In the next few articles, I want to talk about knowing the Holy Spirit. Not just knowing who He is as the third part of the Holy Trinity, or know that there is a “Holy Spirit”. But rather knowing the purpose of Holy Spirit, knowing his plans, and knowing how he works to accomplish His purposes and plans. And also we’re going to look at the warfare that’s happening in the earth, and that warfare is aimed at robbing the Christian believer from walking in the “Spirit led” life.

There is an enemy that tries to oppose the fulfillment of God’s power and promises in the lives of God’s people.  And so we agree together, as the people of God, that the weapons of the enemy will not prevail against the righteous of the Lord, and no weapon formed against us shall prosper. And every weapon that rises up against us, or every tongue that rises up against us, we cast down by the authority of Jesus’ name. We now release the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit throughout the earth, we combat the powers of darkness and the works of the enemy that are trying to advance and birth fear or panic into the hearts of people. And so we claim our rights from the written word, that the power of God prevails through His people and through His church. Amen.

Ephesians chapter six tells us to be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. What is important to realize is that His power is working through His Spirit filled people. Paul goes on and tells us to put on the whole armor of God that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, and against the rulers of the darkness of this age. We wrestle against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Now, this is a foundational rudimentary truth from the Scripture, but it’s also rudimentary and foundational truth from which we must build our understanding concerning the role we play in the advancement of God’s kingdom on the earth.

And so understanding what God is doing and understanding the power of His Spirit and the power of his mind working through us, we need to understand the purpose of that is to destroy the dominion of darkness that has functioned on earth, and to cast down the authorities of the enemy that have worked in the earth, to oppose the people of God from establishing his kingdom on earth. And that is done through faith in, and the proclamation of the Word of God. It is done through prevailing in our stance upon the Word of God. And it’s done only when we learn to walk in the Lord, to be strong in Him, and to walk in the power of his might. We must have a good understanding of His purposes if we’re gonna advance his kingdom on earth.

Isaiah 59:19 talks about how God marveled that there was no intercessor. This verse is actually prophesying the coming of Christ, and the Holy Spirit raising up a standard against the enemy. In chapter 60, we read; “arise, shine, your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.” Amen, Christ is that light and His Holy Spirit filled people are that standard.

Now, in Zechariah, chapter four and verse six, it says, “so he answered to me, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord.” And then he goes on to talk about all of branches that are dripping with oil, and he goes on, and he prophesies about some things. And it talks about how he, that God, is going to expose and bring justice in the earth, he’s going to expose the liar and the perjurer, or the thief and the liar is going to be exposed and justice is going to be brought to them. Now, today, I’m not going to get into too much detail on the prophetic value of that. But I do want to just call to attention that these things are going on in the earth.

These last few verses that I’ve read, are showing us that the enemy is not a political party, the enemy is not a husband, or the enemy is not a wife. As Christians, we must learn to recognize how the spiritual forces of darkness are driving these battles and when we fight these things in the flesh we lose. Powers of darkness that are coming against the formation or the foundation of solid government, and attacking marriages, motherhood and attacking fatherhood, and attacking the powerful influence that those things were meant to bring.

And so there is a standard of the Spirit of God that’s being resurrected or being raised up, brought to life even. Not necessarily resurrected, but being raised up as an army and that power in that presence of God is working through people, it’s working through his church. And so we’re going to talk about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit a little bit. And we’re going to talk about the work of the Holy Spirit. And as we get towards Pentecost, which is three weeks from today, and maybe a little bit beyond that, we’re going to start talking about knowing, working with, partnering with the Holy Spirit of the Living God as His people, and following His voice that’s inside of us and walking in the power of his leading and the direction of his leading, as the people of God in this generation, so that we’re in partnership with the Holy Spirit working with the Holy Spirit and the Lord working with us confirming his word with signs and wonders following and we will see the kingdom of heaven established on Earth. How so? Through God’s Spirit led people…More next time!

As we talk today about knowing Holy Spirit, let’s build upon the idea of knowing who the God is that lives and works inside of us. It is important to understand not only that God is inside of us through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, but that this fact is what separates us as Christians from any other religion or people on the earth. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefor, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Jesus’ plan was always to have a people on earth who are filled with and led by His Holy Spirit. These are to be people through whom He can redeem the world via the preaching and teaching of His Kingdom gospel. A gospel that would be accompanied with supernatural signs and wonders following!

