If you want to see greater manifestations of the anointing of God in your life and ministry, then learn to be more sensitive to and honor the presence of the Holy Spirit like you would a very special guest in your home. Be very careful to never grieve Him. Your conduct and your speech are vital in fulfilling this command. Always create an atmosphere that He will feel comfortable in and never take Him for granted.
A minister began doing some research into old manuscripts and found that the old English word was "Holy Guest" rather than Holy Ghost. And when he said that, it really ministered to me because that's what God was telling me. He said, "Learn to honor the presence of the Holy Spirit like you would a very special guest in your home."
Well, when you think of the Holy Ghost as a Holy Guest in your home, is it going to affect the way you talk? Is it going to affect your conduct? Is it going to affect the way you treat your spouse? We keep wanting to hear the voice of the Lord and experience the manifestations of the glory of God but are we creating an atmosphere that He is comfortable in?
Romans 8 (The Message translation) says, "But if God Himself has taken up residence in your life, then you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of Him. Anyone of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive and present God Who raised Jesus from the dead moved into your life, He'll do the same thing in you that He did in Jesus. When God lives and breathes in you, and He does, as surely as He did in Jesus, you are delivered from that dead life. With His Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's. So don't you see, that we don't owe this old, do it yourself lifestyle, one red cent. There is nothing in it for us. Nothing at all. The best thing to do is to give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit. beckons. There are things to do and places to go."
What's He saying? Let's get on with being led by the Holy Spirit. There are places to go and things to do. This resurrection life you have received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant. Greeting God with a child like, "What's next, Papa?"
One Believer's mother has been a great intercessor ever since she was filled with the Holy Spirit many years ago. She prayed the entire family into the kingdom of God. She said that when she wakes up in the morning, before actually getting out of the bed, she'll take her pillow and prop it up against the headboard and lift her hands and begin to praise God and say: "Jesus, Your Word says I am to give my body to You as a living sacrifice. Today, these eyes are Your eyes, this mouth is Your mouth, and these ears are Your ears, these hands are Your hands and these feet are Your feet. Where do You want Your feet to go? What do You want Your hands to do and what do You want Your mouth to say?"
Throughout the day, she'll be led by the Holy Spirit. God will lead her to different people to minister to and she'll just flow in the Spirit. That's adventurous! And once you've experienced it, then your attitude is, "What's next, Papa? What else do we get to do?"
It takes fellowship with the Holy Spirit to become sensitive to His leadership and to hear God's voice clearly. Within the Spirit of man is the God given ability to flow with Him. This shouldn't be something foreign to a believer. It should be the most natural thing to the believer, because we've been recreated in the image of God. We have His divine nature. We have the very same Spirit in us that raised Christ from the dead. We've been careful to feed our body and build it up. We've been careful to train our minds and build them up, but the spirit man we've left almost totally undeveloped.
The reason we aren't seeing any more action in our lives from the Holy Spirit is because, for the most part, our words have bound us and snared us.
There is no telling how many Christians go around saying, "God never talks to me." Those words are snaring you. Proverbs 15:4 says, "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life but perverseness therein is a breech in the spirit. Words affect your spirit." The mind can cast them aside but the spirit absorbs them.
I will never forget the day I heard Kenneth Hagin say, "You are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body." That was the first time I realized that I was three parts. Nobody had ever told me that. And then, things in the Bible started making more sense.
I began to think, "the real me was on the inside. my spirit has been recreated in the image of Almighty God and the spirit man craves to follow God." But it will not reach the place of ascendency if you don't train it, develop it, feed it, and exercise it. And that comes from feeding on the Word of God, and fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit.
Success in our lives hinges on our ability to flow with the Spirit of God. Jerry Savelle said, "All it takes is one idea from God to change every negative situation in your life. Begin confessing throughout the day, 'My spirit attracts God ideas.' One God idea can turn little into a fortune."
Can you imagine that? Your spirit was created to hear God's ideas! Your spirit craves fellowship with God. Your body may not. Your body may not want to get up early to pray and read the Word. Your body may not want to stay up late. But you'll just have to tell your body what to do instead of your body telling you.
