We NEED the Holy Spirit! Many of God’s people are becoming increasingly aware that we desperately need the presence and power of God in our lives. I feel a total urgency in my spirit bout this. We need to let the Holy Spirit have his way. We need Him to speak to us, to lead us, to guide us, to use us and to transform us.
We need help beyond what we can do for ourselves, and we need the help that only the Spirit of God can give us. I’m so thankful that He is committed to working in us, in our hearts, our spirits and in our lives, day by day by day, until that day we stand before Him in Heaven.
You might be a person who wants to change but doesn’t know how. Or you want to get better but you just haven’t been able to. You might’ve taken the classes you thought would help, joined a gym and even joined a church, thinking it will bring the change you want. And you’re surrounded by people who want to get better, and the only way after a point, is for the Holy Spirit to do the changing.
In John chapter 16, Jesus talking to His disciples about the fact that soon, he will be leaving the earth and returning to Heaven. He is going to be crucified, he will die, he will be resurrected and after that He is returning to Heaven. Then, Jesus says this, “I tell you the truth it is to your advantage that I go away.”
And then He says, “If I don't go away the helper will not come to you. But when I go, I'm going to send him to you. And when he comes, he's going to convict the world about sin, about righteousness, about judgment. Concerning sin, because they don't believe in me. Concerning righteousness, because I'm going to the Father, and you will no longer see me. And concerning judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged.”
Jesus goes on to say, “I still have much more to tell you but you can't handle it right now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He's not going to speak on his own, but whatever he hears, he will tell you. He will declare to you the things that are to come and he will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and he will declare it to you. Everything that the father has is mine. For this reason, I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”
Jesus says it’s to our advantage that we have the Holy Spirit; that we’re led and guided by Him. If we are ever going to get better, if the church is ever going to get better, we need to make a fresh decision to live under the leading of the Holy Spirit. I want to be Holy Spirit led and Holy Spirit fed every single day of my life. I want our church to be Holy Spirit led and Holy Spirit fed.
Who the Holy Spirit is not. The Holy Spirit is not an atmosphere. He is not a feeling. He is not an emotion. He is the third person of the trinity. He is the one who leads people to Jesus, He leads us in our praying. He leads us in our worship. He prepares peoples’ hearts to seek God.
We can’t serve God in our own strength and power. We can only do it in His strength and power. We can’t be obedient in our own strength and power and we can’t overcome our weaknesses and temptations in our own strength and power. You can’t live a godly life on your own strength.
We can’t do all the stuff that God has called us to do, in our own strength and our own natural power.
Then, it’s a matter of letting Him work in your life and allowing the Holy Spirit to have His way. There’s a moment when you cry out. There’s a moment you lay your burdens down and cast them on the Lord, because He cares for you. There’s a moment when you realize you don’t have to keep trying to carry all this on your own back, and you can find rest for your soul. You may have known the Lord for years and still have not come to that moment where you trust Him to guide your life, your relationships and all that pertains to you.
I believe that the Spirit of God works through ordinary regular flawed people like us and that He uses us to bring people closer to him. I don’t just BELIEVE that, I KNOW that.
People are talking about the need for true revival in our country. I believe it's going to start with a renewed hunger to get to know the Holy Spirit better. We as individuals need to seek the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Pastors need to seek the reality of the Holy Spirit in their lives and ministries. Churches need to seek the presence and anointing of the Holy Spirit in their services and ministries. My Pastor used to say that the Holy Spirit is a forgotten member of the Trinity. We talk about God. We talk about Jesus. But we seem to forget about the Holy Spirit.
When the presence of the Spirit of God is in a service, when people can just feel that presence of God, changes begin to happen in people who’ve been struggling for years. People many times shy away from the Holy Spirit because they may think of Him as spooky, or weird or loud or something they may have seen at a church service that scared them. He isn’t like that, believe me!
Here are three things I want to share with you about the Holy Spirit, that I think will help you.
Number one, is to know who He is and who he isn’t. The Holy Spirit isn’t the Father. The Holy Spirit isn’t the son. The Holy Spirit is the third member of the trinity. Somebody said, the word trinity is not in the Bible. The word Bible isn't in the Bible either. But we do find God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
God gives us three manifestations of Himself so we can know him better. We can pray to the father. We pray in Jesus Name. We yield to the Holy Spirit and He moves in and on our lives and circumstances. And He does it in Jesus name, to bring glory to the Father.
You have direct access to God Himself. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, and through the power of the Holy Spirit. You can cry out in the name of Jesus and get results. You can say, “Holy Spirit, lead me, or fill me right now,” and He will respond.