This is why Jesus emphasized that His disciples should tarry in Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high.  We read in the book of Acts chapter2 that the day of Pentecost had fully come and when the church was all gathered in one accord The Holy Spirit came upon them and they all began to speak in “other tongues” as the Spirit enabled them. It is from this Biblical occurrence that we see many “spirit” filled Christians referred to as “Pentecostals” howbeit, the label signifies different meaning to different people.

Jude 3 “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”

This exhortation from the brother of Jesus could arguably be referring to the “Born again” experience that Jesus asserted was the only way to enter the Kingdom of God. While other believers hold the understanding that Jude was referring to the consecrated and Spirit empowered life of the early Christian church.

God is wanting the church to arise with an earnest contending for the faith and power of His Spirit in this generation. He desires that we begin to contend for a move of the Holy Spirit for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that was actually birthed in the book of Acts chapter two!

The church was birthed in that upper room! Yes, the church was thought of before the foundations of the world. Planned for and looked forward to throughout the Old Testament, Conceived through the gathering of men, gestated through the discipleship of men and birthed through the life giving Baptism of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2, where these men were empowered to go forth in demonstration of the miraculous supernatural power of God, accomplishing amazing things whereverthey went, even in the face of impossible odds and violent opposition!

Then they staggered, stumbled and learned to walk out the commission of our faith until the revelations written in the epistles started to help mature the church and bring us into identity and understanding of what the purpose and inheritance of the church is on earth and in heaven. Where we now are intended to walk out the fulfillment of our inheritance to establish Christ’s Kingdom on earth! And that my friends can only happen to it’s fullest when one learns to fully surrender to and walk out life in partnership with  the power of God the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us!

Please return for the next post as we continue this study on knowing the purposes plan and power of Holy Spirit in the believer, in the church and throughout the earth!

Have you ever gone out somewhere and looked around to see so many broken, lost, and hurting people and wondered, Lord what do you want me to do?

This happened a while back as I went out to eat at a restaurant with my wife and one of our friends. The food was fantastic too, by the way. The funny thing was that the friendly young greeter/host/server was wearing a t-shirt with a bunch of words on it. The last words in the paragraph on his black shirt stated in big bold white font: “Lord Knows!” My friend asked the waiter if he was a believer and pointed to his shirt. With a big smile he said, oh no, I just have this shirt. Then he says what do you mean “believer?”

My friend says in Jesus, you know do you believe in Jesus Christ?

It was getting busy and the waiter had other customers to get to while we sat and checked out the menu. I looked around on this sunny Sunday afternoon and saw that there were a lot of customers who appeared to be coming in from the big church across the street. These were young people who were about the same age as the waiter. They all seemed caught up in their conversations with each other. I silently prayed, Lord, is there someone else in this place that I am supposed to reach with your healing or a word of encouragement? I could see people in the kitchen too and wondered if it was one of them…

The waiter came to take our order, we made some small talk. I found out that he was an international student who had attended a short time at both a christian school and had spent time in a Buddhist monestary while growing up. He asked about Jesus, “was he a real man, like Buddha?” He was curious but had to keep helping the other customers. He kept coming back and asking us more questions. “How do you know Jesus?”

This was it, this was the person who God wanted us to reach! We asked him if he needed any prayers answered or if any of the others working there did. He said no everyone is good. We told him that he can learn more by reading the Bible and told him that he could download an app on his phone. We exchanged contact information and then my friend made an offer for us to get him a Bible. He was very interested, so I made a bold promise, that I would come back and bring him a Bible…

I did get him a Bible and came back the next week with it. He was surprised and happy to see me. He couldn’t believe that I came back and that he has his own Bible now. He even gave me a complimentary drink as a thank you. I don’t know what God is doing with that whole interaction, but I pray that the seeds that were planted take root and grow!

I also pray that I see my new friend again and that we will all continue to advance the Kingdom of God by showing His love to reach each person on this earth. I encourage you to pray for God to show you, through His Holy Spirit, how to boldly declare the Love of Jesus throughout your daily interactions.