How the Holy Spirit Blesses Us (341)

0:01 Once again, I welcome you to the Quality Christian Living Podcast. I am your host, David Friend. Today's topic is how the Holy Spirit blesses us. List the number of ways that the Holy Spirit will bless Christians, and how can we know when the Holy Spirit is the one doing the blessings in our life? We'll also address why we must always give the Holy Spirit the credit for any good thing that takes place in our life, and that we must be in unity with the Holy Spirit in order to receive his blessings. But before we get into that, let's pray. Heavenly Father, I give you praise for who you are. I thank you, Lord, for bringing us together today, and for those who are listening in, I pray the Holy Spirit would bless them. and I now surrender everything to you Lord. I ask the Holy Spirit to come in and take control, guide the scriptures we read and the interpretation of those verses, how it applies to this particular podcast. I pray that you receive the glory and praise for what's about to take place. I thank you once again for who you are God and I thank you for the blessed gift of the Holy Spirit who gives us guidance and direction in everything that we do as long as we seek him.

1:06 Bless this we pray now in Jesus name. Amen. Well I'm going to have a number of scriptures in today's podcast because I really was putting a podcast together and every time I had a thought a scripture would jump up in my mind and so I thought well let's just use as many as the Holy Spirit gives us and as time allows and let's just see where we go from here. So following is a list of Holy Spirit blessings. He comforts us. We see that in the book of John chapter 15 and verse 26. Just a powerful words of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will send you the Advocate, Jesus said. The Spirit of Truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me. You see, Jesus wanted them to understand where truth comes from, and the Spirit of God is the truth that we need in our life, and He is the one who comforts us. He's there inside, living and dwelling inside of every single born -again believer. Anyone who's given their life to Christ, if you've given your life to Jesus as for forgiveness of your sins, Jesus Christ then has sent to us the Holy Spirit into each and every one of us so that we'll have that power ready and available to us, but we must seek that. We must ask him for help, ask for guidance and direction, and he will give us comfort in the midst of some of the most difficult things that I've seen in my life. With cancer diagnosis that was going to take my life, the Holy Spirit gave me comfort.

2:27 Financial issues when we had our business and the economy really dropped terribly and our business was in trouble, the Holy Spirit comforted my wife and I. We were at peace in the middle of some very difficult times. In the church when we were building and we faced some financial challenges, the Holy Spirit once again came and gave comfort. He'll do the same for every one of us if we just simply trust in Him, lean upon Him, ask for His guidance, His direction. And Jesus said that He will send, He says, you the Advocate. That means someone that's on our side, the Spirit of Truth. And He will come to you from the Father and will testify about me. So how can it get any better? than that. So that's the first scripture, I think, that helps us to understand how the Holy Spirit blesses believers.

3:10 He gives us help when we make decisions. When we're trying to make a decision, He's the one that gives us help. We seek Him when we buy something. We seek Him when we're thinking about buying a car or a house. We seek Him when we're thinking if we're single and we're dating someone, or if we're dating someone and we're getting serious about them, we seek Him about marriage. We seek Him in every area of our life. If we're having trouble with our health, we seek Him. If we're having a problem, With the food that we eat, we seek him. If we have a problem with drinking or anything that is in or is hurting our body, we seek him and he will help us and he's always there to help us in making the right decisions about what we should do, what we should say, who we should say it to, how we should say it, and the source, maybe a scripture would come to mind because the Holy Spirit reminds us of scriptures. We'll talk about that, I believe, later in the podcast today. So our decisions that we make for every part of our life, the Holy Spirit wants to help us. us and guide us.

4:04 Three, he tells us what is true and what is false. In John chapter 16 and verse 13, Jesus is talking to his disciples because he's leaving them to go to heaven. He's comforting them with telling about the Holy Spirit, but he gets into this one particular area, it's kind of a call to a time where sadness, he's telling that sadness will return to joy, the sadness of him leaving that when the Holy Spirit comes that they'll receive joy. But in John chapter 16 and verses 13, Jesus is telling his disciples, he's telling them how to find truth. So verse 13 says this, when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own, but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. Verse 14, he will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. In verse 15, all that belongs to the father is mine. This is why I said, the spirit will tell you. whatever he receives from me. So we're hearing direct revelation of truth from the Holy Spirit. That's why we must seek him, must ask him for help, seek his guidance, pray and read the Holy Spirit inspired Word of God. That's where we'll find truth. Matter of fact, I've always been taught over the years as being a Christian and listening to some great teachers, if anyone is really looking for truth, eventually they have to find Jesus because Jesus is the only truth that's out there. And so we have that. That truth is living inside of us.

