
Monday
Our blest Redeemer, ere he breathed his tender, last farewell,
a guide, a Comforter, bequeathed with us to dwell.
Behind this verse is the promise of Jesus, “”I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever – the Spirit of Truth.” Pentecost is the fulfilling of that promise. The Holy Spirit is the generous bequest of Jesus, the gift that can’t be bought, the risen Christ made present by his Spirit. This whole hymn is a quiet thanksgiving for the One who comes to believing hearts as wisdom, counsel, strength and the deep assurance that we are indeed, children of God
Tuesday
He came in semblance of a dove, with sheltering wings outspread,
The holy balm of peace and love on earth to shed.
The descent of the Spirit on Jesus at his baptism combines with the image of sheltering wings. Another hymn tells this well: “O spread thy covering wings around, till all our wanderings cease.” Amongst the great blessings of the Holy Spirit’s coming to dwell in the community of Christ, and in each trusting heart, are the peace and the love of God shed abroad in the heart, in the Christian community, and out the doors into the world where Christ died and rose again, a God-loved world.
Wednesday
He came in tongues of living flame, to teach, convince, subdue;
As peaceful as the wind he came, as viewless too.
Sometimes the poetry isn’t as good as the words! But this verse interprets Pentecost as the gift of the Holy Spirit to all Jesus’ followers, then and now. The flame of God’s love, burning the truth into the heart, convincing of both sin and its remedy in Christ, subduing our pride and bringing us to the place of prayer, gratitude and obedience. The wind at Pentecost wasn’t peaceful, it was disruptive – but perhaps the hymn writer was thinking about Jesus words to Nicodemus, the movement of the Spirit made visible by the effects on the leaves, and that same Spirit’s effects made visible in lives born again into the Kingdom of God.

Thursday
He came sweet influence to impart, a gracious, willing guest,
while he can find one humble heart wherein to rest.
The hymn writer’s devotional instincts are finely tuned. The Holy Spirit does not gate-crash, though there is potency and persistence in the grace of God working away to open doors locked from the inside by guilt, fear, shame, pride and much else that keeps us at a distance from God. The heart that is humbled by the patient love of God revealed in Christ, the heart convicted of sin and turned towards God in repentance and prayer for forgiveness – that heart is exactly the place where the Holy Spirit comes, and dwells, and becomes the primary influencer of the heart, emotions, will, and mind.
Friday
And his that gentle voice we hear, soft as the breath of even,
that checks each fault, that calms each fear, and speaks of heaven.
The great Reformers often spoke of “the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit.” By this they meant when we read our Bibles prayerfully, we are asking the Spirit to “teach, convince, subdue.” The Spirit is continually at work towards our sanctification, in maintaining the sensitivity of the conscience when faced with temptation, by the training of the mind in our thinking with the mind of Christ, in the control of our emotions and affections as we respond to life’s routines and surprises. The work of the Holy Spirit is “God at work in us both to do and to will his good pleasure.”
Saturday
And every virtue we possess, and every victory won,
and every thought of holiness, are his alone.
This is the most famous and most often quoted verse of this hymn – at least in the circles I moved in for much of my earlier Christian life and ministry. The author, Henriette Auber, was well aware we are saved by grace – it’s never our own doing. Likewise whatever is good in us is good enabled by the inner working of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness with our spirits that we are assuredly children of God. We are what we are, we are who we are, by the grace of God. Far from being a devaluation of our best efforts, our dependence on God’s grace as we are being conformed to the image of Christ, is what enables and empowers us to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who is at work in us”!

Sunday
Spirit of purity and grace, our weakness pitying, see:
O make our hearts thy dwelling-place, and worthier thee.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The hymn writer used early Victorian language – the word pity refers to the compassion and affectionate sympathy of God who knows and sees and understands our struggles. The Holy Spirit is the Counsellor and Comforter who indwells the mind and knows our motives and intentions, our mistakes and failures, and whose work is to conform us to the image of Christ – to make us more like Jesus. That’s the prayer of this entire hymn!
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