Forgotten God (2)

Who is this Holy Spirit

There is so much confusion surrounding the Person of the Holy Spirit in the church

From leaders reffering to Him as an it, and not as Him. God the Holy Spirit is the 3rd person of the Trinity:

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit

He is God

Some ask; I got Jesus why do I need the Holy Spirit?

A.W.Tozer said; “We may as well face it. THe whole level of spirituality among us is low. We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone… We have imitated the world, sought popular favor, manufactured delights to substitute for the joy of the Lord and produce a cheap and synthetic power to substitute for the power of the Holy Ghost...

The Pursuit of God “We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing.”

The answer to the the question as to why I need the Holy Spirit is because Jesus wants you to, He paid the price so you would, in order to accomplish the call and fulfill you purpose. Just as we need the Father, and the Son, we need the Holy Spirit.

We must not neglect Him any longer.

Francis Chan in his book the Forgotten God tells of a meeting with some Jehovahs witnesses:

He found their teaching about Jesus offensive, that Jesus was God

They replied Jesus/Michael is thew only archangel.

Chan. turn to Daniel 10:13  But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me

This passage is clear that Michael is only one of the archangels.

They had never read this before

Chan. There is no way that you sat down one day intending to find God and came to the conclusion that Jesus and Michael are the same. No one could come to that conclusion. You only believe it because someone told you to.

Most of us assume that wkhat we believe is right, but have we ever really studied for ourselves to now what we believe and why? We were told this is the way it is and we stuck with it. The problem is that much of what we believe is based more on comfort or our culture’s tradition than on the bible.

Reformation brough transformation, which produced Impartation.

Reformation through Martin Luther 1517 brought us our of the darkness of the apostate catholic church

Then John Wesley, primary focus was upon the doctrine of salvation and the relationship between grace, faith, and holiness of heart and life. Transformation

Holiness brought Impartation: late 1800 in the hills of Tenn God began to visit peoples hunger for the living God once again. The COG was birthed through the hunger for the God of the bible which resulted in the latter day outpouring of the Holy Spirit in North America.

I believe we need to reexamine our faith just as much as the Jehovah’s witnesses do. Remember the Bereans in Acts 17:11  These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.

We need to reexamine how we think and relate to the Holy Spirit

Jesus comforts his disciples after he tells them he would die.

John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever

John 16:7 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. His leaving was to their advantage

After his death and Resurrection he tells his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the holy Spirit Acts 1:4-5

Then in Acts 2 we see the fulfillment of the promise. The Holy Spirits power is unleashed like never before and Peter shares the promise that this Holy Spirit is available to everyone who believes.

The Epistles tells us that through His amazing power we are Spirit enabled to put to death sin and walk in super natural gifts.

If we read and believe these accounts we would expect a great deal of the Holy Spirit. He would not be a mostly forgotten member of the Godhead whom we give an occasional nod of recognition to.

We would expect our new life with the Holy Spirit to look radically different from our old life without Him.

We have gotten so used to talented performers that we are not concerned with the Fire of the Holy Spirit we just want the feeling of the Holy Spirit.

If i told you that Gpod entered my body and gave me the supernatural ability to play basketball, wouldn’t you expect to see an amazing improvement in my jumpshot, my defense, and my speed on the court? Of coarse you would After all this is God we are talking about. but if you didn’t see any change you wouldn’t you question the validity to my claim.?

We speak of God giving us supernatural ability to put to death the deeds of sin follow Christ and serve the church. We talk about being born again, saying we were dead but now we are alive. Yet when those outside the church see no difference in our lives its hard for them to believe they even question our God.

 James 3:11 Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening.

James 3:10b My brethren, these things ought not to be so.

See fire brings a burning of the old and a bringing to life the new!

The New King James Version Chapter 12

25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” 27 Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.