5:31 So that's how we can be directed to understand the difference. between what's true and what's false in life. One of the greatest blessings that the Holy Spirit can give us is that he draws us to become Christians. That's got to be the greatest gift that he gives us, is that he then comes upon us and speaks to our inner spirit and our own spirit and our body, soul and spirit to draw us into a relationship with Jesus Christ. That's why I believe so strongly in praying for people who are unsaved that the Holy Spirit would speak to them and would reveal to them the truth, would reveal to them that they need Jesus. They need to submit their lives and their cares and their concerns of life and submit them to the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's the greatest gift that we can receive from him. Another gift or blessing that he has is that he reminds us of scriptures when we need them. There's a wonderful scripture found in John chapter 14 and verse 26 that describes that. These are the words of Jesus again found in the New Living Translation.

6:28 But when the Father sends the Advocate, that's the Holy Spirit, as my representative, that is the Holy Spirit, He will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. You know, it's so important that we understand that the Holy Spirit is working inside of us to help us, not to beat us up, not to make us feel pressure and anxiety, but just the opposite, to bring peace and joy and love and patience and all the things that He offers to us through the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self -control. Those are things that the Holy Spirit brings us and we've got to understand that he is our source of all the peace and all the joy and all the blessings that are made available by God the Father. And since I mentioned peace, why don't we just look for it in the Word of God and see where it talks about how the Holy Spirit brings these things to us. It's found in Galatians chapter 5 verses 22 through 23. They're called the fruit of the Spirit. Paul's writing here and he says, but the Holy Spirit produces This kind of fruit in our lives, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control. There is no law against these things. So see, that's just a bunch of blessings, right? That's just a bulk of blessings that God wants to place upon us and they all come from the Holy Spirit. So therefore, if you're looking for, well, how can he bless you? Then just pull these scriptures out and start reading them and start believing them and allow them to permeate your life and just fill your heart and your body, soul and spirit with the love of Christ and the

8:00 power of the Holy Spirit. Under the direction of God the Father, the Holy Spirit brings us blessings. Listen to Paul speaking in the book of Ephesians in chapter 1 and verse 3. Listen to this very carefully and see where the Holy Spirit is speaking to you in an area that you might need help with in your life. All praise to God. First of all, if we want to be blessed by the Holy Spirit, we're going to have to give all praise to God. It says the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Look at that. Every blessing. Listen to that. I'm kind of getting excited. You can probably tell that. But listen to this scripture once again. We're talking about how the Holy Spirit blesses us and here God gives this direction to Paul who is being anointed by the Holy Spirit to write these words down.

8:49 He said, all praise to God. That's when we're struggling with something, start off by praying. See, it's the praises that we give to God that take away the fear and the anxiety and all the stuff, the worry, the things that come into our life. So all praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us. Listen to that. Has blessed us, not will or someday might, but has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. So all of that blessing is available to us if we look at the Bible. learn to live and walk in the Spirit because there's two ways that we walk here on earth. One is in the Spirit and one's in the flesh. And I know most of us go in and out of it. We're for a while maybe just doing our own things. It may not be bad things, but we've got our own mind set on what we're going to do, the direction we're going to go, the decision we're going to make. So we do all those things. And then we wake up, fortunately, spiritually and realize that we need to stop thinking that way and we need to walk in the Spirit. When we walk in the Spirit, then that opens up the promises that I just read in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3. Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ and we're united with Christ and then he in turn Christ sends the Holy Spirit to earth to fill us, to dwell in us, to give us the opportunity to receive all the blessings of the heavenlies. You know, that's such a powerful scripture. That ought to be a podcast someday.

10:19 Well, I'll have to think about that one. Alright, he is always ready to help us. That's something that a lot of people struggle with understanding. Let's talk about that for a second. There's a couple of Psalms, I think, that really deal with this. It's Psalm 46 .1 that I like so much. God is our refuge and strength. Always, listen to that, always ready, which means He's there, ready to help us. Always ready to help in times of trouble. You see, we have access to that always ready and help of God the Father because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit inside of us. So the Holy Spirit then helps us connect with that strength, with that hope. Here's another Psalm I think that's really wonderful dealing with. always ready to help us. It's found in Psalm chapter 1 and verse 1. Listen to this, Oh the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or stand around the sinners or join in with mockers for they delight in the law of the Lord meditating on it day and night. You see, we've got to meditate on God's Word because God's Word was inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives and dwells in us. The Holy Spirit inside of us is so deeply wanting us to devour the Word of God, to read the Word of God, to study the Word of God, to take it into our heart and mind, to every time we read a scripture, allow it to speak to us because it's personal.

