“And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days." (Joel 2:28-29)
We hear the words of Jesus:
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (John 14:16-17)
We have the arrival of the Holy Spirit:
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:3-4)
The fact is that we cannot be the children of God without the Holy Spirit. We cannot serve Jesus without the Spirit. We have no connection, no power, nothing without the Spirit. The Spirit is the only means we have to be in Jesus and for Jesus to be in us:
Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. (Romans 8:5-7)
Scripture is even stronger than this, telling us that if we are without the Spirit we are without Jesus:
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. (Romans 8:9)
I realize that this is a lot of scripture for a blog but there is a ton more concerning the Spirit because our life here depends on him. We need a good understanding of life in the Spirit if we want to be saved and serve Jesus in this place. The only way we can have victory over our flesh is to surrender control to the Spirit.
Why then is there such skepticism at the manifestations of the Spirit? If we are possessed by the Spirit, control by the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit, should we not expect supernatural things to be occurring? Remember that Jesus set for us an example of life in the Spirit. Consider the manifestations of the Spirit through him and he turned around and said we would do greater things.
If you walk up to a person on your city streets and tell them that Jesus loves them they will probably swear at you. If you walk up to that same person and speak a word of knowledge you will have their full attention. We cannot serve the Lord in our flesh. We have to put our flesh under submission to the Spirit and then do what the Spirit tells us to do. We have to release the power of God in ourselves so that we will be effective workers in the Kingdom.
What is impossible for man is possible for God and he works those possibilities through you because of the Holy Spirit in you. We have to discover the Spirit of God, realize his role and allow him to function through us. People are screaming at us to show them our God and all the time he is right here waiting to glorify himself to the nations through us. He has poured out his Spirit on his children but his children sit in denial while the world goes to hell. Come on people, the Father is calling his children back to him so we will be obedient in all things through the Spirit who possesses us.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
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