Holy Spirit Promises

0:01 Again, I welcome you to the Quality Christian Living Podcast. I am your host, David Friend. We are in the middle of a wonderful series on the Holy Spirit. Today's topic is the Holy Spirit Promises. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for who you are. I pray you would bless this podcast and I ask the Holy Spirit to come in a very special way and to help people and to bless them and touch them. And I'll be careful to give you praise for it. I believe great things are gonna take place as we invite the Holy Spirit to lead us. For I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. Well, the Holy Spirit promises to guide us, to help us, to deliver us, to give us power and to give us peace. Really, the promises of the Holy Spirit require, though, Christians to obey God's Word. We want to jump and get the promises, but we don't understand there's a condition through the promises. And it's a simple condition.

0:49 Just follow the Word of God. And all these promises open up to us. We must claim or ask for the promises of the Holy Spirit. They won't just come automatically. We need to pray and receive the Holy Spirit. They are easy, quite frankly, very easy to find out what they are throughout God's Word. And today we're going to look at a number of scriptures that will help us understand what the promises of God are and how the Holy Spirit operates. You know, in my introduction, I basically was talking about how the Holy Spirit promises the gifts, you know, of wisdom and counsel and guidance and peace and all those wonderful things. Well, he does. It would be wonderful to get into those right now. But first, I think I'd be making a big mistake if I didn't mention the gifts of the Spirit that we read about in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Let's do that right now. You know, the New King James Version, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse number 4. There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. Now that's very important, we'll talk more about that later. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord.

1:52 God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. Verse 7. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can, listen to this, help each other. See, we don't just get the spiritual gifts so that we can just get the blessing and the gift. We receive a gift so that we can bless the kingdom and bless the family of God. It says so that we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice. To another, the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith. To another and to someone else, the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the right spirit from the spirit of God is what it's saying or from another spirit still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said it is the one and only spirit who distributes all these Gifts he alone decides which gift each person should have now I read a lot there But I think it's so important to understand that these are all gifts that are available But we got to remember it's the Holy Spirit who decide who gets what gifts and I think it partly It's because of whether they can trust them to operate properly in the gifts because the Spirit of God knows our spirit They know what our intentions are they know what our motives are we knows what our desires are so we want

3:23 to be sure that if we're seeking these gifts that we seek God first, then we ask the Holy Spirit to give us the gifts that we would like to operate in these gifts and yield to Him and say, I receive what you have for me. And I believe if we do that, we're approaching the Holy Spirit in the proper form. So I thought I should take a little bit of time in the beginning of this podcast to cover the... proper way to seek the gifts of the Spirit and what our mindset must be like and what our intentions are and what our desires are. In addition to that, in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, Paul goes on to talk about how love is the greatest gift. You see, the greatest promise or gift of the Holy Spirit is love. Listen to what Paul has to say. If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy and if I understand all of God's secret plans and possess all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains but didn't love others, I would be nothing. He's basically saying that love is the most important thing.

4:28 It's the most important gift that we receive and that we give out. Let's talk a little bit more about the gift of love. Galatians chapter 5 and verse 22. Paul wrote this to let people understand how the Holy Spirit operates. I'm reading it in the New Living Translation. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives. Love. Look at that. The very first one Paul mentions again is the significance of love. And then through love we receive then joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness, faithfulness. gentleness and self -control. So the key to having all these other things is to have love and the key to operate in the gifts of the Spirit is to have love first. So the first fruit of the Spirit is love and what Paul is saying the most important gift of the Holy Spirit is love. You know as we saw in 1st Corinthians chapter 13 verse 2, all of the gifts or the fruit of the Spirit are wonderful but the gift of love is the greatest. Alright, so let's move on. I think we've probably covered enough there, so I won't hang on that for any longer right now.

5:31 In 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 17, the New International Version, listen to this. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, that means is a Christian, the new creation has come and the old has gone away. Now, why did I read that? Well, I read that for a couple of reasons. One is, I have... heard Christians some of them really wonderful people say well I'm Irish so I get to argue and have to argue a lot I gotta speak my mind or I'm Scottish or I was raised in a family where we argued a lot and we cussed a lot and that's just the way it was so I have a right to do those things it's just my nature and that's what I am well no I don't believe it's our nature any longer because what did I just read said Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17 therefore if anyone is in Christ we that means we're a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ the new creation has come the old has gone the new is here so when we think of it that way things change now it won't happen overnight I can tell you when people get converted they come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior some of those old habits pop up some of those come but we need to strive through the power of the Holy Spirit and a relationship that we have with the Holy Spirit to be that new creation that God made and all things become new we don't have to argue just because of our ethnic background are because of our cultural background, are because of our genealogical background, what our bloodline is. That stuff can change. The fact is that because of our bloodline we might all have blue eyes or brown eyes or dark hair or light skin or dark

