Grafted with the Holy Spirit

Join us as we leap into our third week studying various aspects of the Holy Spirit. Click below to download this week’s free printable study guide, and then enjoy Meaghan’s insights into the fascinating topic of grafting.

This month at Stir, we are diving deeper into the Holy Spirit and learning more about it. How does this power of God work in us?

In the sermon “The Grafting of the Holy Spirit,” Ben Light (UCG pastor in Oregon) illustrates God’s Spirit working in us, using the metaphor of grafting. Here is an abbreviated version of a story he included:

A young lady was in a car accident with her father. She lost her father. She had a number of serious injuries— but she says when she looked down at her left hand, it was just pulverized. She said it began to just collapse right in front of her eyes. The bones inside of it had just been completely and totally destroyed. She was an accomplished piano player. So in addition to losing her father, she also managed to, in many ways, lose the one passion in her life that gave her purpose and joy. She went through all these surgeries. They put hardware in, they put metal in, they took hardware back out. She went through all these different things to try to get these bones to knit back together fully and to get full function of her hand. But at one point, the doctors, after performing a pretty serious surgery, informed her that none of it was working, that her hand was in fact dying as a result of a loss of blood flow because of the ruining of the bone, and that they were soon going to have to face some very serious and very difficult decisions. The solution, they said, was a bone transplant, and it was at that point that her mother remembered. And her mom said, we have bone from her father, and the doctor said, tha’s going to be the perfect match that we need. The doctor grafted that bone onto her wrist, and her wrist responded. It began to grow, it began to develop, the blood flow returned, her hand began to heal. She describes it. The hand literally came back to life. It was in this place of dying all of a sudden, and it came back to life, and she could play again. She continues to make music as a result of that small part of her father who is living in her. A small part of her father that is living inside of her, that is growing, that is healing that part of her body that had been so destroyed and so ruined.

Grafting, specifically bone grafting, is a surgical procedure that inserts specialized materials into weak, missing or damaged areas to stimulate your body’s natural bone-building process. It encourages new tissue growth to fill gaps and restore strength and structural integrity (source: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/16796-bone-grafting).

Romans 8:11 says, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” When we get baptized, we receive the incredible, transformative gift of the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit “grafted” into us, into our weak, missing or damaged areas in order to strengthen and complete our spiritual integrity. It makes us whole.

In John 15:5 Jesus states, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

Returning to the woman in the car wreck - her hand was dying. It was nonfunctioning. Her body could not repair itself on its own; it needed the implant from her father. She received the graft and her weakness and damage was brought to life, able to fulfill a purpose.

The Holy Spirit is working in us in the same way.

-Meaghan