Your mind may say, "We've prayed for an hour and we haven't heard anything." Tell your mind to shut up. Tell your body to shut up. Your spirit man is willing, but your flesh is weak. The more you train yourself to be diligent about your time with the Lord, then the more sensitive you become to God's voice and you'll attract God ideas. They'll begin to come to you.
You could be driving down the freeway, and a God idea will come to your spirit. In the middle of the night, you could hear the voice of the Lord giving you a God idea. You could be eating breakfast and suddenly something will "dawn" on you. The Bible says, "The entrance of God's Word brings light." A God idea! Your spirit was designed by God to attract God ideas.
When you become sensitive to God's voice, you're going to hear counsel that you've been needing. You're going to hear the wisdom of God that you've been needing. You're going to get God ideas for your business or ministry. You may even be awakened in the middle of the night with the answer that you've been needing for the last six months! You're going to become more sensitive to God's voice and to the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Before you turn that television on, ask yourself, "Would my Holy Guest watch this with me?" Before you get so eager to get into strife with someone, just stop for a moment and say, "Would my Holy Guest engage in this conversation?"
You are going to find out that acting on this revelation is going to change your lifestyle, and it's going to be a blessing to you. Begin honoring the Holy Spirit like you would a very special guest in your home through your conduct, your speech and your lifestyle. I like to call it "Practicing the Presence of the Holy Spirit."
Always be aware of His presence with you, and endeavor to make a comfortable atmosphere for Him. Then, you'll be sensitive to hear God's voice clearly and receive the God ideas you've been needing.
Showing posts with label Holy Spirit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holy Spirit. Show all posts
Monday, June 6, 2011
REVIVAL: Nothing More, Nothing Less, Nothing Else
We're coming up on one of the biggest revivals this world has ever seen: the former and the latter rain coming together to bring in the end-time harvest.
What an amazing time that will be.
Now when I say "revival," I'm referring to more than the local church body having a good time in the presence of God. I'm talking about something more than the entire church body being healed or filled with joy. Revival impacts those outside the church. It goes into the public school systems, into the city, into the workplace. It lights the kind of fire that spreads beyond the four walls of a church. Revival touches the world.
Habakkuk describes what revival looks like:
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth. O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy. God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. (Habakkuk 3:1–3 KJV)
If the earth is "full of His praise," that means people other than a small company of believers are beginning to recognize and offer their own praise to God. Revival reaches beyond the local church company and affects the whole earth.
And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet. (Habakkuk 3: 4–5 KJV)
Burning diseases and pestilence depart before Him by virtue of the outpouring of His power and His great glory filling the heavens. In other words, the curse in the earth is rolled back. This is what revival does. It brings such an awareness of the person of God in such a release of the power of God that it rolls back the curse and its effects in the earth. The whole earth begins to praise God in recognition of who He is and the power that He can bring to bear in their lives. This is what we desperately need—not just individually, but also corporately. Revival is the only thing that's going to change this nation.
Acts 2:16–21:
But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
"The last days." That statement has confused a lot of people. The last days? You mean Peter thought that the beginning of the New Testament Church was the last days? We're still hanging around two thousand years later.
Most scholars agree that this is a reference to what we call the church dispensation or the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. That's the age we're living in right now. According to 2 Peter 3:8, one day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. When Peter spoke, he was in the beginning of the last days.
James 5:7
Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. (KJV)
In other words, the Lord’s timetable is such that when the harvest is ripe as a result of the early and the latter rain, that’s when the end will come and the Lord will return. I think the picture that is painted clearly by scripture is that the end of this age is going to be typified by two great events: an outpouring of God’s Spirit (one that you'll either be a part of or you'll watch from the outside) that will be so great it will bring in an end-time harvest.
This is what the Lord is waiting on to fill the house of God and bring as many believers into the fold as possible. After revival has come, the Lord will return and the church age will end. Today is the beginning of the days of an outpouring of God.
