Holy Spirit and the Supernatural (373)

0:01 Welcome to the quality Christian living podcast. I am your host David friend today's podcast is entitled the Holy Spirit and the supernatural I believe it's going to be a blessing because the Lord's given me some very special things to share with you today We're gonna talk about how people say things like we must leave the natural and move into the supernatural. What are they talking about? And what does the supernatural mean to us? And how can we experience the Holy Spirit's supernatural power? Is it possible to live in the supernatural? So there's a lot of things to cover, and we'll just see how the Lord takes us through this. But before we get started, we need to pray. Heavenly Father, I ask your blessing on this podcast that you would anoint it, bless it, and that you would guide me through the whole thing. Pray the Holy Spirit would touch the lives of those listening in, and as we enter into the discussion on the Holy Spirit and the supernatural, I need you to take over, take complete control of this podcast. I surrender to you.

0:58 Bless those that are listening in, and I'll be careful to give you praise for it. Now, in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Now first we need to define what the word supernatural means. You see, it is God's divine actions. They are higher than our natural actions. Matter of fact, I need to read a scripture right here that talks about how God's powers and his thoughts are greater than ours and they're obviously supernatural over our natural thoughts. I'm going to read from the book of Isaiah in the New Living Translation, chapter 55, verses 8 and 9. My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord, and my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. See, his ways are supernatural. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." So that kind of lays the groundwork that there's a difference between our thoughts and God's thoughts and the supernatural. The supernatural is above the laws of nature, and nature is what we struggle with, which we can refer to it also as our flesh, that robs us from having that supernatural relationship that we need with the Holy Spirit. You see, the supernatural, we read about in the Bible. These are divine actions of God. They are miracles of healings or resurrections or the creation power of God or salvation. And it's so important that we understand there's a major difference between what we think and what our thoughts are in relationship to God's thoughts and the supernatural thoughts

2:29 and actions that the Holy Spirit wants to operate in our lives. need to understand that the Holy Spirit is the one that brings the supernatural to us. These supernatural activities, they can be experienced by followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We read about the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. And I'm not going to go into that whole teaching. I've done that before. But the supernatural gifts are the power gifts of the Holy Spirit of wisdom and knowledge and healings and prophecy and tongues and interpretation of tongues. And it goes on and on. There's so many wonderful gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are all supernatural. Jesus calming the waters is supernatural. Jesus healing those in the Bible where the Word of God tells us that He healed all the sick and that every kind of disease and illness was healed by the Lord Jesus Christ.

3:16 These are supernatural activities. And they didn't cease, they didn't stop when Jesus left the earth and went to be with the Father and left the Holy Spirit here. No, the gifts can continue and they are continuing on. I know in my own life I've experienced miracle healings. I've seen miracle healings of individuals that the doctors are just amazed at. And even the doctors that I have, some of them I've talked to have said that they don't understand them, they don't know how they operate, but they've seen miracles of healings in their practice. You know, it would literally take hours and hours. to explain and to review all the supernatural events in the Word of God. So we're not going to do that because we're going to try and lay basically a foundation of how to understand the Holy Spirit and the supernatural.

4:00 See, the supernatural is led by the Holy Spirit in Christians, in followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit wants us to yield to His supernatural abilities. We can live in the supernatural. only through the Holy Spirit. You know, the supernatural is anything from healings and great miracles to just simply that still, quiet voice that we hear that tells us to call someone or to apologize to someone or correct some actions that we've taken or make decisions on certain things. Those are just as much supernatural activities as the great healings and miracles that we read about. Let me give you some examples in the scriptures of supernatural power and the Holy Spirit and how they work together. Let's start with the fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 22. The fruit of the Spirit, quite frankly, is a supernatural gift from the Holy Spirit. It's love and joy and peace and patience and goodness and kindness and gentleness and faithfulness and self -control. These are things that are above our natural ability. We can be in the midst of some really difficult times but have joy and peace. That's a supernatural experience. We can be going through some of the most difficult trials, we can have terrible diagnosis from the doctor telling us that our sicknesses are bad, they're terrible, they're even life -threatening, and yet still be at peace and have joy in our heart. The gifts of the Spirit that I've talked about previously a little bit, like miracles and greater faith and wisdom and tongues and all those things, are more examples of the

5:31 supernatural operating in the lives of Christians. Examples of divine healing like Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. We read about it in chapter 11 of the book of John in the New Living Translation. Let me read a couple of verses there that I think would help us understand the working of the Holy Spirit and how we see the supernatural in operation. Now in the story of Jesus and Lazarus, remember that Lazarus was a dear friend of his and Lazarus was loved by so many people. Well, Jesus was called upon to come back because Lazarus was sick and he delayed because he had things to do. doing ministry, and he wasn't able to leave right then and run to the aid of the family and to Lazarus. But when he got there, when he arrived there, he walked up to Martha. This is recorded in John chapter 11 verse 24, New Living Translation.