7:01 skin or whatever it might be. That's all wonderful and good. But the bottom line of it is who we are changes. What our heart is, what our mind is, how we think, how we act. That's what the Holy Spirit wants to do. And we need to surrender to Him so that He can change those bad habits those old things that we did I know when I was raised it wasn't we were not a Christian home we went to church but we didn't really surrender to look to the Lord none of us were saved my including my mom and dad and we had a lot of Irish in our family so there were so many arguments where people are yelling and screaming at each other and it just was so frustrating as a child I just didn't want to be a part of those things and I mean there wasn't anybody getting hit or thrown around or anything like that but just the language was terrible and just all that stuff I had a wonderful loving mom and dad but they had not understood what it was to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ and receive the Holy Spirit in our life, when it happened to them later on in life, because I was blessed to be able to pray with my mom and dad to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and they were in their early 50s when that happened, and everything changed. All of a sudden, the arguing stopped, the complaining stopped, the mom and dad changed radically. I mean, they were always loving and kind and very wonderful to me as their son and our family, but... I knew that something changed.

8:14 They were different. They were absolutely changed, totally changed. And that's by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so they realized that... Showing love was more important than proving their point. I hope that sticks with some people because you might come from a family where some of that stuff is taking place. Just keep hope. Keep focusing on the Lord. Pray for your family members that that spirit of anger and bitterness and stuff and unforgiveness that sometimes floats around in families, it can be removed through the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. So I hope that might help someone, but I think the Holy Spirit gave me some thoughts that we should interject into this particular podcast. See, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the opportunity.

8:54 It doesn't happen automatically, but we have the opportunity to rise above our past. Our genealogy is not a wall that blocks the changes that need to come to our heart. The Holy Spirit wants to help us put on our changes. To some, it's instant. I mean, it's instant, overnight. And yet, to others, it may take time. It may take years for people to change. So for some of us who've had that change in our spirit and maybe our language or our background, we also then receive the fruit of the spirit which is Patience and so therefore if there's a family members or friends that you have and they're still struggling with that Just keep loving them keep encouraging them keep directing them to be faithful to the house of God to the faithful to Word and Prayer And you will see the change take place I'm telling you it'll happen in Jesus name the Holy Spirit is ready He is willing and he is able to help us But we must desire to serve the Holy Spirit and not our flesh we must have a desire to receive the Holy Spirit's gifts. Most important though is the gift of love.

9:59 Now the entire Bible is really a big promise from the Holy Spirit. Promise for good things and promise for bad things that can happen. In 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 in the New Living Translation, here's what it says, all scripture, that's all, every single bit of it, all scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. Now that's really quite a scripture, isn't it? When you think about how the Holy Holy Spirit wants to help us. He wants to bless us. Yeah, but he also wants to correct us. Let's take a little bit slower step through that scripture. Second Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, new living translation. I know some of you might be jogging while you're listening to this or riding a bike or exercising or whatever. Listen to this carefully.

10:41 All scripture, that means every word of God is inspired by God. It says is inspired by God and is useful, all right? No question about it. It's useful. It does not contradicts itself. It is useful to teach us. what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. That's the beauty of the Holy Spirit. He will tell me, hey, you weren't very nice to that person or you didn't talk real... friendly to your wife or you didn't say something nice to your son. You need to go back and correct that. And I just, I really love that when that happens. I don't feel like I'm in trouble. I just feel like thank you that I can go patch that up and heal it up before it gets worse. That's why the Holy Spirit wants us to follow Him and that's why we need the promises of the Holy Spirit and want to listen to His promises. Now think about how we can receive Holy Spirit promises, okay? How can we actually receive them? Well, we receive them when we understand them and we understand them through the Holy Spirit and through reading the Word of God. In Psalm 119, 105, New Living Translation, listen to this, your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my... Wow. So God's Word is the one who lights up the direction we should go and keeps us on the right path. The Holy Spirit is the one that keeps us on the right path. The path to make the right decisions, the path to have wisdom, the path to have knowledge for something, the path to know what is right and what's going to become a problem, those are all things that the Holy Spirit will help us with if we surrender to Him and we do that through prayer, through

