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Welcome to the First Internet...
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
POWER OF THE SPIRIT
THE POWER WITHIN US
Those of us who are believers have a great advantage in life, because we have some one to help us. It means that our opportunities for success and in whatever God calls us to do, we have a great advantage. It does not mean the world's success of more prosperity, more prominence more position. It does mean success in the eyes of God in discovering & pursuing the will of God for your life in the Power of the Holy Spirit. That's what God intends for every single one of us
Eph 3:14-21 (NIV)
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
He is talking about the power of the Holy Spirit...within us, But why do we fail? If you take these simple truths and apply them in your life, God will turn most of your defeats into something that is entirely different. We will still not always succeed at everything simply because we are a Christian. We live in a fallen world. Satan and all of his forces are in this world working against us, and we live and mingle and work among people who are often times jealous, covetous, prideful, angry, hostile, and people who are basically difficult to get along with. So it doesn't mean that we are going to succeed at every relationship and every thing in life. But for the most part, God will alter this continuous series of failures in your life.
The source of this power is something that is beyond and above...a supernatural strength. It is an emanation of the Holy Spirit that he releases in and through us. It is a Devine strength. It is a supernatural power. It goes beyond what man is born with. It is the Power of the Holy Spirit.
The Power of the Holy Spirit that does several things:
1) Illumine our minds: So that we can think the way God thinks, To understand the things of
God, and to understand scripture.
2) To enable our will: To make right decisions when we are being forced to make a decision.
3) Energize and strengthen our physical body: To do what we would normally not have strength to do, for when we need more than what the human body seems to be capable of producing will always be there.
4) Quickens our emotions: So that we can sense and feel emotions that our heart desires,
weather it's a Love, a joy, a peace, a gentleness, a goodness, a kindness, a
faithfulness...whatever it might be. To be able to feel love for people and to be able to be
at peace when difficulties and hardships and trials are facing us.
All of us have been in those circumstances and situations where for all practical purposes our human strength would be exhausted. We would be left laying frail and weak and helpless, yet somehow there seems to be this inner strength, this inner power that just keep us going and we didn't even feel tired. We didn't even feel worn. We didn't even feel weary...That is the Power of the Spirit of God within us. This is not some power that comes and goes. We are talking about that which God has provided in the person of the Holy Spirit and which is available for every single believer, all the time.
From our Spirit, which is made alive at salvation, The Holy Spirit releases his power through our mind, will and emotion and through our physical body. That is how he operates. That is the power within us. That is the power of the person of the Holy Spirit residing, living in our Spirit.
He releases this supernatural power in the direction which we need it at that moment:
If it is in our making a decision, it is in our mind to know the truth and in our will to make the
wise decision.
If it is in a time of physical strain and stress and hardship, he is there to energize our body and
lift us up.
We are able to Love when things are very difficult
We are able to have peace when everything around us is falling apart
We can be kind when people are persecuting us
The power of the Holy Spirit is this Devine supernatural energy that is directed and released on those occasions when the need arises. This is the gift of God to every single believer.
Those who don't believe are dead to the Spirit of God. At the moment of belief, when a person
receives Jesus Christ as their personal savior, one's spirit becomes alive by the presence of the Holy Spirit. That's what the new birth is all about. From that moment on, the Spirit of God begins to exercise his guiding, guarding, governing power in the life of that believer from the inner most man of the Spirit to the soul, mind, will & emotion, to the outer body.
Believers (you and I) relate to God by the Spirit. Our relationship to him through the Spirit is going to effect everything else in our life. When the Spirit of God is in control and guiding and governing your life (your soul), your mind, will & emotion are all under his control. He is releasing his power to make it possible for us to think wisely, to illumine our minds, to quicken our emotions, to energize our body, to enable our will...The way that we function in life, physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally. With the spirit of God living on the inside of us, his responsibility is to exercise that power in and through us so that you and I can be the persons that God wants us to be.
When we received Jesus Christ as our Lord & savior, the Holy spirit sealed us until the day of redemption. He sealed us with the very presence of the Holy Spirit himself...the Spirit of God. Every believer possesses the power and the potential to be Christ-like in their actions and their thoughts through the Holy Spirit.