Revival is going to include a lot of different supernatural elements. Peter talked about some of them: visions, dreams, prophecy, signs, and wonders in the heavens above and in the earth, natural events that are going to make men's eyes open wide. A number of different things will occur. You may have a preconceived idea in your head of what revival looks like. If so, you need to consider the words of the prophet Isaiah:
Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:18–19 KJV)
It's easy to look back on the old things God did and expect Him to move in the same way. Throughout the ages, we've had wonderful moves of the Spirit and heard of many wonderful revivals. We've experienced laughter, joy, healing—all of which were awesome—but we can’t dictate to God what revival should look like. Even though many lives were touched during these revivals, we can't look back.
We must avoid preconceptions about what a move of God looks like. Every revival or outpouring is different. From the day of Pentecost to the Azusa Street revival to the healing revival in the 1940s and the charismatic renewal in the 1970s, virtually every revival has had a different theme with different manifestations of the Spirit being emphasized. We mustn't put God in a box by placing expectations on Him of how we want Him to move. That is a trap we must avoid. God wants to do new things on the earth.
It’s Not Any Man
Another trap Christians fall into when it comes to revival is expecting a minister to give a performance. When a minister feels like he has to perform, everybody is headed toward the flesh and not the Spirit. It is a natural human response to look to a man, but it's something we must avoid.
How can you avoid placing a minister in a box and expecting him to give a performance? When you come to service, expect to hear from God. Don’t tell the Lord how He should speak to you. Simply expect to hear from Him. He might speak to you through the written Word. He might speak to you through preaching. He might speak to you through the inward witness. He might speak to you through somebody in the lobby on the way in or He may have somebody prophesy to you.
God will use a variety of different vessels or methods in order to speak to you and to bring His purposes to pass in your life. The most important thing is to come looking for God. Expect God to move in whatever way is needed, whether it’s through the preaching of the Word, prophecy, or ministry of the Holy Ghost in some other fashion. One week, you may dance all night long. The next week, you may sit quietly in His presence for an hour.
The Word presents us with hundreds of different possibilities of what a service may look like, and we need to stay within the perimeters of the Word. That’s where safety lies. We have a river of living water welling up from within us; the Bible says there is also a river that originates in heaven. I believe the meeting of these two rivers brings a move of God.
There are different ways the river of God can flow. Our task is to find the direction it is flowing. Identify the current. Get in the middle of that river and let it flow.
Brother Hagin used the analogy of getting in the flow of the Spirit to that of being in a canoe. Some ministers come up with their own plans of where they want to go in a service. When they do that, they wind up working very hard and making little progress. That can be compared to getting in a canoe and paddling against the current. It’s much easier to find out which way the current is flowing and then follow it. You might not even have to paddle. You just flow wherever the Lord is taking you.
Stir Up Your Hunger
It’s wonderful to think about God coming to earth and changing hearts and lives in ways we haven’t seen before. I love thinking about lives radically changed because of God's presence. It's important to remember, though, that as much as we may wish it would happen immediately, God’s not going to drop His Spirit on people who aren't ready for Him. We must prepare ourselves for this revival. We first have to be hungry for God—more than anything else in this world.
People in other countries are often desperate for the Lord in a way that is beyond our capacity as Americans to even comprehend. They have nothing, and the preaching of the Word can turn their desperation into a hunger for God. As a result, many of them typically see signs and wonders.
Americans have a hard time cultivating a hunger for God because they don't "need" anything. Much of America seems to mimic the church at Laodicea whom Jesus rebuked in Revelation chapter 7. The Laodiceans thought they were rich, increased with goods, and had need of nothing, but as Jesus pointed out to them, they were poor, blind, wretched, miserable, naked, and lukewarm. That paints a pretty vivid picture, doesn't it?
We have to come to a point where we recognize the utter futility of life without God (even in a nation as blessed as America) and let that begin to birth the hunger within us that will bring the Lord's glory and manifest presence to earth.
Revival begins in small pockets of believers who care enough and who are hungry enough to pray and be determined in their pursuit of God to contend for the glory and the presence of God regardless of the time constraints and challenges they face. Having these remnants of believers in the earth enables the Lord to respond with His presence and His power.
I'm not saying we can dictate to the Lord what to do by staying at church and praying until midnight until He shows up. We can't manipulate the Lord in that way. We're told in the Word, however, that we are to prepare the way of the Lord (Isaiah 40:3–5). There is a preparation that we as His covenant people can make that will enable His plans to unfold in a more effective way than would otherwise be true.