6:20 And Jesus basically says to Martha, your brother will rise again. And she's saying, well, if you'd have been here sooner, I'm kind of paraphrasing it, if you'd have been here sooner, he wouldn't have died. And Jesus just simply says, your brother will rise again. Verse 24, he says, yes, Martha said he will rise when everyone else rises at the last day. And then Jesus in verse 25 says, no, no, no. He says, I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this, Martha? I thought that was... Really important to read that, that do you believe this, Martha? So do we believe in the miracle power of Jesus, the resurrection power of Jesus, the supernatural power of Jesus, and how those supernatural powers are operated in our lives through the anointing of the Holy Spirit? So Jesus then called Lazarus forth and said, Lazarus, come forward. And Lazarus, they rode the stone back. Lazarus walked out and he had his barrel cloths on him and they had to remove all that. and he was up and about and moving and eating and doing the things that any living person would do. So this is a great story of the supernatural, but one where it's important that we operate and... And understand when Jesus said to Martha, do you believe this, Martha? Do we believe this? Let me ask each and every one of you listening in today, do we all believe in supernatural power? Do we believe

7:52 in healings and miracles? And if we don't believe, we've got to go to the Word of God. We're going to need to go to the Holy Spirit and help Him with our unbelief. And so with that, we can receive the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit to take us into the realm of the supernatural, maybe like we've never experienced. Here's a couple more scriptures I think that would be helpful to listen to. Acts chapter 1 verse 8 in the New Living Translation. Listen to this, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses. Right there we're hearing from Jesus that the power of the Holy Spirit will come upon us and anoint us. That's supernatural power. And then in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 27 the New Living Translation says, all are given different gifts to build up the body of Christ. Once again talking about the supernatural, being led by the Holy Spirit. And then in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 5, the New Living Translation, God gives His Spirit and works miracles among you. Once again, the connection between the Holy Spirit and miracles and the supernatural. We read in Romans chapter 8 and verse 9, the New Living Translation, the Spirit of God lives in you. Now I wanted to read that one before we move on because it's so important we understand that when we become the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live and dwell in us. And Paul is telling the people in Rome about this and explaining to them that the Spirit of God lives in you.

9:15 So we've got to believe that. That may sound pretty basic to some people, but quite frankly, we've got to start at the beginning, and that is to have faith to believe that the Holy Spirit is living in us. And so the Bible tells us that greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. That's simply referring to the power of the Holy Spirit, the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. So do we believe, like Jesus told Martha, do you believe? Well, I'm asking everyone out there, do we believe that we have living in us the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit? So I hope that that kind of settles that. So let's move on to the next part of our podcast today. Let me just ask a question. What does the supernatural mean to us? all of us. Is it possible to live in the supernatural? Well, I believe that it is because the power of God is inside of us, living inside of us, dwelling inside of us, and we can live in the supernatural. What it means to Christians is to live abundantly, to live with a joy in their life, to live with peace. It means living a quality Christian life.

10:19 You know, that's the name of this podcast that's been operating. This one's been operating for, what, four and a half years now. In the last year, we've been focusing totally on the Holy Spirit but quite frankly supernatural living means that we can live that quality Christian life that we're talking about so we can live not just a get -by life or just kind of barely keep our mind focused on things, but literally have abundant living and have an overcoming life and becoming more than conquerors. That's the life that the Holy Spirit wants to bring to each and every one of us through His supernatural powers. Living in the supernatural is living in the Holy Spirit. We are able to do that based on what the Bible tells us in 1 John chapter 4, verse 4, New International Version. The one who is in you, I mentioned this just a moment ago, but now I'm going to read the specific scripture.