11:34 The scriptures are very personal. You say, well, how can it be personal when it was written thousands of years ago? No, the point of it is that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So when he said in Psalms, oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, that advice goes for followers of the Lord Jesus Christ all the way through their life and into eternity. So therefore, we can receive peace through the Holy Spirit and have a relationship with God the Father and through His Word receive the help and strength that we need. The Holy Spirit loves us so much and He blesses us so much. that listen to this, He convicts us of sin. Now that bothers some of you, but in reality, I am so thankful when I get convicted of something that I did wrong or made a mistake or made an error, I know it's the Holy Spirit that's helping me. I welcome conviction from the Holy Spirit. Matter of fact, I welcome God to correct me because not you, I don't want to hear from you and be corrected.

12:27 I don't want to be corrected by my spouse. I want God though to correct me because when He corrects me, it's for my good. And so it all benefit. One translation says, it's for my good and then I'll profit from it. And so the bottom line of it is is that I love the conviction of the Holy Spirit in my life and it's just such a wonderful thing. Jesus talked about it in John chapter 16 and verse 8. Listen to this, he's talking to the disciples, he's saying basically, if I don't go then the Holy Spirit won't come so therefore it's better for you if I go. And in verse 8 of chapter 16 in John, Jesus says these words, and when he comes, he's talking about the Holy Spirit, he will convict the world of its sin and of God's righteousness and of the coming judgment. Now you see, that's a blessing.

13:10 It's a blessing to be convicted that we have sin in our life. Now don't take this wrong. Matter of fact, I receive that because I believe that. I know that I need the convicting power of the Holy Spirit to guide me and I know that it's a blessing. I believe that. I know the Holy Spirit has told me sometimes when I've come home from church or from just a day's work and activities and all of a sudden He'll put in my mind that I had a conversation with someone today and I need to call them and apologize that it just didn't go the way it should have gone and I'll call the person and say, hey, I just want to let you know I really enjoyed meeting you today and talking to you or whatever it was, in -person conversation or on the phone, whatever it was and just tell them I'm just sorry because I think I may have sounded a little gruff or I may have sounded a little stern but really that was my intention and the person will always say something like, oh no, you were not at all. Matter of fact, I received that but the Holy Spirit told me to go back to that person and convicted me that I need to be sure that that person understood what I was saying and understood that I still love them and I care for them. So the Holy Spirit's conviction is something we can't live without and I pray that you'll receive that in Jesus' name. Okay, let's continue on. I'm really enjoying these scriptures. I hope that you are because that's really the basis of everything that we teach. It better be based upon the Word of God.

14:24 Listen to this, 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 19 in the New International Version. Now we're talking about the Blessings of the Holy Spirit come to us, and how do we receive them? Where do they come from? Do you not know that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit? Paul's saying these words, led course by the Holy Spirit. Who is in you whom you have received? from God, you are not your own." Wow! Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and so therefore Paul's giving them direction. I think he was firm on this and told them, do you not know? He says, you've got to understand this and we all need to understand that in order to receive the blessings that the Holy Spirit has intended for each and every follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to this one. Paul's speaking again in the book of Acts chapter 1 and verse 8 in the New Living Translation, but you will receive power. All right, here we go. There's another blessing from the Lord. When the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere. And of course, he says, which everything was in those days, Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Now that includes the rest of us.

15:33 The ends of the earth. Yeah, we are the ends of the earth. We are the rest of the earth here in America. And those of you listening around the world, because this podcast goes around the world. And someone told me the other day that we've... I've had over 140 countries now who have downloaded these podcasts. So truly, the Word of God gets around the world. And this scripture tells me, and it really helps me to understand that the blessings of the Holy Spirit come, first of all, because the Holy Spirit lives and dwells inside of us, and that we'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, which means we have power operating in us. You ever stop and think that... The Holy Spirit is actually identified as God the Holy Spirit. Remember, it's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

16:20 And it's a triune God, and a God who is there to help us in heaven. And when Jesus walked on this earth, and now the Holy Spirit who is here on this earth abiding in followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he wants to bless us with power. Power to overcome challenges. Power to overcome doubt and fear. Power to overcome making bad decisions. power to overcome setbacks, maybe physical or emotional or financial, whatever it might be. We have the power in us to overcome anything because of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Now Acts chapter 2 verse 38, the New International Version again, listen to this, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here we go, we got saved, we got baptized in water, and now we've received the gift of the Holy Spirit. I can't think of a better blessing than that after our salvation is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Listen to Isaiah chapter 11 and verse 2 here in the New International Version, and we're reading now the Old Testament now.