Yes, it is true some things are going to come in the fullness of time, but other things will come as responses to our hunger for the Lord. Simply put, if you don't see enough of God, the first place to check is your appetite for God. Is your appetite to serve God bigger than your appetite to serve the demands of your flesh?
What you're hungriest for is what you’re going to get filled with. If you're not getting filled with enough of the Lord, don't blame it on this ministry or that ministry. You and you alone are responsible for cultivating a hunger for God. Matthew 5:6 says
that if you hunger and thirst, you will be filled.
If we want to have the presence of God like other people have seen, it starts with us getting hungry for the Lord. We have to want it. We have to have a heart for it. When we expect revival and see the hand of God move in miraculous ways on this earth, the only thing left to do is plant ourselves right in the middle and let God take us where He wants us to go. Revival is the only thing that will radically change this world.
What an amazing time that will be.
Now when I say "revival," I'm referring to more than the local church body having a good time in the presence of God. I'm talking about something more than the entire church body being healed or filled with joy. Revival impacts those outside the church. It goes into the public school systems, into the city, into the workplace. It lights the kind of fire that spreads beyond the four walls of a church. Revival touches the world.
Habakkuk describes what revival looks like:
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth. O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy. God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. (Habakkuk 3:1–3 KJV)
If the earth is "full of His praise," that means people other than a small company of believers are beginning to recognize and offer their own praise to God. Revival reaches beyond the local church company and affects the whole earth.
And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet. (Habakkuk 3: 4–5 KJV)
Burning diseases and pestilence depart before Him by virtue of the outpouring of His power and His great glory filling the heavens. In other words, the curse in the earth is rolled back. This is what revival does. It brings such an awareness of the person of God in such a release of the power of God that it rolls back the curse and its effects in the earth. The whole earth begins to praise God in recognition of who He is and the power that He can bring to bear in their lives. This is what we desperately need—not just individually, but also corporately. Revival is the only thing that's going to change this nation.
Acts 2:16–21:
But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
"The last days." That statement has confused a lot of people. The last days? You mean Peter thought that the beginning of the New Testament Church was the last days? We're still hanging around two thousand years later.
Most scholars agree that this is a reference to what we call the church dispensation or the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. That's the age we're living in right now. According to 2 Peter 3:8, one day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. When Peter spoke, he was in the beginning of the last days.
James 5:7
Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. (KJV)
In other words, the Lord’s timetable is such that when the harvest is ripe as a result of the early and the latter rain, that’s when the end will come and the Lord will return. I think the picture that is painted clearly by scripture is that the end of this age is going to be typified by two great events: an outpouring of God’s Spirit (one that you'll either be a part of or you'll watch from the outside) that will be so great it will bring in an end-time harvest.
This is what the Lord is waiting on to fill the house of God and bring as many believers into the fold as possible. After revival has come, the Lord will return and the church age will end. Today is the beginning of the days of an outpouring of God.
Revival is going to include a lot of different supernatural elements. Peter talked about some of them: visions, dreams, prophecy, signs, and wonders in the heavens above and in the earth, natural events that are going to make men's eyes open wide. A number of different things will occur. You may have a preconceived idea in your head of what revival looks like. If so, you need to consider the words of the prophet Isaiah:
Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:18–19 KJV)
It's easy to look back on the old things God did and expect Him to move in the same way. Throughout the ages, we've had wonderful moves of the Spirit and heard of many wonderful revivals. We've experienced laughter, joy, healing—all of which were awesome—but we can’t dictate to God what revival should look like. Even though many lives were touched during these revivals, we can't look back.
We must avoid preconceptions about what a move of God looks like. Every revival or outpouring is different. From the day of Pentecost to the Azusa Street revival to the healing revival in the 1940s and the charismatic renewal in the 1970s, virtually every revival has had a different theme with different manifestations of the Spirit being emphasized. We mustn't put God in a box by placing expectations on Him of how we want Him to move. That is a trap we must avoid. God wants to do new things on the earth.