11:08 The one who is in you, that's the Holy Spirit, is greater than the one who is in the world. So because of that, we are able to live in the power of the Holy Spirit, the supernatural power. Now when we start to talk about the supernatural, the thoughts of great miracles and healings and resurrection power and Jesus walking on water and feeding the 5 ,000 with a couple of fish and a couple of pieces of bread, all those are things we think about the supernatural and those are supernatural activities but the supernatural is also that small still quiet voice of the Holy Spirit reminding us to call an old friend maybe to apologize for some past actions that's a supernatural act or a thought that maybe you need to change maybe the things that you're doing in your life or that you should become more active in your church or use your talents more or even use them at all in the church. Those are the supernatural empowerments of the Holy Spirit wanting to work through each and every follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, this kind of reminds me of the time several years ago when I was, my wife and I were praying and thinking about it was time for me to step down from the church as the senior pastor and to bring in a younger person so that we can continue to grow and continue to attract all ages of people, not just the older folks that we had, but that we could kind of turn our church over to someone else. I could help them or work with them. But it was something that we prayed pretty heavily about it. And we needed the Holy Spirit to intervene with us.

12:37 So we were praying. And so I was out one day during this period of time and just going out doing some errands from the church. And as I was driving by a coffee shop, I felt the Holy Spirit. impressed me didn't talk to me in an audible voice I've never heard an audible voice of the Holy Spirit but he impressed upon me to go into this coffee shop and I didn't want to it was a time of day where I didn't really want any coffee but I felt a very heavy impression to go in there so I stopped my car walked in went in there grabbed a cup of coffee thinking why am I getting this I don't even really want this but as I was leaving the store I walked past a gentleman that I thought think I know that guy but I walked out the door and just kind of passed him and All of a sudden, the Holy Spirit stopped me and said, go back in there and apologize to this person. You walked past him. Maybe he saw you and thought that you weren't being kind to him. And I thought, well, I'm not going to do that. But then it was very heavy. I mean, a definite heaviness that was on my heart that I had to go back in and see who this person was.

13:34 So I went back in this place. But I walked right past him, walked out another door. Then the Holy Spirit says, get back in there. And I walked back in again. And I stopped in front of this fellow. He was sitting there with his laptop and had his face straight down in his laptop and his coffee and all this good stuff and wasn't paying attention to anything around him. And I leaned over and I said, hi, I think, are you Pastor Luke? And he put his head up and it was him, it was Pastor Luke Barnett. And all of a sudden he looked at me with a surprise and he said, wow, it's great to see you here. And I said, well, do you have a second? could we talk for a second? And so I asked him a question. I said, I'm thinking of stepping down. This is not to be announced or anything, but I'm thinking of doing that. And I'd like to know if you know of maybe a younger person in ministry that I could work with, possibly turn the church over to. And he said, yeah. He said, that would be me. And I said, you, you've got this huge church that you have taken over from your dad and that Phoenix First Assembly at the time, that's what it was called. He had a great ministry. And I thought, well, you, I'm sure you're not going to want to step over and be involved in our church.

14:33 He said, no, we've been trying for years to start an expansion of our churches and have mergers and merge with other churches. He said matter of fact a few days ago I was with the family in New York and we were having dinner and I said before we eat I'd just like to pray that I get a chance to meet with Pastor Friend and talk about his kind of what he's thinking to do in the church and if there's any way we could work together on anything and so he was telling him that and here three days later I run into him at a coffee shop. Well it was not a run -in to it was a divine appointment from God. because we chatted, we started talking about it, and within a period of 90 days we did a full merger and brought our two churches together and created something new called Dream City Church. And Dream City Church then from there took off and grew and got new campuses here and there and has continued to expand. But there was an intervention of the Holy Spirit, a supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit to stop me in what I was doing and move me in the direction He wanted me to go and to meet with this pastor that I had known for years but hadn't seen for years and the Holy Spirit was there operating in that. Now I gave you that story, I know it took a little bit of time, but I gave you that story because I think it's so important to understand that that's how the Holy Spirit can work in your life. He can impress you to call someone or reconnect with someone or change jobs or change the way you're living your life or somehow become more active in your church, whatever it might be, listen to the still quiet voice of the Holy Spirit.

16:01 That is a supernatural movement from God the Father. Now, the Holy Spirit led me into a supernatural experience and he can do the same thing for any one of us. He will do the same to any Christian providing that that particular Christian surrenders their will to the leading of the Holy Spirit and listens to that thought, that impression of the Holy Spirit. puts upon them. I'm positive that every single person listening to this podcast has had opportunities to enter into the spiritual power or the supernatural actions of the Holy Spirit. Matter of fact, when you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, that is a supernatural movement of the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us that the only way that we can become a Christian is if the Holy Spirit moves upon us and convicts us of our sin and tells us to then submit our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ. So that is a supernatural power and it's happened in every believer. Now, if you're not a Christian, you've not given your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, I need to stop right here. I really believe the Holy Spirit wants me to stop here because I don't know who's listening in. I'm sitting here making these podcasts every week. They literally go around the world and I don't know who's listening in, who's a Christian, who isn't. So let me take a moment. If you're not sure where you're going to spend eternity, whether heaven is in your plans, I'm going to ask you to just pray this prayer with me. Say, Heavenly Father, I need I need you to forgive me. I've sinned and fallen short of your glory, so I repent of my sins, ask you to forgive me, and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Today, I accept Jesus Christ

