HOLY SPIRIT POWER

HOLY SPIRIT POWER!

The Holy Spirit is God working in you and with you to reveal God’s plan and power to you. These gifts are yours. How are you going to get them?

When we are born God breathed life into us ... Gen. 2:7 And with that breath we received a desire to know our Heavenly Father. We feel a void in our lives until we are connected with Him again. We make choices in our lives and part of us wants to be with God. The other part wants to partake of everything this world has to offer and push God aside. But God keeps becoming us. A small voice inside is saying “come to me.” If we keep saying no and keep walking away from God, the voice will get weaker each time and eventually we will not be able to hear it anymore. God will have given you over to your evil ways. However ... if you listen ... Romans 8:14, Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

These people are led to Jesus and the word of God. Through the word we find the secret of life that the Father intended for us. How to get to The Father. Have eternal life. And be kings here on earth ... LOOK TO THE WORD!! THERE IS THE ANSWER!! John 3:5, No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and of Spirit. to be, “Born Again”. Romans 10:9, Confess that Jesus is Lord. That He died for our sins. That God raised Him from the dead. And we do that by using the faith that we receive when we hear the word of God preached. For faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:17 You get three gifts immediately when you confess your sins and give your life to Jesus ... 1) You are forgiven of your sins. Clean slate. God will think of them no more. 2) Eternal life, to live with Jesus forever. 3) The filling of The Holy Spirit ...

HALLELUJAH!

WHO OR WHAT IS THE HOLY SPIRIT?

The third person of the triune (being three in one Godhead). There is only one God. He is the Father in Creation. The Son in Redemption. The Holy Spirit which is the working arm of God. All through the bible you see miracles and God’s work being done. God and Jesus both used The Holy Spirit. Here are two. Matt. 1:18 Mary was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Matt. 12:28 Jesus cast out demons by the Spirit of God. There are 131 accounts of the Holy Spirit working in the Old and New Testament. Now Jesus has made The Holy Spirit available to us as the Body of Christ. Which is the Church. Thank you Jesus.

SOME OF THE THINGS WE GET WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Romans 8:11, If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit. Romans 8:16, The Holy Spirit testifies to our spirit that we are God’s children. Romans 8:17, As God’s children we are co-heirs with Jesus. We share in Christ’s suffering and we also share in His glory. Just think we are God’s children co-heirs with Jesus. How much God must loves us because of what He has planned for us. And the price He paid for us with Jesus’ blood ... How wonderful our life will be both here and throughout eternity. All we have to do is follow our brother Jesus and claim the promises that God has given us.

OH THANK YOU FATHER.

Eph. 1:13, Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit ... The Holy Spirit is God’s seal that we belong to Him and His deposit guaranteeing that He will do what He promised. The Holy Spirit is like a down payment, the validating signature on the contract. Shows the genuineness of our faith, and proves that we are God’s children. What we experience now is a taste of the total change we will experience in eternity.

Romans 8:26, The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, by praying for us in groans that words cannot express. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in accordance with God’s will ... Just think about that a minute ... As a believer, you are not left on your own to cope with problems ... Even when you do not know the right words to pray, the Holy Spirit prays with and for you, and God answers ... With God helping you pray you do not ever need to be afraid to come before Him ... Ask the Holy Spirit to help you and then bring your request to God with the knowledge that God will hear it and always do what is best for you. You were purchased with the blood of Jesus. So you know how much God loves you and will only do what is best for you.

John 16:8, He will convict the world of guilt. Did you ever start to do something and a voice inside you says stop? Yes we all have. That is the Holy Spirit trying to guide you into the will of God. He is trying to stop you before you get into trouble. Sometimes trouble comes in very pretty wrappers and it is hard for us to see. The Holy Spirit looks right through it and says slow down buddy, your heading for a fall if you go that way. Thank you Jesus, for this wonderful gift.

John 16:13, He will guide you into all truth. He is our guide. He will show the way to the truth ... Have you ever been in a church and knew what the minister was saying was not right? I mean now the minister should know more than we do right? Not always ... He is human also and the devil can get him screwed up just like us. So the Holy Spirit is saying, look that up, prove it. And He will help you find it in the word. When I was younger I would get these feelings sometimes in church and didn’t know why ... I would sit and listen to a bunch of garbage. Like who would be rude and walk out? Today if I’m visiting a church and I find that they are not going by the word, I leave. I do not want my head filled with anything that is not scriptural.

