The Gift the Believer Part 1: Power for the Believer
It is imperative to know who the Holy Spirit is.
So, Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” John 20:21-22 (NKJV) Resurrection life filled them! The disciples were breathed into and were born again. Receiving the Holy Spirit.
In John 14:15-18, Jesus tells us “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” (NKJV)
Jesus is telling us that God sent another. One the world cannot receive because it does not know Him, nor can they see Him. Why can the world not receive the Holy Spirit? Because Jesus was the Father’s gift to the world, for redemption & salvation. The Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, is God’s gift to the believer!
The Holy Spirit is the God head that is moving in this earth and in this hour. The Holy Spirit was not just sent to be amongst us but to dwell in us. God’s Spirit, The Holy Spirit, lives inside you. God did not leave anything out, everything of Christ now lives in you!
Pentecost represents the beginning of the church. The day the Holy Spirit was given to the believer.
God gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit in that moment, in the upper room. For a reason, to receive the gospel and salvation. That everyone that heard, would take that truth to their nation. This is what Jesus said would happen. When you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, what then? You become His witness. You are a witness of Him and for Him, now.
John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. (NKJV) To who’s advantage, is it? The believers! You and me. It is to our advantage that the Holy Spirit was sent to us. So, who is the Holy Spirit? How is it to our advantage?
The Holy Spirit is the third head, in the God Head.
What makes a human? A body, a soul, and a spirit, makes a human. So, what makes up God? In Genesis, it tells us, we are created in his likeness. God said, “let us make man in our image.” He said “us” here, “let us make man in our image.” So, we can sum up the trinity in this likeness; God is the What and what makes up God is God the Father, God the Son, & God the Holy Spirit. They make up God, three persons in one. Now God the Father gives the plan and gave the plan. God the Son executed that plan. God the Holy Spirit fulfills that plan in you. Do you know,
God never intended for us to take the baptism of the Holy Spirit lightly.
God also did not intend for us to deem the baptism of the Holy Spirit to be optional. This is why he tells the disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit. Paul tells us about this seal that marks us as a child of God. With that comes authority, the Holy Spirit is the power that upholds that authority. When you speak out of authority, when you command in faith, and you declare in the word of the Lord. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that backs that up and causes things to change, shift, and break! Just like in Acts 2:2-4, the Holy Spirit brings the suddenly! He brings the power to break, change, and shift anything. Any area of your life, the Holy Spirit can swiftly and suddenly move. God wants you to walk in that power! God gifted it to you through the Holy Spirit. He is not holding it back from you, it is available to all who are willing to accept it and walk in it. We read it all through Acts. (Which is all themed from the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the working of the Holy Spirit in and through believers.) Just like Peter in Act 2. The man who denied Jesus and yet stood up boldly because of the power of the Holy Spirit. God is so consistent and intentional. He does not do anything without purpose, He does nothing by accident. On the day of Pentecost, he did not give us the Holy Spirit without purpose. It was intentional.
The Holy Spirit is not just one facet but multi-faceted.
He doesn’t just dwell in you but comes upon you and we NEED Him. It is so important to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, why? What does that mean? Acts 1:8, because He is power. Power, we need to walk through this life every day. The Holy Spirit brings a whole new way to see things because with him, you will be looking through God’s perspective. There is an edge, a boldness that comes with being baptized in the Holy Spirit. He gives you the boldness to live this life the way you were created to live. To live in victory, to live as an overcomer, to live as more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus, to live this life in purity & holiness, to walk uprightly in the things of God. How? By the power of the Holy Spirit. He empowers you to live this life and He is accessible to every believer. Acts 2:38-39, Who is He available to? He is a gift to you, the believer. Every one of you and even those to come.
The goal, the purpose of the Holy Spirit, is power!
The goal, the purpose of the Holy Spirit, is not to speak in tongues. Tongues is a gift, a byproduct, evidence of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 10:38 it says that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and power. It’s a different kind of power. Power that brings forth supernatural & extraordinary results in your life. That God kind of power. This is why the Holy Spirit is too important to ignore.
The Holy Spirit is an unlimited Jesus in your life!
John 14:25-26 “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. (NKJV) (Other verses to note John 14:21-22, John 15:26-27, Acts 1:5-8, 2 Corinthians 1:22, Mattew 3:11, Luke 24:49)
The Holy Spirit brings Jesus alive to you. He makes Jesus real to you. The Holy Spirit is to bring Jesus out of you so others can see Jesus. Everything that Jesus did for you on the cross, all that freedom is within you in the form of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is to anoint you with grace to do what seems impossible, because through Christ all things are possible. The Holy Spirit is the seal upon your life. He is the seal that gives you delegated power & authority.