17:33 as my Lord and Savior. I believe that he was born of the Virgin Mary. I believe that he suffered, he was crucified, he was resurrected, though, from the dead, and he now sits at the right hand of the Father. So on this day, I surrender totally to the Holy Spirit and to receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and I promise to serve you. all my life in Jesus' name. If you prayed that, you need to find a good church. You need to get the Word of God out and start reading it. I would encourage you to do that. Now some people say, why do you do these altar calls, these times to give people a chance to receive Jesus? Well, I don't do them just on my own. It's not automatic every single podcast, but there are times that I'm sharing something and the Holy Spirit then impresses me. That's a supernatural movement. And to offer the opportunity for people out there who are listening in, if they're not sure of their walk with God, if they've never given their life Jesus Christ. And you'd be surprised the number of people who listen to this podcast who've never committed their life to Christ and who then make that commitment to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That is a supernatural move of the Holy Spirit. So with that... I think this is a good time to just pray for people in general to understand, to receive that still quiet voice of the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, for those who are out there today, I know we all have needs. Some are having financial needs, some are having physical needs, some have maybe marital relationship problems, whatever it might be. I pray in the name of Jesus that you would now touch them and that the Holy Spirit would then speak to them and give them guidance, give them direction. I pray that the Holy Spirit would comfort them, Father, and give them peace. Pray,

19:04 Lord, that the Holy Spirit would work our lives greater than we've ever experienced before, and I'll thank you for that in advance and give you all the praise and glory for it. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Well, I'm going to have to start wrapping this up, but I've got a few more things to say. I suggest that we read the supernatural miracles of Jesus that He performed in the Word of God. Go back through the Bible. Read the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read it again and look at those miracles and then read about them. Look at the activities that took place up to those miracles and after the miracles and see how the Holy Spirit operated in these things. You see, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus when John the Baptist baptized Him and that initiated His ministry, His absolute full -blown ministry here on earth and that power of the Holy Spirit who was living in him and so when Jesus left he says it's best that I leave because if I don't leave you won't have the Holy Spirit working with you but if I leave then the comforter that I'm sending to you from the Father will come to you to live in you to dwell in you to give you peace give you guidance give you direction give you strength and lead your life if you'll yield to him so this is what we need to do we need to read the supernatural experiences of the Apostles how John wrote the book of Revelation, and how the Apostle Paul, who was anti -Christians, he hated them, he was killing them, he had no use for them, and yet while he was on the road to Damascus, Jesus appeared to him and said, why are you condemning me? Why are you attacking me? And Paul fell over, lost his sight, and the

20:35 power of God just overwhelmed him. That was through the operation of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was there, but the Holy Spirit's the one that went to Paul and convicted him of his need to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And look what Paul did in his life. We look at how the Holy Spirit helped King David when he ran into sin. And he knew that he had to confess his sins. And he says, Dear God, I've sinned against you. And he says, Create in me a new heart and restore unto me the joy of my salvation. So the Holy Spirit was moving upon King David when he was in the midst of his sin and helped him to come out of that and reestablish his walk with God. So just take a moment now to to think about the supernatural Holy Spirit and the experience that you've had in your life with Him. Obviously, if you're a Christian, you know Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, then you have had a supernatural experience there. And I know there's times when that still quiet voice tells you to do something. Have you ever been, you know, maybe doing something, being very busy, then all of a sudden a thought comes to mind, I need to call this person and talk to them, or I need to, when I get home, talk to my wife or my husband or my kids or something. share something with them.