John 16:14, Jesus said, “He (The Holy Spirit) will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.” So the Holy Spirit is our teacher ... He is giving us knowledge that belongs to Jesus ... What’s more that means we will know what the Father knows ... Because the Father has made everything known to Jesus. John 16:15 says, “All that belongs to the Father is mine” Just think on the enormity of that!!!!!!! Jesus is feeding The Holy Spirit all of His knowledge to give us ... IF!!!!!!! The big if ... We accept this gift and listen to what the Holy Spirit is telling us and leading us too.

The above items are things we get when we accept Christ as our saviour. Plus the Gifts of the Spirit ... And the Fruits of the Spirit ... This is just my opinion. .. because some ministers think that you either get all of the Holy Spirit’s blessings or you don’t get any. And by not having the Holy Spirit you are not saved until you get it ... They relate having the Holy Spirit with having the gifts of the Spirit ... So if you do not have the gifts than you do not have the Spirit. However I have seen a lot of Denomination members who do not have the gifts of the Spirit.

Are they saved???? I believe that you can only receive what you have the faith to receive ... And faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:17 Paul writes in Acts 19:2, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” So if you have never been preached to about the gifts of the Spirit you will not receive the gifts. I think you lack the Faith, to receive these gifts ...I think that if you have been baptised and asked Jesus to come into your lives you are saved and have the Holy Spirit ... However you do not know about the gifts ... The gifts then would be like someone putting a million dollars in a bank for you and didn’t tell you about it ... the money is yours but you don’t know about it or where it is ... You will never be able to get this money until someone tells you about it and where it is ... or you read about it and find the location ... So by preaching or reading the word, when you do hear of the gifts of the Spirit and have faith in them, if you ask for them, you will receive the gifts.

So I think you can be saved, but not have all of the gifts and the power that Jesus would like for you to have. I am saying this because of my experience with Jesus ... I was a Christian for many years before I had the gifts of the Holy Spirit ... At anytime if I had died I knew that I would be saved ... The Spirit was guiding my life ... But I had no gifts to my knowledge ... I had severe heart problems and prayed for healing and Jesus answered my prayers and healed me. I had the feeling that the Holy Spirit was in me ... And I thought that was it ... There isn’t anymore. But because of my healing I started reading the bible like never before ... Jesus had healed me ... How did He do it??? Could I learn how He did it, so that I could show others how to be healed???? And so I started seeing Jesus in a new way. He wasn’t just my saviour ... The person that was to lead me to Heaven ... He was going to show me how to overcome this world we live in now...

That may be old news to a lot of you. But to a man who just got a new heart this was like the first moon landing. The bible was no longer something to read ... It was going to be my new way to live. So I studied Jesus like never before, and asked Jesus to help me understand His word ... I know now that He gave the job to the Holy Spirit and said “Show him the way. Let’s see what this boy can do.”

What did Jesus have??? Luke 4:14, Jesus returned to Galilee in the Power of the Holy Spirit ... John 14:10, Jesus said, “It is the Father living in me that does the work.” And what did Peter have??? Acts 3:6, Peter saw a cripple man at the gate Beautiful and said to him, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ, walk ... and the beggar got to his feet and praised the Lord. So Peter received the gifts of the Holy Spirit ... (The Father living in him.) And how about us?? John 14:12, Jesus said, “ I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing ... He will do even greater things than these ...

GREATER THINGS THAN JESUS?? THAN WE MUST BE ABLE TO GET THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN US ALSO ... (The Father living in us.) WHICH MEANS WE CAN ALSO HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT JUST AS PETER AND THE DISCIPLES DID ... AND ALL THROUGH ACTS WE READ ABOUT THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT AND PEOPLE BEING BAPTIZED IN THE HOLY SPIRIT...

