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He came:
- To lead us into the full knowledge of God
- To convince people of their sins
- To comfort us
- Reprove the world of sin
- Give us power
- Guides us
- Give us wisdom
- Gives us physical power
- Lets you prophesy
- Can depart from us
Joh 14:16 And I will
pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may
abide with you for ever;
This blows a whole in the theory of some that the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit is one being. Jesus said that He would ask the Father to
send the Holy Spirit, I.e. three independent Beings, but They are One in
that They never disagree and They act as a unit - just like husband and
wife should be, just like we should be one with Them.
The Holy Spirit is another Comforter, I.e. He is now
comforting us just like Jesus did. He is not here to judge us and punish
us when things go wrong, He is here to Comfort us.
The Holy Spirit is here to stay until Jesus comes again. we can get
Him by just asking the Father.
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Some people do not know and understand the
Holy Spirit, although He has an extremely important role to play in our
lives today.
John 16: 7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I depart; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send him to you.
I
could never understand it that Jesus said that it would be better for us
if He went back to heaven, otherwise the Holy Spirit could not come. How
can it be better for us to have Jesus in heaven? If we had a problem
with religious issues, we could just fly to Jerusalem and ask Him. If we
were sick, we could just fly Jesus out to our nation and He could heal
all of us. But Jesus understood what could happen if we all allowed
His Spirit to take over our lives.
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Luk 11:13 If ye then, being evil,
know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit
to them that ask him?
Any person asking for the Holy Spirit to
come into their lives, will receive the Him. The only prerequisite is
that you are born again (I.e. that you told God that you accept Jesus as
your Lord and Saviour, that you know you cannot please God out of
yourself, that you need Jesus to take your sins away and the Holy Spirit
to guide you in living a life of thankfulness to God).
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John 16:8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;
10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
It
is the work of the Holy Spirit to convict the people of the world that
they are sinning because they do not believe in Jesus. It is our work to
show them the love that we have for one another so that they can see
what it means when we say that Jesus first loved us. This means that we
do not have to tell the world that they are sinners - they know that
because the Holy Spirit is telling them. We need to show them how they
can now get out of this mess. We also need to understand that the only
sin man is responsible for, is not believing in Jesus Christ. This is
what they will be condemned for forever. All other sins can be cleansed
by the blood offering of Jesus. It is the work of
the Holy Spirit to convict the world of righteousness. We are not under
the control of Jesus in the sense that He is on this planet in a
physical form checking that we conform to His requirements. Jesus has
gone to the Father and we no longer see Him, but still we live
righteously, guided by the Spirit of God. It is the work of the Holy
Spirit to convince the world of judgement. Satan was the prince of this
world, but he has been judged. It is now our work to show him that he is
no longer welcome on this throne. Jesus gave us the authority and
responsibility to rule the world and Satan is no longer the legitimate
ruler.
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Act 1:8 But ye shall receive power after the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses to me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the earth.
The Holy Spirit gives us power to be witnesses to Jesus. We
must be witnesses that Jesus came so that we might have life in
abundance. The tell-tale sign of a person who has not been filled by
the Holy Spirit, is that the person shouts Hallelujah! and Amen! the one
day, but as soon as something goes wrong, they become despondent. There
is nothing wrong or bad about people who act like this, it is just that
they have not yet received power, power that comes when the Holy Spirit
comes on you.
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Mr 13:11 But when they shall lead
you, and deliver you up, be not anxious beforehand what ye shall
speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatever shall be given you in
that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Spirit.
There will come a time that you will be charged, either by
friends, relatives, close family, your church or your place of work.
When this happens, your instincts will tell you to prepare for this
injustice against you and you will feel the urge to panic. Your mouth
will go dry and you might even wonder why God has forsaken you while you
were only serving Him. It is then that you need to take this verse and
meditate on it. This will be your opportunity to tell God: "Just like I
am forgiving these people, I want You to forgive me". It is then when
you need to take the Word of God seriously and not panic, but become
quite and calm so that you can hear His Spirit clearer. This experience
is to give you the opportunity to become stronger, and give the Spirit
the opportunity to talk through you. How often I go into
meetings where people attack me because they did not clearly understand
what I meant! This is the time when we have to listen to the Spirit and
give Him the opportunity to talk. If we talk, we will defend ourselves
and just make things worse. If we let the Holy Spirit do the talking, He
will convince the world of sin and even show the world what it is like
to be a child of the living God! We will become known as peacemakers
although it was the Spirit doing the talking. This is where the Spirit
does the work, but because people cannot see Him, they think we did it,
that we are smart, wise and even calm.
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While we were
attending one of the churches in South Africa, Ina and I were introduced
to the Holy Spirit. We found out that He could actually lead us, talk
with us and that He gave us gifts. The pastor of this congregation did
not believe in any of this stuff. Being young and eager after God, we
attended a course called "Determine your Gifts". We could not believe
that we actually received gifts from the Holy Spirit and could not wait
to share that with the congregation where we came from. Then, one day,
the pastor decided to take us up and said that he would prepare a sermon
on the Holy Spirit. We were exited! Early that morning, we pitched up at
the service, our Bibles in our hands, waiting for the sermon to start.