It’s Not Any Man
Another trap Christians fall into when it comes to revival is expecting a minister to give a performance. When a minister feels like he has to perform, everybody is headed toward the flesh and not the Spirit. It is a natural human response to look to a man, but it's something we must avoid.
How can you avoid placing a minister in a box and expecting him to give a performance? When you come to service, expect to hear from God. Don’t tell the Lord how He should speak to you. Simply expect to hear from Him. He might speak to you through the written Word. He might speak to you through preaching. He might speak to you through the inward witness. He might speak to you through somebody in the lobby on the way in or He may have somebody prophesy to you.
God will use a variety of different vessels or methods in order to speak to you and to bring His purposes to pass in your life. The most important thing is to come looking for God. Expect God to move in whatever way is needed, whether it’s through the preaching of the Word, prophecy, or ministry of the Holy Ghost in some other fashion. One week, you may dance all night long. The next week, you may sit quietly in His presence for an hour.
The Word presents us with hundreds of different possibilities of what a service may look like, and we need to stay within the perimeters of the Word. That’s where safety lies. We have a river of living water welling up from within us; the Bible says there is also a river that originates in heaven. I believe the meeting of these two rivers brings a move of God.
There are different ways the river of God can flow. Our task is to find the direction it is flowing. Identify the current. Get in the middle of that river and let it flow.
Brother Hagin used the analogy of getting in the flow of the Spirit to that of being in a canoe. Some ministers come up with their own plans of where they want to go in a service. When they do that, they wind up working very hard and making little progress. That can be compared to getting in a canoe and paddling against the current. It’s much easier to find out which way the current is flowing and then follow it. You might not even have to paddle. You just flow wherever the Lord is taking you.
Stir Up Your Hunger
It’s wonderful to think about God coming to earth and changing hearts and lives in ways we haven’t seen before. I love thinking about lives radically changed because of God's presence. It's important to remember, though, that as much as we may wish it would happen immediately, God’s not going to drop His Spirit on people who aren't ready for Him. We must prepare ourselves for this revival. We first have to be hungry for God—more than anything else in this world.
People in other countries are often desperate for the Lord in a way that is beyond our capacity as Americans to even comprehend. They have nothing, and the preaching of the Word can turn their desperation into a hunger for God. As a result, many of them typically see signs and wonders.
Americans have a hard time cultivating a hunger for God because they don't "need" anything. Much of America seems to mimic the church at Laodicea whom Jesus rebuked in Revelation chapter 7. The Laodiceans thought they were rich, increased with goods, and had need of nothing, but as Jesus pointed out to them, they were poor, blind, wretched, miserable, naked, and lukewarm. That paints a pretty vivid picture, doesn't it?
We have to come to a point where we recognize the utter futility of life without God (even in a nation as blessed as America) and let that begin to birth the hunger within us that will bring the Lord's glory and manifest presence to earth.
Revival begins in small pockets of believers who care enough and who are hungry enough to pray and be determined in their pursuit of God to contend for the glory and the presence of God regardless of the time constraints and challenges they face. Having these remnants of believers in the earth enables the Lord to respond with His presence and His power.
I'm not saying we can dictate to the Lord what to do by staying at church and praying until midnight until He shows up. We can't manipulate the Lord in that way. We're told in the Word, however, that we are to prepare the way of the Lord (Isaiah 40:3–5). There is a preparation that we as His covenant people can make that will enable His plans to unfold in a more effective way than would otherwise be true.
Yes, it is true some things are going to come in the fullness of time, but other things will come as responses to our hunger for the Lord. Simply put, if you don't see enough of God, the first place to check is your appetite for God. Is your appetite to serve God bigger than your appetite to serve the demands of your flesh?
What you're hungriest for is what you’re going to get filled with. If you're not getting filled with enough of the Lord, don't blame it on this ministry or that ministry. You and you alone are responsible for cultivating a hunger for God. Matthew 5:6 says
that if you hunger and thirst, you will be filled.
If we want to have the presence of God like other people have seen, it starts with us getting hungry for the Lord. We have to want it. We have to have a heart for it. When we expect revival and see the hand of God move in miraculous ways on this earth, the only thing left to do is plant ourselves right in the middle and let God take us where He wants us to go. Revival is the only thing that will radically change this world.
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