The power that resides in you should make every unbeliever question their belief in God.
You have been baptized with power! Resurrection power flows through you. For you to do the work of the Lord, to preach the gospel, to see signs, and to see wonders. He can use anyone to do this through. God takes all kinds of ordinary people and makes them extraordinary.
You were created for a purpose on purpose, for a purpose.
The Holy Spirit brings out that purpose in you. You have been anointed to be different and to live different! Know that you are set apart from this world. You are called and anointed to live a different life. A life unlike the rest of the world. That’s what the Holy spirit does. He transforms you into who you are supposed to be, who God intended and created you to be. He is the Helper, God’s gift to the believer!
Do not ignore the living God within you.
With Jesus living inside of you, any need that you have, all you have to do is come to him in spirit. The Holy Spirit will take that need, direct it, and direct you! Understand that with the Holy Spirit inside of you, you should no longer be bound by anything! The only way you are still bound by anything, is that you have hushed or ignored the living God within you and turned your eyes back to the world.
“The only way you still struggle with things, is by a repetitive pushing off of the Holy Spirit.”
If you yield to the Holy Spirit, He will always lead you away from sin and compromise. You need to know that with the Holy Spirit you have freedom, you have healing, you have deliverance, you have authority, you have power. All of that is living on the inside of you! Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. You should not be bound by anything! Everything that Jesus did for you on the cross, is in you, in the form of the Holy Spirit. You have been set free! Now act on it!
For the Holy Spirit to help you, you must learn to yield to Him.
The Holy Spirit will always lead you and guide you according to the word. For Him to instruct you, you must learn how to hear his voice. In Acts 1:4-5 Jesus tells us something very important, And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Hoy Spirit not many days from now.” (NKJV)
Many of us like to get out ahead of the Holy Spirit. Then we get frustrated when we end up in chaos or things are not lined up as perfectly as we would like them to be. We didn’t stop to wait for the Holy Spirit and give him time to get things lined out and prepared for us. It is very important to wait upon the Holy Spirit. So important that Jesus commanded the disciples to wait for Him. See, the disciples received the Holy Spirit and now they need to wait for him. When you learn to yield & listen, you will learn to hear His voice. When you can hear His voice, you will know when you need to wait on Him and you will know when to move for him. You will have a greater sense of him when you feel that tug, hear that word, go that direction, step out in faith, because you will have the direction of the Holy Spirit. When you become sensitive to the Holy Spirit, you will be able to sense when he comes in and out of a room. How do hear the Holy Spirit? In our intimacy and fellowship with the Holy Spirit. That is where you are surrendered and that is where you are devoted, that is where you will hear Him.
This is where you will know his voice, in an intimate place.
Every believer has the Holy Spirit. The problem is, the Holy Spirit does not have every believer. What is the problem here? In Hosea 4:6 we read “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” (NKJV). In 2 Corinthians 13:14 we read “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” (NKJV). Lack of knowledge and lack of communion is the problem. It is not enough to know about the Holy Spirit. You must know Him and know Him intimately. If you only know about Him, He cannot effectively work in you and for you, the way He is intended to.
Did you know the Holy Spirit is not an, it. He is a person. Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as He. He has feelings and He has a personality. You can woo Him or you can grieve Him. The things you choose and the things you say in this life, draw Him to you or push Him away from you. Just like any relationship we have; we need to be mindful of our intimacy with Him. We want the Holy Spirit to be active and moving in our lives. Not grieved and distant.
Our relationship with Jesus is directly tied to our relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Dryness or fruitlessness in one’s life, is the lack of relationship with him. Fellowship with the Holy Spirit is so important because he reveals Jesus to us. Your depth of communion, fellowship, and devotion with/to the Holy Spirit, are all up to you. You decide how far you will go.
Jesus is our example of how we live this life
Jesus was fully and completely reliant upon the Holy Spirit in his life here on earth. Every miracle that took place through his life and his ministry, took place because of the anointing. It all took place through the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit. That is why we see Jesus spending so much time in prayer and fellowship. He was getting direction and guidance from the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit was so important to Jesus, why is He not important to us?
You have a purpose and you have power in the name of Jesus through the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
The greater one is inside of you, but he is also upon you. The Holy Spirit is what draws people to Jesus. What pushes people away from Jesus is churches that lack the power of the Holy Spirit. Because of their worldly compromising choices. Because they are influenced by this world and by man. The church needs to influence the world, not the other way around.
God is not a far-off God; He is inside of you. How deep are you going to go in Him?
May 12th, The Gift the Believer Part 2:
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