We still fail over and over again when we are not exercising, not calling upon, not relying upon, not drawing from this inexhaustible well of supernatural power that is within us, available at every moment to meet every single need of our life. We must get in the habit of allowing the Spirit to lead every aspect of our lives.
We possess this awesome power within us because he knew we'd never make it. How many times have we failed as believers just living the Christian life? All of us have failed. And the tragedy is that we will fail again and again and again. Not because we have to, but because we're just natural and normal.
There are two primary reasons God sent the Holy Spirit to live within you and me and release his power within us:
1) To enable us to become the persons God wants us to be
2) To enable us to do the work God has called us to do
We're not talking about missionaries and preaching necessarily, but that may be included. We're talking about being a Godly mother and raising Godly children. You can't do it the way it ought to be done apart from the Holy Spirit. Weather you're a mother raising children or the president of this nation...both and everything in between, above and beyond that, need the Power of the Holy Spirit.
Without the Holy Spirit, we could never accomplish what God wants us to achieve and accomplish. Success in the eyes of God is discovering and pursuing the will of God in the Power of the Holy Spirit. It doesn't always mean you will achieve this success or that success to attain prominence, prestige, power and promotion in the eyes of the world. Some people seem to get along pretty well without God, but they're not really getting along. If you've never had a good taste of something that's really delicious, you don't know what you're missing till you have it. So people who think they're getting along pretty well, really aren't, because deep down inside, the peace is not really there, the joy is not really there. They're always striving and searching and looking and seeking and trying to fill it up with something else, when the only thing that can fill up your heart and satisfy you is the person of Jesus Christ.
God Loves you. He leads you. He wants you to believe in what you are doing...what God has called you to do. There are lots of people who try to do the Lord's work and try to do their own work (whatever it may be) in their own strength...and how fruitless, and how much time we waste, and how often we fail. We fail in doing the Lord's work. We fail in doing the vocations we're in. We fail in our relationships with other people. We fail because we choose to do it our way by our own strength.
The reason God sent the Holy Spirit is because all of us still have within us (who are believers) a lot of naturalness. Before you were saved, it was your nature to be disobedient to God. When Adam sinned there was a disconnection between man and God. Sin severed the power lines. Then Adam, and all who've been born after him, live in the flesh. We were born in the flesh, which is our naturalness...our five senses. We do what we want to do, what we feel like doing, what gratifies the flesh, what satisfies that natural part of man, which is man without God. This is why pride, and arrogance, and greed, and covetousness, and selfishness, and the like, dominate our society. Man's just doing what comes natural according to his five senses, apart from God. Once you become a child of God, that naturalness is set aside. At any moment we choose, we can begin to act like we used to act, because the naturalness (the flesh) is still with us from our pre-saved life, before salvation. Even as believers, with the Spirit of God in us, we still have the capacity to act just like the world acts. We either forget or fail to utilize the power of the Spirit within us, or don't completely trust the ability, the capacity, the power & potential of the Spirit to operate in our lives
The reason...the purpose for this awesome power that exists within us is because we are inadequate. Some people get hurt back in their childhood, or their school, or they get in a situation where they get emotionally damaged, so they grow up feeling like they are nothing, worth nothing, can't accomplish, can't achieve, not gifted, not talented. All of us are worthy in the eyes of God as far as being persons. He loves everybody.
How do we operate on the basis of that? If we feel like we can't, and it won't work, then what do we do? We will always act out according to the way we see ourselves. That's just life. You're not gonna change that. That is a principle. The way we see ourselves is the way we're gonna act out life...the way we're gonna live out our life. If you think you are nothing, and you can't, and you don't count, then you're gonna keep backing off of relationships in life and backing off of opportunities. If you know by the power of the Holy Spirit that God, even amidst your weaknesses and your frailties, that he will equip you and enable you to become and to do the things God wants you to do, then you're going to move forward in life. There are a lot of Godly people...precious people who are missing the best of life, because they've never learned to tap into this awesome resource of the power of the Spirit of God who dwells and resides within them.
