He producing His fruits in me as fully as they could possibly be produced? That's a really, really good question. And one of those fruits is His joy, His patience.

And if you go to the book of Ephesians, there are clues that, in fact, the Holy Spirit doesn't govern us that way. Ephesians 5, 18, "Be filled with the Holy Spirit," clearly signals there are gradations of fullness, and that means, I think, gradations of His control. That is, He is willing to let Himself be more or less resisted.

He says in Ephesians 4, 30, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit." So the Holy Spirit is willing to let Himself be grieved by certain attitudes that we have. That doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit has ceased to be God, that He somehow ceased to have the power to sanctify us.

It means that He has His sovereign reasons for why He would be willing to be grieved by us. And chapter 1, verse 17 of Ephesians--it's just amazing how many of these are in Ephesians--Paul prays for saints that the eyes of our heart would be opened to know our calling and to see the greatness of our inheritance and the power at work in those who believe.

Now, why would he pray that? Well, because our eyes get dull. And if our eyes get dull, our feelings get dull. And the Holy Spirit answers that by opening the eyes of our hearts, which means He could have kept them open, but He has His reasons for allowing there to be these seasons of seeing less clearly.

Same thing in Ephesians 3, verse 18, where Paul prays that the Lord Jesus--that you be strengthened with power in your heart, according to His Spirit, that Christ would dwell in your hearts by faith. That's a strange thing to pray for a Christian, isn't it? We all have Christ within us, we all have the Holy Spirit within us, and yet he's praying that Christ would dwell.

And I think that means that Christ would dwell manifestly, that Christ would dwell powerfully, all of which simply says both the Holy Spirit and the indwelling Christ are there, and they're there always for the believer. They don't go in and out, but they are there in different levels of power, different levels of manifestation, different levels of control.

And if you ask me why, why wouldn't He just take us straight there, I would say the same reason He doesn't knock the devil out entirely, which He could do this afternoon, He could just end the devil's existence entirely, He could change history entirely, He could bring the kingdom entirely.

Instead, He is working progressively with us, because evidently He gets more glory through the kinds of battles Christians fight with their own sin than if we were to just be transformed in an instant. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Send your questions to us via email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

Please include your first name and your hometown. You can find thousands of other free resources online from johnpiper@desiringgod.org. I'm your host Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.