Becoming Holy Spirit sensitive
Over the past month or so we have been speaking on revival and that for revival to take place, the Holy Spirit is needed. So what or who is the Holy Spirit.
SHOW VIDEO CLIP OF GHOST SHOWING UP
Is that not how some of us think that the Holy Spirit is why I can tell what the Holy Spirit is not.
HE IS NOT A VAGUE, ETEREAL SHADOW, NOR AN IMPERSONAL FORCE, HE IS NOT AN ‘IT’, HE IS NOT A DIVINE INFLUENCE, HE IS NOT A FLEECY WHITE CLOUD, HE IS NOT A GHOST OR A CONCEPT, NOR IS HE A FIGMENT ON ONE’S IMAGINATION, HE IS NOT A MYSTICAL IMPRESSION OR A MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE, HE IS NOT CONJURED UP BY A MEDIUM.
HE IS HOWEVER THE THIRD PERSON OF THE GODHEAD, THE HOLY TRINITY, HE IS GOD, HE IS A PERSON EQUAL IN EVERY WAY WITH GOD THE FATHER AND GOD THE SON.
Ok let me explain this, there is a major difference between a ghost and a spirit.
Spirits make you feel calm, comforted and reassured, they often appear in dreams or you may see them as an apparition.
Ghosts on the other hand leave you with an eerie feeling and makes you uncomfortable, they appear as shadows or mist, they may also be attached to an object or living person, maybe another word for this could be demon.
HOW AND WHEN ARE WE FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
When a person becomes born again by believing and receiving Jesus, God resides in that person through the Holy Spirit. It is impossible for you to become a Christian to understand the bible and other spiritual truths, to pray, to live a Holy life, to witness or do anything for the Lord Jesus without the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit has intellect, emotion and will.
The Holy Spirit entered you when you decided to give your life to Christ, to become a Christian. We need to continually ask the Holy Spirit to lead us, to guide us, to help us do the things that God wants us to do. When we are growing as Christians, we should allow the Holy Spirit to take control over more and more areas of our lives.
The Christians relationship with the Holy Spirit is both critical and progressive, we learn that the Christian life is a life of faith rather than a life of works and that one should work consistently in the power of the Holy Spirit.
We are a three part being:
Spirit: our spirit is what is born again when we make Jesus Lord of our life. It is where the Holy Spirit gently speaks to our spirit.
Soul: our soul is our mind, will and emotions, what we think, what we want and what we feel.
Body: our body is the vessel that houses the soul and spirit and will only do what we train it to do.
Our part is to learn how to let the Holy Spirit led us and in that is learning to become sensitive to the Holy Spirit.
Turn with me to Ephesians 4:25-32
No more lying, then! Each of you must tell the truth to the other believer, because we are all members together in the body of Christ. If you become angry, do not let your anger lead you into sin, and do not stay angry all day. Don't give the Devil a chance. If you used to rob, you must stop robbing and start working, in order to earn an honest living for yourself and to be able to help the poor. Do not use harmful words, but only helpful words, the kind that build up and provide what is needed, so that what you say will do good to those who hear you. And do not make God's Holy Spirit sad; for the Spirit is God's mark of ownership on you, a guarantee that the Day will come when God will set you free. Get rid of all bitterness, passion, and anger. No more shouting or insults, no more hateful feelings of any sort. Instead, be kind and tender-hearted to one another, and forgive one another, as God has forgiven you through Christ.
What does sensitivity mean:
It has two meanings:
1- Easily hurt, the bible calls it being touchy. We do not want to get hurt or get our feelings hurt. Some of us are over sensitive to things and make mountains out of molehills. You need today to make a change with the help of God as there are plenty of big things in our lives to deal with.
2- The one we are going to speak about is being aware of the needs and emotions of other people, let me expand on that, we need to be aware, and learn to know what grieves the Holy Spirit who is by this stage dwelling in you. What offends the Holy Spirit, what He likes and does not like, there are attitudes, conversations, behaviours that He does not like and our job is not to live on this planet after being born again to please ourselves but to please God.