Charles Stanley once asked a missionary friend of his named Birtha, who was in her late 70's at the time, where she got so much energy. She told him that, "...you're as good as you'll ever be...you're as good as you ever have been...and you won't ever be any better than you are...but the Holy Spirit who is living on the inside of you...he will enable you, and he will do for you..." God never intended for you to get better. You can't improve your flesh. We grow up believing if you live long enough and try hard enough you could get your flesh turned around and do what's right all the time. Charles Stanley's flesh, now 63 years old, has not changed one single solitary bit. If that's discouraging to you, wait till you get to be 63. You'll be saying the same thing.
You can't improve something that's fallen. God knew that we couldn't improve that. That's why God sent the Holy Spirit. God never intended by your good efforts and by your striving and by your working hard to make yourself a better person. You can't improve what is natural. That's why God replaces it with the person of Jesus Christ...the presence of the Holy Spirit. That's what this new life is all about. He says, a new life, a new heart, a new spirit he's to given us.
He (God) says some things so clearly (in the Bible). We read it. We memorize it. We understand it...but, we don't apply it to our heart...we don't apply it to our life, then we wonder why things don't work out right. One of the areas people have a problem is in their prayer life. Part of the power of the Holy Spirit in his work for our life is involved in our praying. On of the primary reasons we don't do very well in our prayer life is because we forget that God never intended for us to be a success in our prayer life apart from the Holy Spirit...
Rom 8:26-27 (NIV) ‘...the Spirit helps us in our weakness...
Weakness being that we don't know how to pray as we should)
...We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with
groans that words cannot express...
When you and I don't even know what to ask for...don't know how to ask, the power of the Spirit of God released in us to pray.
...And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit
intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will...'
When you and I don't even know how to pray the Spirit of God who is within us, who is enlightening our minds...who is governing, guiding, enabling our will, to keep on praying when we don't even know how to pray...we don't know what to ask for. What's the Spirit of God doing? Over-riding our ignorance. Over-riding our inability. Over-riding, sometimes our frustration. What is he doing? He is talking to the father in your behalf and my behalf. He's asking for the will of the father for us when we don't even know how to ask.
We can't live the Christian life apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. We can't even pray accurately apart from him. He's the one who shows us how to pray. He's the one who enables us to Pray. He's the one who guides our thinking. He's the one who brings verses of scripture back to our memory to remember things we want to remember.
If you are facing something difficult and you are praying, naturally you want a passage of scripture to anchor your request with. When he says...
"...Whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Matthew 21:22 (NKJ)
...or...
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened
to you." Luke 11:9-10 (NIV)
Who is it who brings back these versus. That is the work of the Holy Spirit...Enlightening the mind...and stirring up our memory to be able to then not only to remember it, but to apply it in our life.
The second thing where we absolutely are failures is in obeying God! All of us have to admit the times we don't obey him. All of us would like to say, "Yes, I want to obey God all the time." But we don't. We feel the pull of this naturalness. We want to gratify this desire. We want this. We want to feel that. We feel this pulling toward us. The Holy Spirit is there to enable us as we are pulled in two directions...to do what is right...to do what is wrong. If I relay upon my own human strength...that naturalness within me...that part of me which I was born...I'm going to lean in the wrong direction, because Satan always camouflages and portrays what is wrong as to be the very thing we want...the very thing that will satisfy us and we can't do without it. On the other hand, here's the Power of the Holy Spirit within you. He is enabling your will. In spite of the tug...In spite of the pull...In spite of the draw...In spite of the pressure...he is there to say, "This is the Will of the Father. This is wisdom. You'll be glad you did." We cannot walk in obedience to God apart from the Holy Spirit.
Rom 8:5 (NIV) Those who live according to the sinful nature (flesh / naturalness) have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
If we walk in that way, it's because we've set our mind that way. You can't look at the wrong thing. You can't think about the wrong thing. You can't be in the wrong place over and over and over again. If you set your mind on that kind of stuff, you're going to walk in that direction. If we are walking in the Spirit, and we've set our minds on the Spirit, we're going to naturally want to do those things that are pleasing to the Father.
