Mighty Through God, Part 10 - Final

Praying in the Spirit

"And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak." (Ephesians 6:17-20)

Every now and then, the Holy Spirit "reveals" something to us through the Word. When I say "reveal" I mean that He gives us understanding about a passage that we have not had prior to His "showing" or "revealing" its meaning to us. That is, after all, His job: to reveal the Word of God to us – the Word of God being JESUS. And to bring the Word to its destination of creating life in us.

One such "revealed" passage is the one that I discussed in Part 3 of this study that speaks of Genesis 1:2 in which it can be seen that the Holy Spirit "hovered" over the dark void that existed prior to creation, "waiting" to carry the Word of God to its destination in creation, bringing about life at the very beginning of life as we know it. Not bringing about life as though the Spirit Himself was that life, but as a vehicle of the WORD OF GOD Who IS Life (John 1:4); always glorifying the Word of God: Jesus Christ.

When He "revealed" that understanding to me years ago, and even up until two weeks ago when I published that understanding on this blog, I had never heard another living soul speak of this particular job of the Holy Spirit in the creation process, of this understanding of that particular passage in Genesis. And even when I spoke it to others, as I felt it was of significant importance to share with others, I sometimes got only a blank stare in return. But, for me, at least, it was a pearl that just opened up so much more of who the Holy Spirit is and what He does: not only back in the beginning, but even today.

Then last week, the Lord blessed me considerably by allowing me to hear that same revelation coming out of the mouth of a man, whose name I had heard, but whom, until a few days ago, I had never heard speak, nor had I ever read anything he might have written. This man's name is: Reinhard Bonnke.

All I knew of Reinhard Bonnke was that he was an evangelist in Africa and that he was anointed by the Holy Spirit to preach. Well, actually, I only "assumed" that he was anointed, having never heard his preaching myself, and that assumption was based on the fact that I heard that "millions" were being saved in Africa. That sounded like God at work to me.

And one day, as I was stalled in posting this last segment of the study onto this blog, I decided to "google" his name. It led me to his website: www.cfan.org and that led me to see that he had videos of his preaching for sale. So I purchased a couple. And while I was watching him preach, he spoke the very revelation that God had also given to me years ago. He spoke of the Holy Spirit "hovering" in order that it might at the proper time "carry" the spoken word of God to its destination of creating life. I was amazed to hear it coming from someone else and I was blessed to have confirmation of my correct understanding coming from such a man of God: a man whose "Spirit-anointed preaching" saves millions; a man who then makes sure they have all received the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" so that they can go forth and "speak boldly" as they ought to speak – just like Paul did – just like Reinhard does - just as we ALL are to do.

And all of that is just another example of the workings of the Holy Spirit. It begins with the baptism of the Holy Spirit and of fire that John the Baptist was the first to speak of:

"I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire…" (Matthew 3:11)

It has always been amazing to me that the very gift that the Lord left with us to help us overcome, is the very gift that so many saved believers hide from; and I believe it stems mostly from one of two reasons: 1) because we mistakenly believe that too much of the Holy Spirit detracts from Jesus Christ, and 2) because of the fear of something that cannot be logically explained: tongues.

To address the first issue: the Holy Spirit speaks only of JESUS. Jesus is the WORD OF GOD. The Holy Spirit illuminates for us the WORD OF GOD. All that He does is about Jesus and what He hears from Jesus; for Jesus said:

"Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." (John 16:13-14)

The Holy Spirit is all about glorifying Jesus. If we want to speak more boldly of Jesus Christ, the Good News Himself, then we need more of the Holy Spirit! There is nothing to fear in having more of the Holy Spirit. There is something to concerned about, however, if we manifest the gifts of the Spirit and have no love of God in our hearts for one another:

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity it profiteth me nothing." (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

Paul said he spoke with tongues of men, meaning he spoke in his native and learned languages such as Hebrew and Greek; and he said that he also spoke with tongues of angels – that would be another language, a heavenly language coming from the Holy Spirit of God, that the Bible simply calls "tongues." He instructs us to be "praying always…in the Spirit." I don't believe this means that Paul spoke only in that heavenly language of "tongues" when he prayed, never praying in his own native language; but I do believe that he means in every avenue that the Holy Spirit has given us to pray, we should pray: in the Word, in power, in love…and yes, even in tongues. The Bible tells us that tongues "edifies" us (1 Corinthians 14:4) and that the Holy Spirit "groans" through us those things which are fitting to be prayed for us as only He knows best (Romans 8:26-28). Paul says that besides tongues there are many other gifts of the Spirit that we are to covet as well (1 Corinthians chapters 12-13). But nowhere does he tell us to pick and choose those which we want only and discard any that we don't either understand or agree with.

It is time for the church world-wide to be a FULL gospel church: FULLY acknowledging the Father, the Son, AND the Holy Spirit.

There is an excellent article about praying in tongues and a video about tongues at these two links from Charisma magazine that might help those of you who are still doubting Thomases: http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/features/2010/august/28937-evidence-of-the-gift and http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/online-exclusives/august-2010/28879-the-science-behind-tongues

Believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God who died to conquer death and the enemy, Who paid the penalty of the wages of our sin for our sakes because He loved us more than He loved His own life; be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit – the same power of God that raised Christ from the dead – the same power that will cause us to live in the resurrection power and life of Jesus; so that we might go forth boldly proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ through the testimony of our changed lives, changed by the power of GOD – the one true and living GOD who loved us so much He gave His only-begotten Son for us as the eternal and everlasting atonement of sacrifice for OUR sin.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit will light a fire under your easy-chair and you will leap up with "passionate compassion"…to quote Reinhard Bonnke….for the LOST.

"Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down,, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death." (Revelation 12:10-11)