21:44 I truly believe that for followers of the Lord Jesus Christ that is a supernatural movement or a still quiet voice of the Holy Spirit giving us guidance and direction. When those things happen don't take them lightly. I can tell you there's been times that the Holy Spirit's told me to pray for someone and I wound up praying for that person for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years every day on my prayer list. Their name is on there to lift them up and pray for them and I don't know why I'm even doing it but I just know that I'm supposed to and then all of a sudden I'll run into that person and I'll find out that they were going through difficult times or that their healing had not taken place and maybe a challenge that they had in their life or a physical one or emotional one or wherever it might be and then I'll see that it's been lifted because of the power of the Holy Spirit so when those things happen and you're you feel that you should pray for someone please write it down and pray for them and keep praying until the Holy Spirit tells you you're done you don't have to continue praying and you can move on all right well I hope that this has been a blessing to you I've thoroughly enjoyed it I want to talk a little bit about the upcoming podcast after this one, if the Holy Spirit leads us this way, but I believe the topic is going to be the Holy Spirit full and being full of faith. It's about the life of Stephen, a man who was known as a servant of God. He served other people and he was known as a man full... of faith and the Spirit of God. And we're going to talk about his life and how we can have that same experience to walk in that power and leading of the Holy Spirit.

23:09 So I hope that you will let your friends know, that people know about the next podcast coming up, that we're going to have an opportunity to talk about how we can live a full life and filled with faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. So we'll get into that through the life of Stephen. It's a great story and one that I thoroughly enjoyed speaking about and listening to. people preach on. So with that I would like to tell you a little bit of how you can learn more about the Quality Christian Living podcast that we have. This podcast has been going on now for four and a half years. We've done about 375 podcasts now and so we've covered a lot of topics. If you'd like to know more about Quality Christian Living I'd like to go to my webpage davidcfriendauthor .com and when you get there the front page will pop up and there'll be a link on the very front page showing a link to podcasts. If you If you want to click that link on, it'll take you to all 370 -some podcasts and we'll show you the various topics. We have series there dealing with how to have greater faith. We have series there talking about how to receive miracles.

24:11 A series on there how to be debt -free and to live a debt -free life. To understand the joy of being generous of our finances and our talents and our abilities. We talk about the gifts of the Spirit, the power gifts and the fruit of the Spirit. There's just on and on and on various topics. They usually run. anywhere from 10 to 15 or 20 podcasts in a series. This is a particularly major change in our teaching here on Quality Christian Living and that is that we've been in on one topic, the Holy Spirit, now for a year. And quite frankly, I don't really have any thoughts of changing that and that we're going to continue. probably got another 30 or 40 podcasts with topics and titles and scriptures that I believe the Lord has given me in order to continue to teach on the Holy Spirit. So let people know that we're in this very long series on the Holy Spirit and that we'll continue there until the Holy Spirit tells me to do otherwise through that still quiet voice. So I hope that's been a blessing to you.

25:08 If you'd like to subscribe to my podcast, you can do that by going to cpnshows .com or wherever you listen to your podcast. So I hope that these have been a blessing to you I I was amazed the other day when I was talking to somebody then they told me how many thousands of people are listening on a daily basis and and and how many countries that this has gone around now that has nothing to do with me Absolutely, nothing that is the power of the Holy Spirit at work I would have never even thought about doing a podcast unless the Holy Spirit gave me the idea as a matter of fact when I stepped down as the full -time senior pastor of the church I was thinking well, you know I'll have time to do this and do that and whatever. Well, the Holy Spirit has filled me up with the podcasts that we do, the number of books that I've written.

25:53 When you're looking at my web page, you can scroll down a little farther and you'll see a number of books that I've written on the topics that I've talked about, generosity, finances, the gifts of the Spirit, miracles and faith. Those are all topics that are there. I had no idea that the Lord had all this intended for me. And so now it's been nearly 10 years since we've stepped down from the time service ministry that we had as a senior pastor and now my wife and I are heading up the congregational care ministries at the church. I have a lot of activity with the veterans in our church and business people and my wife is involved heavily with the widow ladies in the church. So I'm telling you the Holy Spirit is sitting there ready to expand our horizon and bring new things and new thoughts and new dreams and new activities into our life.

26:41 So yield to Him, surrender to Him and heal one of you and has a great plan to bless your life. Well, I'm going to close this up now because I don't want to just keep rambling on here. I'm going to thank you first of all for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode, just take a moment to rate and review the podcast. It certainly is a blessing to us. You can leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music or Charisma Podcast Network or just simply give us a star rating on Spotify. However you choose to do that, we certainly appreciate it, would love you to do that. So I'm going to close with a blessing for you. I pray, may the Lord Bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you. May he be gracious to you and give you peace. May you prosper and be in good health even as your soul prospers.

27:22 So until next time, I pray that God will richly bless you and the power, supernatural power of the Holy Spirit will become more and more evident in our lives. Blessings to you and your family. Thank you once again for listening to Quality Christian Living. I've been your host, David Friend. May the Lord bless you.