Ephesians 4:30 — And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
Ephesians 5:18 — And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

In a piece a few days ago, I mentioned the Holy Spirit and His influence in my life and afterwards Myra commented that people don’t talk about Him much. As I reflected on what she had said I felt the truth of it, and I wondered why it was that this third person of the Godhead gets, as it were, less than His fair share of coverage. Scripture is full of information about Him, and even a brief survey shows how much we have to be grateful for.
The first thing that we might look at is that the Holy Spirit is the primary actor in what fancy theologians call “regeneration”, but most of us call “being born again”:

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:5-8)

After we are born again, the Spirit living inside us is also responsible for making us holy. (The fancy word for that is sanctification):

… that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. (Romans 15:16)

The Spirit gives us many wonderful gifts. A big one for me is peace:

… for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. (Romans 14:17)

It is the Holy Spirit, too, that enables us to love one another:

… with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:2-3)

Of course, the Holy Spirit doesn’t give us these great gifts for nothing — He also empowers us for mission:

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

The Holy Spirit is also our conscience — He convicts us of sin:

And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: (John 16:8)

There’s also a wonderful part that the Spirit plays when we are at our wits end. He takes our needs and presents them to the Father on our behalf:

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)

Now I promise you I have only scratched the surface. The Holy Spirit does so many wonderful things. You can read about Him all through the Bible. So how come He doesn’t get the attention that the Father and Son get? Well I have a theory. It’s right there … “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”. We know about fathers, and the relationship with fathers. We know about sons, and the relationship with sons. Perhaps the problem is we don’t know about Spirits and how to relate to Spirits? However that might be, if you’re not as close to the Holy Spirit as you are to the Father and the Son you could spend some extra time reading about Him. I promise the effort will be worthwhile!