Romans 12: Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
We live in a rude, crude, harsh, hard insensitive world, violence is everywhere, people are always angry, and always have no time. We start becoming like the world; the world has even come into the church and we have to say it over and over. We are in the world but we are not to be of the world.
We are here to be different, to be recognized as a child of Jesus. But alas we are not, why let us look at verse 30:
And do not make God's Holy Spirit sad; for the Spirit is God's mark of ownership on you, a guarantee that the Day will come when God will set you free.
We grieve the Holy Spirit, in other words, we make Him sad, vexed and what happens when we do that, the Holy Spirit withdraws now He does not leave us for in Deut 31:6 Jesus promises never to leave us or forsake us, but He will withdraw.
Let me explain something, we have the omnipresence of God which is God in His whole being is present at every point of our space, but we need the special manifest presence of God to do what we need to do for God.
I must have the anointing (special manifest presence of God) of the Holy spirit in my life to do what I do, it is not my lovely Afrikaans or my English or the cloths I wear but the anointing of God on my life that keeps you interested in what I am saying. God gives a person a special ability to do something with ease but that same thing would be impossible for someone else. I have had to learn how to work with the anointing, with the Holy Spirit, my attitude, my behaviour, the way I treat people determines whether the Holy Spirit will be released in my life or withdrawn.
Whatever you are or whatever season you are in at the moment of your life, you do all with the anointing that is in you already. You need to learn to work with, to co-operate with the anointing, if you hurt the Holy Spirit, He will withdraw.
Mmmm let me give you an example, Rosa and I have spent the whole day together, words come out and we argue, well by then I want to leave the room, or go to another area, I do not want to leave but just to get away, well the same with the Holy Spirit.
So what grieves the Holy Spirit?
- All sin, big and small. Attitudes, actions, emotions, words
- The worldliness, the flesh, what fills your life?
- Not trusting and neglecting God
- Anger, pride, die E EK
- Not loving your neighbour
- Satisfy our own desires, we do not consider them around us
- When we are disobedient to the voice of God
What happens when we grieve the Holy Spirit?
- We lose the sense of God’s love for us
- We lose the joy of our salvation
- We lose the peace of God
- We lose the assurance of God’s acceptance
- We are given over to the sin of the flesh
So are you feeling down, upset, nothing going right, well then where did you grieve the Holy Spirit that He withdrew from you.
Luke 2:41-48
Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they travelled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
Why do we think we can say or do whatever we want whenever and think that God will bless us? Learning to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit but to back off things that offend Him is a sign of spiritual maturity. Jesus gave us a new commandment to love one another as I have loved you. We seem to think that if someone mistreats us that we have the liberty to mistreat them back, not quite, it is us facing our own bad behaviour, humbling ourselves and repenting sets us free. Once we do that, the Holy Spirit comes back.
We go thru the motions of being a Christian while no longer walking in the Spirit and the fullness of the Christian life, we may live for years without the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives and not be aware of it, feeling empty and lonely, not satisfied. How many of us will actually take the time alone and get quiet before god and ask Him to see where we are grieving the Holy Spirit, then to change our ways.
I Thessalonians 5:13-23
Now we exhort you, brothers, warn those who are unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, support the weak, be patient toward all. See that none gives evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue the good, both towards one another and towards all. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophesying. Prove all things, hold fast to the good. Abstain from every appearance of evil. And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blamelessly at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
How many of us have stopped climbing toward the top of the mountain to meet with God? Perhaps God is calling you to get hiking again, to be filled with the Spirit again?
Let us now decide to wait on the Lord and release the Holy Spirit that is within us.
As you are sitting there, I really want you to seriously talk to God, prepare your heart and mind, Ask Jesus to baptise you in the Spirit.
Just as a matter of interest, who can speak in tongues and who cannot?
Hands up in the air, receive the Holy Spirit, if you feel your mind is clouded with doubts just praise the Lord, focus your mind on Him. Release your prayer language, you will feel the words bubbling up inside of you, your mind will not understand this just open your month and begin to speak.
Release the Holy Spirit’s manifest power that is within you.