So alone in my bedroom I ask Jesus ... I said Jesus, I have read about the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the bible ... I have read your words about the gifts of the Spirit ... Healing ... Speaking in other tongues ... Miraculous powers ... If this is meant for me I WANT IT!!!! The power of the Holy Spirit immediately came over me. A love and close connection with Jesus that I had never had before and I started praising God and speaking in tongues. I now knew that I had been a baby Christian. And that God had taken me to a new level ... Where I could now talk directly to Him and He could speak clearly to me ...

OH THANK YOU JESUS FOR SUCH A WONDERFUL GIFT ... YOU SAID YOU WOULD NEVER LEAVE US, YOU WOULD ALWAYS BE WITH US. NOW I KNOW YOU ARE ALWAYS WITH ME ... THERE IS A TANGIBLE SPIRIT, THAT I NOW HAVE NO DOUBT IS LIVING INSIDE ME ... AND YOU CAN USE ME MORE EFFECTIVELY IN HELPING YOUR PEOPLE. BECAUSE YOU HAVE GIVEN ME THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT!

SO NOW IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, LET’S ALL GET READY TO MOVE OUT OF KINDERGARTEN AND TAKE OUR PLACE AS ADULT CHRISTIANS.

BEING BAPTIZED IN THE HOLY SPIRIT! AND RECEIVING ALL OF THE SPIRITUAL GIFTS - THE POWER GIFTS

Acts 1:5, John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:8, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you ... 1 Cor. 12:4, There are different kinds of gifts but the same Spirit. Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith, (by hearing the word we are all given a measure of faith. This Faith is an unusual measure of trust in the Holy Spirit’s power), Healing, Miraculous powers, Prophecy, Distinguishing spirits, Different tongues, Interpretation of tongues.

THESE GIFTS ARE YOURS ... HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET THEM????

You must go to a church where these are taught ... Look for a Full Gospel, Pentecostal Church, or a church where the gifts of the Spirit are taught ... Hear the words of God declaring these gifts. See other Christians that have these gifts and know that God treats us all equally. If they have them, you can have them. When you have faith for the gifts you can receive them by your pastor laying on hands. As the disciples did. Or you can read and study the word of God. Knowing God’s word is true, if He says it is yours ... IT IS YOURS!! Or like in my case it was a combination of all three ... I had heard about the gifts in church. Also read about the gifts. So I asked Jesus and received. That is also scriptural.

Luke 11:13, If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. Acts 1:8, Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witness to the ends of the earth.” So Jesus can give you the Holy Spirit directly. Start developing strong Christian friends. You will find what you are doing is not so strange when you find other people doing the same thing. It is hard to fly with eagles, when you are surrounded by turkeys ...

I had always prayed alone, or as a large group in church. But one day I was asked to attend a prayer meeting with a small group of Christians from the town I live in. They basically wanted to have a 40 day fast before Easter and meet one day a week to pray for our community ... Timidly I said, “Sometimes I pray in tongues.” They said, “So!” I said well I’ll be quite so I won’t bother anyone. They said, “Why??” I went to the prayer meeting. With people from several denominations. They were just like me. They prayed in the natural and they prayed in the Spirit. They must have thought that I was crazy for asking the questions that I did. To them what I was doing was perfectly normal.

THERE IS NOTHING A CHRISTIAN CANNOT DO WITH THE INDWELLING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT!! MARK 16:17, AND THESE SIGNS WILL ACCOMPANY THOSE WHO BELIEVE; IN MY NAME THEY WILL DRIVE OUT DEMONS; THEY WILL SPEAK IN NEW TONGUES; THEY WILL PICK UP SNAKES WITH THEIR HANDS; AND WHEN THEY DRINK DEADLY POISON, IT WILL NOT HURT THEM AT ALL; THEY WILL PLACE THEIR HANDS ON SICK PEOPLE AND THEY WILL GET WELL.

You read Mark 16 and it sounds pretty scary. Like picking up snakes and drinking poison. Well Jesus doesn’t mean for you to go around doing that. However what He is saying is that things of this world will not hurt you. Sometimes I go to pray for a sick person with a very bad disease ... My son will say don’t go there. What if you caught it???? If I can drink poison certainly Jesus is going to protect me from a disease ... If I am doing God’s work I never fear that He is not there with me and that He will protect me in all ways. If the General of the army was sending troops into battle he would arm them with whatever they needed to succeed in the mission and come out alive. Jesus is smarter than any General and He certainly loves me and will protect me more than the General will.