As he started speaking, we suddenly found that he was talking directly
against us and the gifts that we were talking about. It felt like a
bucket of cold water was poured out over us. Then he started talking
about the Holy Spirit. It was at this time that the Lord decided to
take action. An incredible strong wind came up and blew so hard that
nobody could hear what he was saying. The doors rattled and the windows
blew open, making an incredible racket. As he stopped, the wind
stopped.
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GEN 41:38 And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can
we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?
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JDG 14:6 And the Spirit
of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have
rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father
or his mother what he had done.
The Spirit of the Lord can give us physical power like
He gave Samson when he saw a lion that wanted to attach him. Samson
killed this lion bare-handed. This was the same lion that he came back
to and found honey in the carcass. Again the Spirit came
upon him and he killed 30 men, broke free from cords with which the 3000
men of Judah bound him with. They did this because they were scared that
their enemy would take vengeance upon them for what Samson did.
JDG 16:28 And Samson called unto the
LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me,
I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the
Philistines for my two eyes.
Another interesting thing is found here: The Lord
granted Samson his wish and thereby basically giving Samson the strength
to commit suicide. So does people who commit suicide go to heaven? Of
course they do - if they accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour.
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1SA 10:6 And the Spirit of the LORD
will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be
turned into another man.
Not only can the Holy Spirit cause you to prophesy, He
can also turn you into a completely new person, the person that God
designed you to be. The Spirit of God can make you do
many different things. One of them is to prophesy.
The Bible teaches us that we can be transformed by the
renewal of our minds. By listening to the Spirit and obeying His
commands, we change the way we think and therefore we change how we
react. From a very young age I could not keep myself from
purchasing things. This continued even after being born again. It would
get so bad that I would have so many new things in the garage that I
would throw some of them away while they were still new. I used one
credit card to pay off another one. To go to the post office was a trip
to hell! I absolutely dreaded the accounts that would arrive.
At first I was not quite sure what caused the change, but the Spirit
reminded me of the something that changed: At the beginning of each
month Ina would give me some pocket money for the month. I made SURE
that I had some money left at the end of every month. Before long, the
craze for purchasing rubbish disappeared. This was not the devil
or a demon, it was my flesh that did not have any self-control.
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1SA 10:6 And the Spirit of the LORD
will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be
turned into another man.
This is the saddest part of the whole thing - the Holy
Spirit can leave us and we will not even know that it happened. This
happens when we become arrogant and know exactly what everybody is doing
wrong. As a matter of fact, we can ask our spouses whether the Holy
Spirit has left us, and they will be able to tell. The problem is that
the Holy Spirit leaves so quietly that we do not even notice it.
The Holy Spirit left Saul and an evil spirit came upon him - without him
realising what has happened! This is why we should not neglect the
gathering of the saints and attend a local church, especially if we are
not willing to listen to our friends and spouses.
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Deut 30:14 But the word is very
nigh to thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.
It is not always easy to know what God is saying to us.
The most difficult job for a minister is to understand the difference between a
message for him / herself and a message for the congregation.
There is actually a very easy way to know when a message
is for us and not for the congregation, and that is when we develop a pet topic.
This is a topic that always seems to come up when we are in a discussion with
somebody. It seems to us as if everybody seems to have the same problem. We
cannot help it, before we know it, we are talking about it. God's Word is never
far from us - it is in our mouths and all we have to do is buy our own tapes.
The sad part is that there are so many people with the
same problem, that they all talk about the same thing. These people then come
together and start a new church, preaching about the thing that the Lord wants
them to sort out in their own lives - and a new denomination starts. Off course
it is without God's blessing, and therefore most denominations battle to get
enough funds to pay their pastors whom they have chosen to sooth their own ears.
Some churches concentrate on submission. Everybody needs
to submit to somebody and the role of the minister is like a father to a lot of
kindergarten children. Off course they get many versus in the Bible that tells
them that people have to submit to them and they control the whole show. The
problem is that this indicates that people who are running these churches are
not submitting to God. This is why God keeps on telling them to submit, but they
think that the message is for the church.
Then we get churches that keeps on telling their
congregation that they are sinners. This is because God has told the ministers
that they are sinners and need to be born again. Just look at a minister of this
type of church. The moment they come to repentance and accepts Jesus as Lord and
Saviour, they suddenly "forget" to tell the congregation that they are
sinners and all they can talk about, is getting born again.
We do not have to look for God's will. All we have to do,
is ask our friends or family what our pet topics are, and the chances are that
we will immediately be able to know what God's Word for us is.
For a long time I had an incredible burden to have the
power to heal, and all the Scriptures I could find was about power and healing.
Then came the cancer and I was faced with the real thing! What do I believe? Is
healing still for us today or is it just for some?
For a long time I could not visit any church, for the
churches around us did not believe that God would heal me. They knew He could,
but they were not sure whether He would. They tried to tell me that God's
thoughts are not our thoughts, but they should be our thoughts as well. I
battled to attend churches that did not preach healing - because that was what
God put on my heart. Now that I am healed, I love to go to churches that talk
about healing, but also about other things than healing alone.
We need to listen to the words coming from our mouths, and
this includes the criticism we have for other people. Especially of you are
enthusiastic about something, take care!
May the Lord give us each a friend that will assist us in
recognising the words that come from our mouths. I know the Lord has given me
Ina. May He give you somebody like Ina to assist you. Even if He has not done
that yet, He has given you the Holy Spirit to be there and comfort you and show
you the will of the Father.
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