Introduction: The burden He asks you to carry is to love Him with all your heart, but what Jesus offers next is even more amazing! We are talking about what happens next, after you take Jesus’ offer.

You will need help. If you love Him and follow Him, Jesus will give you God the Holy Spirit to live inside you forever to help you. We’ll explain next why this is so amazing and what it really means.

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John 14:15-17  "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

Forever is a long time! The Helper is God the Holy Spirit and He will live inside you forever. Because of this we can conclude that you will live forever also. When your body dies, then what? Jesus said forever, so God the Holy Spirit will be inside you after your body dies. Then your spirit and spiritual body will go to heaven. God the Holy Spirit will still be living inside you. Even if heaven were to pass away, God the Holy Spirit will still be inside you. Even if everything were to end, God the Holy Spirit will still be inside you. Forever is a long time! God the Holy Spirit becomes your proof, your guarantee, your assurance that you will live on with God. Immediately your mind can be at rest knowing for sure that there will be no end. You have no reason to fear anymore, yet the world tries every day to convince you to be afraid.

If you choose to love and follow Jesus, you’ll never be alone! If you love and follow Jesus you will know God the Holy Spirit personally while He lives inside you. The relationship is going on inside you and in your mind. How does the Holy Spirit know you and hear you? He hears your thoughts. You can speak to the Holy Spirit with your thoughts. He hears your voice too. How can you hear the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit puts thoughts in your mind and you can hear those thoughts He puts in your mind. He can put a feeling in your heart too. You can have a secret dialogue in your mind and heart with Him that no one else can hear.

Listen and evaluate your thoughts as you pray. The Holy Spirit will only speak the truth. He is the Spirit of truth. If the thought is not the truth then it is not from Him. Thoughts that have truth and lies mixed together are not from the Holy Spirit either. One example is when a thought accurately and truthfully calls out a mistake you made, but includes the thought to kill yourself. The first thought is true about your mistake, but the second half is not true. The Holy Spirit will never tell you to kill yourself. Also, the Holy Spirit won’t just declare a truth and point out your mistakes, without also pointing out the way to go forward. If you believed before that all the thoughts that enter your mind are yours, you were mistaken. God puts thoughts in your mind too! In summary, you have your thoughts, and God puts thoughts in you, and there are other sources of thoughts that you hear. Will talk about the other sources in future sessions.

Many reject Jesus’ offer. You will notice that those who reject Jesus are also rejecting God the Holy Spirit. The world can’t see Him or know Him until deciding first to love Jesus. Why is it this way? When you hear Jesus offer you eternal life with Him, immediately there is a battle in each person’s mind. Thoughts attack from every direction to steal the truth. It becomes obvious what holds each person back from choosing to love and follow Jesus. Those very thoughts that are against Jesus reveal the struggle within each person. If you are in a battle in your mind, evaluate the thoughts that come against the idea of loving Jesus. You will have to humble yourself to do it. Pride is the biggest hurdle to understanding the truth.

Prayer coaching: “God, I’m wrestling with my thoughts. Is this thought true? Is it from You? Show me the truth. Make Your thoughts clear to me. Reveal the answers to the difficult questions I have and include verses from the Bible. Holy Spirit, help me test every thought to see if they are from you. Help me reject the thoughts that are not from God.”