God wants to hear your heart and when it comes to praying it’s about sharing your heart, baring your heart to God. The Holy Spirit knows your heart and brings your heart cries to the Father. Because of Him, you have access to Heaven, as much as anybody else does. You have just as much grace to hear from heaven as anybody else does.
Number two. The Holy Spirit is leads you to God, and through Him we are born again, or as Jesus said in John chapter three, we are born of the Spirit. He is responsible for us being born again, or the long word for it is regeneration. He sanctifies us, or sets us apart for God to use. He grows us, He cleanses us. He transforms us, into the image of Jesus. He works in you and teaches you. The Holy Spirit renovates your life. He makes it new. He convicts you of your sins, and all those negative attitudes that you might not have even realized that you had.
The Holy Spirit convicts you. He doesn’t condemn you. Condemnation puts you down, and grinds you into the dirt and shame. Conviction is more like, “you are better than this. This doesn’t need to be in your life anymore. It has to go.” God loves you that much to confront you about YOU! And then He gives you the power to put off the old behavior and ways, and put on the new ones, like it says in Ephesians.
Number Three. We need to get to know the Holy Spirit better. It’s one thing to know who God is and what He can do in a person’s life. It’s another thing to know that Jesus He died for my sins and paid the full price for my forgiveness and salvation. Most Christians are there, and not much further.
But it's a whole other thing to understand and to live out the reality that the Holy Spirit is here now. Right here. Right now. He works in your inner spirit and works in you all day and all night, 24/7. He wants you to be filled with Him and to STAY filled with Him. The Christians who were filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts Chapter 2 were also the same ones who were refilled with the Holy Spirit in Acts Chapter 4. Ephesians talks about “being filled” as in continually being filled with the Holy Spirit.
We tend to leak. The question today is, ARE you filled with the Holy Spirit? Or are you just going through the motions? I can tell you, you don’t want to get caught in a situation where you need to be filled but you show up running on empty.
If that’s ever happened to you, where God has put you in a situation that needs every bit of the power of the Holy Spirit but you show up empty. I’ve had that happen and I never want to be in that situation again.
I don’t ever want to be “not filled.” I never want to be a Christian that when God puts me in a position to be used by Him, to be a blessing but I’ve been to busy with my own things that I hadn’t spent time in His presence enough to be filled to overflowing. I always want to be available and filled and well equipped for what God sets before me to do. I pray that you realize that you need to talk to the Holy Spirit more, because that’s where change happens, it’s where ministry happens, it’s where revival happens.
Without the power of the Holy Spirit, all we have is doctrines, rules and regulations but no power. But when we draw on Him, we know there will be nothing that you or I face that he will not help you overcome. There will be no sin that you pulls on you that He will not pull off of you. There is no slippery ground that He will not lift you up from and put your feet on the solid ground.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t make you act crazy. So many people are scared of the Holy Spirit because maybe they were in a church where the people were out of control and acting crazy and shouting and rolling around on the floor and twitching. That isn’t the Holy Spirit. That may be someone’s REACTION to the Holy Spirit, but it isn’t the Holy Spirit Himself. Like you, I desperately need the Holy Spirit to have full access to my life day and night.
We don't need more comfortable church services and messages. We need the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit to move on peoples’ hearts. We’re in a culture that thinks people are gonna get saved if we can have a better light show and a more powerful band and a slick presentation.
I’m not interested in that. We're called to help people meet the Holy Spirit and changing because of him and him alone. He gives hope to people like me, because I know I don’t have what it takes to fulfill the call of God on my life. But I do trust the Holy Spirit. I know it's amazing what the Holy Spirit can do with somebody who will get on their knees every day and say, “Lord, use me. Fill me. I’m at your disposal.”
You might be like me in that. If you’re desperate for God to use you but you don't feel like you have what it takes. I’m here to tell you that the Holy Spirit does and that’s what matters. He will bless your thoughts, your actions, your day-to-day life.
It's my job as a Pastor, as a man of God, as Christian to get into the presence of God and say, “Lord, I need you to bless my life and the works of my hands, the thoughts and intentions of my heart. this. Bless what you are having me to do. You saved me, you’ve changed my life, and I owe you the best. I'm bringing it to the altar for you to bless and use. I'm want to pray that the Holy Spirit will kindle a fire in your heart again and reignite in you a passion for God and the things of God. I pray for supernatural blessing and grace and anointing on your life. I pray that the Spirit of God will continue to open up your eyes and your heart. I pray that His fruit will be revival in your life, in your home and wherever you go.