THERE IS POWER IN THE HOLY SPIRIT!!!!!!!!

Luke 24: 49, Jesus said, He would clothes us with the power from on high. Acts 1:8 Again Jesus says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” 1 Thes. 1:5 Because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction.

2 Tim. 1:7, God did not give us a Spirit of timidity, but a Spirit of power, love and self discipline. Again let me tell you when you are a born again Christian, you have power ... Being born again and filled with the Holy Spirit is like walking around with a 357 magnum on your side. But if you don’t know where the bullets are you are not going to do much damage to the enemy. Jesus wants you armed and ready because He wants you to follow Him!! John 14:12-14, Jesus said, “I will tell you the truth anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask anything in my name and I will do it.

To me that is the most powerful verse in the bible ... For Jesus to use you. To do His work here on earth is mind boggling enough ... But He said YOU would do even greater things ... How are you going to do it???? Certainly not with your natural power. Only through Jesus ... And with the power of the Holy Spirit ... Praise God!!!!! Jesus said, “ I am the word!” Know the word and how to use it. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, there is nothing on this earth you cannot conquer. Thank you, Jesus!!!

Let me tell you of a experience I had while out doing my ministry. A Pastor friend of mine ask me to go see a friend of his in the hospital, Charlie, who had a very serious heart condition. He had a friend in the room with him who was visiting as I came in. I found out a few days later that the friend had been out of work for a while with a ulcerated stomach. Although at the time he said that he just didn’t feel to well. So I said if he wanted he could just listen along as I talked to Charlie ...

So I started going through my list of things that Jesus had told me you needed to be healed with Charlie. When I was about half way through I asked Charlie what he did for a profession. He said, “I’m a minister.” I said I’m sorry here I am asking you these questions and you know all the answers. I’ll just stop and we can pray together. Charlie said, “No I want to hear all you have about healing.” So I continued. And took hold of Charlie’s hand and started to pray for his healing ... When I did it was like a blanket of love fell over us. Tears came to my eyes and tears came to Charlie’s eyes. I told him how he was going to get well. I told him how much I loved him and how much he meant to me. There is no way to tell you the amount of love that I had for Charlie. When I finished praying, I told him and his guest goodbye and left ...

I drove home and on the way home I replayed the scene several times in my head and said this is ridicules, I just met this man, I can’t love him like I said that I did ... Then it was clear. It wasn’t me it was Jesus. Telling Charlie he was going to be OK and how much he loved him ... When I got back home I called the hospital and talked to Charlie. I told Charlie, I loved him like a Christian brother but I didn’t love him like I was telling him. I wanted to let him know that was Jesus and how He felt about him.

That has been a good two years ago and Charlie has had no more heart problems and he preaches most everyday. Later, Charlie, told me that the visitor had been immediately cured of his ulcerated stomach and went back to work ... That was not me ... That was Jesus using me to say His words. The blanket of love we felt over us was the Spirit of God filling that room./p Matt. 10:20, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 1 Cor. 2:4, My message was not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirits power.

FRUITS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ...

Galatians 5:22, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. The more of these you are seeing in your life the closer you are coming to what God meant for you to be.

Does these things remind you of anyone???? Certainly, Jesus ... The Holy Spirit is transforming your spirit into the likeness of Jesus.

2 Cor. 3:18, And we with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. In this world I’m afraid we will never completely make it. But He is preparing us for the next life. Our real life, our eternal life with Him. He is not changing your personality. You will always be you. But you will be able to think with the mind of Jesus. And share the fruits of the Spirit with all your brothers and sisters. And with Jesus. Himself.

Be strong in the Lord and the power of His might. Eph. 6:10 Just fill yourself with the Spirit and cover yourself with the promises of God ... And delight yourself in the Lord. Psalm 37:4 Because that is what Jesus died for ... So you may have life and have it more abundantly. John 10:10 and; May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. 2 Cor. 13:14

This is just a few of the main things that I have found out about The Holy Spirit. To know everything would take years of study and would be a gospel in itself ...

Ferd Sebastian