12:12 reading God's Word and seeking out the Holy Spirit. Here's another scripture, Luke chapter 17, 19. New International Version. It's one I use a lot when I pray for people who are sick and having physical problems. Jesus is talking here and he said this to a man who needed healing. He said, your faith has made you well. You see, that scripture made a massive change in my life when I was diagnosed with incurable bone marrow cancer, diagnosed with and wound up losing my right kidney to cancer. And those are the types of ways that the Holy Spirit, his promises are real because his promises are His Word. The Word of God are the promises. Some people say, well, I don't have any of the gifts or any of the promises of God. Well, we all have the Word. And if we just get the Word out and read the Word, that's one of His promises. The beginning of this part of this podcast, I said the entire Bible is a promise from the Holy Spirit. I'm telling you, that's how we have to look at the promises of God. They will bless us so greatly that we will have an abundance of blessing to share with someone else. In Proverbs chapter 3 verse 15 in the New International Version, listen to this, trust in the Lord. with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding. Now, I know I've probably used that scripture 20 times in the last 370 podcasts that we've done, but it's such a powerful scripture dealing with receiving the blessings of the Lord and receiving the promises of the Holy Spirit. We trust in the Lord, not in our bank account, not in our wisdom, our knowledge.

13:40 It's nice to have a nice bank account. It's nice to have knowledge and understanding, but we can't trust in that because those things can go. You know, things are changing in the world today every single day. You know, I never even used computers when I was in business. It wasn't necessary. Now you can't survive without a network of computers and the internet and the artificial intelligence. It's all out there. Things change. So we've got to trust in God through all this with all our heart. All. The word A -L -L. All. Every part of our heart we must place our trust in God. Yes, we can use computers and yes, we can use those things, but our trust is always in God. him to help us in whatever we're going through. Do not depend, it says, on your own understanding.

14:22 Once again, our own understanding will change. Our own understanding might fail us. Our own understanding might be affected by a physical challenge we're going through. But regardless of what we're going through, the Holy Spirit is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I say that twice because it's so important to understand that nothing changes with God. He is consistent. He is He's always there. And the Holy Spirit is the same. He's consistent. He's faithful. He's always there. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 19 and verse 26 in the New International Version, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. There's another gift from the Holy Spirit. That word was inspired by the Holy Spirit through him to have those words written in this Word of God so we can have those words a couple of thousand years after they were written.

15:14 With man this is impossible. It's impossible and we all have things that we're going through where it's impossible with us, but with God all things are possible. Over the years as a pastor and over the thousands of people that I've ministered to and prayed with and visited hospitals, we've always believed for healing. We've always believed that God's going to save that person's life and going to bring them through and it doesn't always happen. I don't always see people healed when we pray, yet at other times we pray and people are miraculously healed. We've seen amazing healings. in the hospital beds just before surgery where surgery wasn't even necessary. We've seen miracles on my own life, my goodness, my kidneys, the cancer battles that I've been diagnosed with.

15:54 God is so faithful and it seems like more and more people are getting healed these days. More and more people are trusting in God and believing that God is their source and with God all things are possible. So Jesus said it, I believe it and the Holy Spirit will help that come to pass. He'll give us faith for healing for ourselves. for other people. The Holy Spirit will give us the blessings, the miracle gift that he gives to people and it's all possible. So don't say it's not for me or I'm not the one can have it. We need to approach the Holy Spirit and ask him because he is the one that decides who gets which gifts in that particular area. But there are many gifts that he doesn't need to decide because they're already determined. For example, he doesn't decide who gets saved and who doesn't get saved.

16:38 We have that decision to make. That is a personal choice we have to make. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin, but we can reject Him or we can accept Him. And when we accept Him and we ask for forgiveness for our sins, we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, it's done. It's done. And that's a blessing from God. And that was a blessing that came through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Through His sufferings, we could live and receive the abundance of God and receive the blessings of the Holy Spirit. You see, the greatest promise of the Holy Spirit. I mentioned love is the greatest of all the gifts, but I believe the greatest promise of the Holy Spirit is the promise of salvation which is love. The promise of salvation is a gift of love that Jesus had for us, that He loved us so much that whosoever believeth in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. God so loved the world.

17:28 He loved us and so the promise of salvation is love in action. And the power of salvation is through the Holy Spirit because the drawing is accomplished through the Holy Spirit. Wow. John chapter 6 verse 44, New Living Translation. Jesus said these words, listen to this, for no one can come to Wow, what a glorious day that's gonna be. My goodness, my goodness. But I wanted to emphasize that because it's the Holy Spirit that draws us and that's because of the love of Christ. Love is always the greatest gift. Love is always the most important gift and the most important promise that God has for us. And that promise of salvation is for anyone, whosoever, anyone.