Rom 8:6 (NIV) The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.
The mind set on the flesh is death...death to joy...death to peace. You can't walk in sin and be at peace with God. You can't walk in sin and have the joy of the Lord in your life. You can't walk in sin and have rest in your soul. Part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to convict us, and to pry us, make us uncomfortable, and to stick us a little bit when sin comes into our life.
It's like the difference between a good clear station with nothing but pure sound, and the static on the radio between stations which means you are out of range...you're not getting a clear sound...something has happened. When you and I choose to deliberately sin against God, we've got static in our life. There is no peace. The joy is not there. The happiness is not there. There's something that's causing friction. We're not tuned in. We don't have a clear channel. Sin will disrupt that.
The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. When our mind sets to do the will of the father, we're going to have life and peace. The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God. If I choose to act out of my naturalness (Want to gratify the flesh, choose wrong methods of satisfying whatever the desire may be...material, emotional, etc.) those natural desires are hostile (not unpleasant...Hostile!) toward the Spirit. This is what causes friction within us.
On one hand, here's the Spirit of God moving us in the right direction. On the other hand, we have this naturalness within us that often times is tempted to do the wrong thing. When that's true, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, it does not subject itself to the law of God. It's not even able to do so. It can't! You absolutely do not have within you the power to do the right thing on a continuing basis. It isn't there.
There are many people who are not saved who do good things. They do it because the are good people, it makes them feel good, it makes them acceptable in other people's eyes, but the ultimate motivation for doing so is not right. The natural person is going to act natural, and that part of me is hostile to that part of me that is of the Spirit of God.
You and I cannot walk in obedience in our own strength. How many times have you tried to do the right thing even after you were saved? If you didn't understand that it must be dependance upon the Holy Spirit to enable you to do that, you walked in disobedience to God, and all of us do it at times. We can't consistently continue to do the right thing apart from the Spirit. It's not a matter of whether I will or won't. You cannot do what is right (what pleases God) apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. Our prayer life won't be right. Walking in obedience is not going to be there. It's just not going to happen.
1 Cor 10:13 (NIV) No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not (divinely) let you be tempted beyond what you can bear...
(when we are trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit to defend us and to enable us to walk away or endure it)
...But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
In the life of every single believer there is a Devine limitation that which Satan can put before you. God knows that you and I can't live the Christian life apart from the Holy Spirit. That's why he sent him...to enable us to become the persons God wants us to be and to do the work God wants us to do. We can't do it on our own.
The Bible doesn't leave anything out that you and I need to know. When the Spirit is in control, the fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Gentleness, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.
We love people who love us. We are patient when it is easy to be so. The power of the Spirit of God enables us to be kind when they're unkind...enables us to Love, when they're unloving...enables us to have peace, when everything around us is falling apart...enables us to be faithful when everything around us would pull us in the opposite direction...That is the work of the Holy Spirit...That is the power of God, released. In these situations the power of the Holy Spirit is released, quickening our emotions to be able to Love someone who does not Love us in return...to experience the inner quietness and stability and strength (which we call peace) when the world around us is shouting at us to create a storm in our life...that is the power of the Holy Spirit.
Why did he send the person of the Holy Spirit into your life and mine? To enable us to become the persons we ought to be...want to be, but can't. To do the things that God would have us do that we are not able to do on our own.
Notice what happened after Jesus was baptized by John when he began his ministry...
Luke 4:1 (NIV) Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert...
Luke 4:14 (NIV) Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit...
You'll find in the book of acts and other passages, references to Jesus going about in the Power of the Holy Spirit doing good. Jesus operated out of the power of the Holy Spirit within him while he was in the flesh (physical), while he walked among men. It was the Spirit of God working within him.
Paul was a natural, normal man, saved by the Grace of God, called by God to do a certain work.
Col 1:29 (NIV) To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.
Do the things he has called you to do, whether it be a homemaker with your children, or being the president and everything in between.
When you and I understand and come to the realization that we are absolutely and totally inadequate to do it, something begins to happen in our life. We get the power of the Spirit to flow in our lives by acceptance of our powerlessness, the surrender of our entire life (total being) to him, and by exercising simple child-like faith !