18:15 Some faiths believe that, no, God picks and chooses who he wants. I don't agree with that. John 3 .16 tells me that God so loved the world. that he gave his only begotten son that whoever, whosoever, whoever would come to him that he would forgive them of their sins and they'd be saved and they spend eternity with Christ and with their past loved ones who went to heaven. So let's remember the importance of love. I guess I can't seem to get off of that today. It seems like every time I think I'm through talking about that, the Lord wants me to extend that talk a little bit. Let's move on. When I became a Christian at 25 years of age, I faced a life -threatening kidney disease. I mean, kidney disease. It was... almost automatic I got saved and within a matter of a couple months I was told my kidneys were completely shot they were gone and the doctor said I'm sorry to tell you this but you have a terrible kidney disease it came from your service in Vietnam the exposure you had we checked your records and yes the military has all kinds of records showing that you had kidney disease that came apart because of the conditions you lived there in Vietnam and so therefore That has never changed and now it's worse than it's ever been and your kidneys are failing you and they won't last much longer. I was 25. My wife and I were expecting our second child. We had just become brand new followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

19:26 It probably couldn't have come at a better time that diagnosis because we were just filled with faith. And so I looked at the doctor and I said, so what do we do? And he said, there's nothing to do. Just drink a lot of water and come back in six months and we'll see how bad they are and how much longer you have to live. Isn't that nice? Anyways, so I went away for six months. and I prayed. We claimed the promises of God. We asked the Holy Spirit to help us. We asked for the gift of healing. We asked for the gift of miracles. We believed, we believed, we believed in God. We had other friends of ours praying the same way and God was so faithful. I went back in six months, went to see the doctor. He did all the testing on me. I met in his office. He looked at me and he said, what did you do? I said, well, we drank a lot of water. He said, OK. And we prayed. And he said, really? That's all you did? I said, well, that's not all we did. That's everything that we did. We drank water and we prayed. He said, well, your kidneys have been completely restored. I mean, completely, totally restored. They're like you've never had a disease at all. They're functioning normal, perfectly normal. And I'm telling you, that was just an absolute miracle from God. The Holy Spirit gave us peace. We were new Christians. And the devil came to kill, to steal, and destroy. And yet Jesus came that we could give in life and give in more. more abundantly. That's John 10, 10. So Jesus decided my life wasn't over and healed that kidney condition. We took no other medication, absolutely nothing. I could not have a kidney transplant because at 25, that was many, many years ago, the chances of survival and my condition were very slim. And the guy didn't, the doctor didn't think I had any chance of surviving a kidney transplant because they just, it was new. It was something they weren't doing a lot of. And besides I had a blood condition on top

20:58 of it. Well, by the way, God healed that blood condition also. So bottom line, those things happen, and we just give God all the glory and all the praise. Now, what did the Holy Spirit tell me to do when I needed to be healed? Read His Word, claim His promises, and trust God. All those things. That was all at once, and that's what we had to hang on to. I didn't go back to the doctor for six months, but after six months, He was looking at me and saying, this is a miracle. I was directed by the Holy Spirit first to immerse. myself in God's Word. The words I read in the Bible showed me the promises available to me as a Christian, as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those same promises are available to anyone listening in today. No matter what you're going through, no matter what physical issue it is, emotional situation it is, financial situation, relationship situation, no matter what it is, our God is able. He's able to do exceedingly abundantly above anything we can imagine or even think. So with that, I'm going to pray right now. I was going to talk a little bit more, but I'm going to pray right now because I believe there's people out there who right now are needing prayer. You've got a condition. If you've got a condition in your body, just lay your hand on that part of your body, whether it's your back or your arms or your legs or your feet, whatever it might be, just find a place and lay your hands on there safe. Father, in the name of Jesus, I come to you. I claim my healing.

22:18 I stand upon the promises of God. I believe that you're a very present help in times of trouble. That's what your word says. I believe, Father, that if I seek you first and your righteousness and your goodness, that I'll receive everything else. I believe that and I claim it. I believe in healing and I believe in miracles. So Father, right now, say, I receive my healing touch. I receive my emotional touch. I receive my financial blessing. I receive this in the name of Jesus. And I'll be careful to give you all glory, you all honor, and you praise for it in Jesus' name. Well, I hope when you prayed that, that you just meant that with all your heart. And if you kind of struggle with a little bit and said, well, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, well, then when this podcast is over just take a moment and maybe go back and listen to that part again towards the end of this podcast and just just claim the promises of God and say that's my prayer that's for my body that's for what I need that's one of the promises of the Holy Spirit you know when that diagnosis hit me I got the word of God I just got it in my heart so heavy. Then after that, I prayed for others who were facing physical challenges. Matter of fact, it was amazing that just before that happened there was a little boy in our church who had kidney failure. He was like four or five years old. And I prayed over him and he was healed. It wasn't me, it was the power of God and He was healed and this happened just a few months before I was diagnosed with a terminal kidney illness which didn't turn out to be terminal at all. So I started praying for others and God then told me to even pray more for others, find people with physical challenges