1) Acceptance of the truth that we are absolutely powerless within our selves...to do it within our own strength...to live the will of God or to do the will of God...powerless to become, and powerless to do what God would have. We cannot do it. As long as you think you can, you will keep trying. It means I will give up all attempts to become and to do in my own strength. I am accepting the truth that I'm powerless and I give up all my efforts to do it any longer or to be that in my own strength.
2) Surrender my entire life to the guidance and the guarding and the governing of the Holy Spirit...your personal walk, your vocation (work / career), your finances, family...surrendering everything to him. The Spirit of God is not going to release supernatural, divine power into a life that is living in rebellion toward God. Either I have to give it to him and let the power flow, or hold it to myself and shut it off, because the sin of rebellion shuts down the flow of the power of God instantly. God would absolutely not release the supernatural power of the Spirit into the life of a rebel. The flesh is very strong.
Acceptance of my powerlessness, and to surrender my entire life...these are the will of God. When we surrender everything to him, he takes control. He is not going to release his supernatural power into the life of anyone who has decided they are going to control their life themselves. It would be a contradiction of who he is. Be careful. The devil can empower a person to do tremendous feats as an act of disobedience and rebellion toward God.
3) Faith is switch that releases the power of the Holy Spirit in the person's life. When you flick that switch, the power of the Spirit of God begins to flow. It is a definite act of trusting him...of believing him at that moment in that situation of that circumstance. If you are facing something very difficult and you don't know what to do, which way to turn. At that moment, when you tell God the father that you are going to trust in the power of the holy spirit...in that moment, ask Him to give you direction, and guidance, and to guard you in that decision. What you've said in that moment is that you are powerless, committed to him, want what he wants. Believe that he's going to keep his word and show you exactly what you are to do. All of Heaven will rise up to give you exactly what you need at that moment in order for you to be obedient to God. Faith...the moment you are willing to believe that he will do exactly what he says...flicks the switch and turns the power.
You are already enabled. It's a matter of flicking the switch and the power surges. It is the Power of God directed towards that decision...that situation...that circumstance, whatever it may be. Sometimes we're in situations and circumstances and we're not even aware of them. When we're walking in the Spirit of God, the Power of God is being released within us without us even knowing it. That's why sometimes we look back and wonder, "God, How in the world could that have happened?" We realize that it was something that He did. The Power of the Holy Spirit is released in those situations and circumstances and will flow continually in the life of the believer who...lives in acceptance of their powerlessness...lives surrendered to him...lives by faith.
If you will listen to these three important things and apply them to your heart, it is promised that your Christian life will take on a different perspective. You will step up a level or so with your success in your Christian walk simply because it works...It's God's way. Almighty God would not have given us a complicated way to do what every single one of us must do, every day of our life. God would not have made it complicated or frustrating for someone out there who knows very little in the first place and who is overwhelmed by the sin and temptation which besieges us. He makes it simple...but it's not easy. If it were so easy, he would not have given us this supernatural, Devine power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to accomplish something. Hearing them and applying them is something else
In a moment of temptation (being pulled in two different directions), your naturalness pulls you one way and the spirit of God is pulling the other. At that moment we know we are powerless. At that moment we told him he could have everything. At that moment, it is a matter of telling the father that you are trusting him. You are trusting him in your request to be enabled to make the wisest decision. The Spirit of God's power is released in the moment you are willing to trust in him and he will enable you to make the wisest, the best, most righteous decision. Any facet or circumstance of life...anything that goes on in life can be handled through these three words...Acceptance of our powerlessness, the surrender of our total being to him, and exercising simple child-like faith.
He says, ‘Ask and it shall be given to you, because the power of the Holy Spirit is within you to enable you.'
Prayer:
Father, we bless your name and pray now in these moments that as the Holy Spirit tugs at hearts, there will be an openness...an acceptance of powerlessness and defeat...the willingness to surrender everything to you...and the faith to believe you will keep your promise. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Edited from a tape of the same title by Charles Stanley
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