23:50 and pray for them and tell them about what you're praying for yourself but pray for them and that was very beneficial. People were blessed by that. The third decision was to be in church whenever the doors were open. Don't miss gathering together with the people of God. Go to church, hear the sermon, be there, listen to the worship songs and be a part of them. Participate in the worship part and be blessed. That is when I realized that other Christians had compassion for me and they prayed for me. When they saw me praying for others, they prayed for me. When they saw that I heard about my kidney condition and knew that the miracle took place and that little boy's body was healed, they prayed for me. I didn't ask them to pray for me. I didn't tell them, you know, hey, would you please gather around me, anoint me with oil and pray for me. The church turned into an absolute miracle of prayer. And it's truly remarkable what God did when God's people stand up and trust in His word, trust in the promises of the Holy Spirit and accept the fullness and blessings that God has in store for them. I received a miracle healing and God be all the glory all the praise and all the honor I really believe that this particular podcast was anointed to give people a focus on two things one was love have that foremost in your heart and when we have that first then all these other things will be added into us secondly that we need to believe in prayer and and and thirdly we need to believe in God's Word and claim it claim the promises they're yours God gave them to you They're yours to meet your need. Remember in Luke 17, 19 when Jesus said, your faith has

25:21 healed you? He talked to a man who needed to be healed and that man was healed because Jesus said, your faith has healed you. I believe that's going to happen in people today. I believe people are going to tell their friends and family members that something special, a miracle took place in their lives. And I just pray now that you would be blessed in all that you do. I'm going to have to close this podcast because I'm running out of time. But bottom line, thank you so much for listening. And if you'd like to know more about quality Christian living, I would encourage you to go to my webpage at davidcfranauthor .com. And when you get there, right on the front page, you'll see a link to all the podcasts. Matter of fact, I think this is number 371. So if you go there and try looking for them, they're all numbered. And out of those 371, there's been one entire year or 52 messages, lessons, if you will, on the Holy Spirit, dealing with what we have been talking about. And then prior to that, we talked about... But our dealing with the Holy Spirit talks about just about every area of our life, whether it be physical needs, financial needs, whether it be emotional needs, whatever it is, the Holy Spirit is there to help us. I also had a series of messages on miracles, on faith, on finances, and how you can be blessed in receiving the fullness of God. So if you want to pull that up and hit that link, you'll see a whole list of podcasts There'll be a topic that I hope you'll listen to. You know, I find it interesting. I'm seeing now that people are going back and reading and listening to my podcasts that were done, you know, two and three and four years ago and pulling them up. I can look back and I get a report of what people are listening to and it's just amazing to see how people are

26:52 going back and looking for something that will bless them. So I hope that'll be a blessing to you. That's why we're doing the podcast called Quality Christian Living. It's so that all of us can live a quality Christian life and live Don't live below what God intended for us, but live at the level that he intended. In addition to that, if you'd like to subscribe to my podcast, you can do that by going to cpnshows .com or wherever you listen to your particular podcast. So I want to just thank you so much for listening. I really do appreciate that. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd like you to take a moment to rate it and review the podcast. You know, it really helps us to be in contact with more people. You can leave a review on Apple podcasts. I've been seeing an awful lot of them come in lately.

27:34 Amazon Music, Charisma Podcast Network, or just give us a star rating on Spotify. However you choose to support it, we appreciate it. We'll be thankful for it. And we give God all the glory and honor. So I'm gonna wrap this one up our next podcast. I don't know the title I usually give you the title of the following one give you a couple things what we're gonna cover All I can tell you is it's gonna be on the Holy Spirit I may be talking about the Holy Spirit and Holy Communion I really think that that's a topic that needs attention So we'll see how the Lord leads us, but I don't really have it right now to put it in this particular podcast So just tune in and there'll be another podcast coming up on the Holy Spirit So let me give you a blessing may the Lord bless you and keep you may his face shine upon you and and be gracious to you and give you peace. May you prosper and be in good health, even as your soul prospers. So until next time, may God richly bless you. Thank you for listening to Quality Christian Living. I'm your host, David Friend. See you next time.