17:25 The Spirit of the Lord, that's the Holy Spirit, will rest on Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of a might, the Spirit of the knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Look at all the blessings in that scripture. These are all Holy Spirit blessings that are inside of us, available to us. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him, okay? Listen to this. Wisdom and understanding. Does anybody out there like to have at times a little more wisdom, a little more understanding? I know I do. There's times I go into meetings and conversations with people or counseling couples and I say, Heavenly Father, Holy Spirit, help me. I ask for wisdom and understanding.

18:05 I pray that you'll give me the right words to speak. anoint my time with these people before I ever get to see the people. I've got to get myself ready and prepared in the Spirit, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit to be able to be of help to them, to have the wisdom and understanding. And the Spirit of counsel, I ask for that. That the Holy Spirit will help me with that. And the power of the Holy Spirit, the knowledge of the Holy Spirit, and having the fear of God to put the trust that we have, we place it in God. And when we do that, I'm telling you, we can take on any challenge that ever faces us. You can counsel someone who's gone through the same problems that you've had, because the Holy Spirit will give you wisdom, understanding, and give you the counsel that you need. All right, let's move on now. Romans chapter 8 and verse 26, another powerful scripture. And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. There's another blessing.

18:54 That means the Holy Spirit can help us with anything, no matter what it is. And a lot of people will come to me for counsel, and they'll say, Pastor, I'm just not really sure how to deal with this. I don't know how to address this. And I'll ask them, well, what does the Word of God say? Or, how are you dealing with it in your prayer time? Have you asked the Holy Spirit to give you guidance and direction? And usually, most of the time, they're saying, well, not like I should. Well, we've got to seek God as we should, because He will help us in our weaknesses. At the beginning of this podcast, I made a list of things that we were going to cover and about the number of ways the Holy Spirit blesses us. Well, we've already given you a ton of those and how can we know that it's the Holy Spirit helping us and maybe it's not something of our own flesh.

19:35 We've just discussed that and how we must always give the Holy Spirit credit for any good thing that happens into our life. We've discussed that even the last podcast before this. We discussed that in quite detail and that we must be... willing to invite the Holy Spirit into our conversations and every decision that we need to make in life. And then here we are as getting towards the end of this podcast, and we read one simple scripture that says the Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. Doesn't that kind of... cover everything? Isn't it true that the Holy Spirit will help us in every single case that we have? Those are the blessings of the Holy Spirit. And then in Luke chapter 24 and verse 19 in the New Living Translation it says this, And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised, but stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven. That's what Jesus told his disciples. The Holy Spirit in us has filled us. with power from heaven. Another great blessing. Let me just pray for you right now.

20:35 I believe this is a moment to kind of bring this podcast to an end, but I want to pray for you. I'm going to tell you about what's coming up in a moment on next week's podcast. The Lord's giving me something I think that'll be helpful. We're going to talk about the Holy Spirit and power or the Holy Spirit and strength. I'm not sure which one we're going to get into right now, but one of those two we'll be doing in our next podcast because this particular scripture inspired me to think about the Holy Spirit. power. What does that mean when we just read that and fills you with power from heaven? That means all power over everything. But let's pray for you right now first and ask the Holy Spirit to help us all and to bless you and to receive the blessings of the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, for those who are listening in, whatever they're going through, I pray now the Holy Spirit would give them power to deal with it. The Holy Spirit would strengthen them in their weakness. The Holy Spirit would bring them into truth when they're wondering what's true and what's false in their life. I pray that you would anoint them and an overflowing power anointing of the Holy Spirit so they'll have wisdom and understanding and being able to not only to deal with their own challenges but be able to offer counsel and words of comfort to those around them. Heavenly Father I ask that the Holy Spirit would move in a very special way in each and every one of our lives that we would never be casual about inviting the Holy Spirit to be with us in our prayer time even when we get in our car that we would invite him to be with us. Lord I Thank you. I thank you so much for this series. This series has opened up my eyes to a realm of podcasting

22:07 that I haven't done before and that is to just totally, completely yield every single podcast inside and out to the guidance and the direction of the leading of the Holy Spirit. And I pray now that each and every one of us would take from this podcast today an understanding that the Holy Spirit wants to bless us. He's there to bless us and even convicting us of Sin is a blessing, so Father, that we receive that now. And I pray that strength and power would come upon those who are listening in. I pray that they would receive the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self -control. Father, those gifts, Father, would flow through each and every person who's listening in today.

22:48 And Lord, may we invite someone in our community, Lord, a family member, a friend, or someone we work with, to receive these teachings on the Holy Spirit that their lives would be dramatically changed. I thank you, Lord, for your goodness, your faithfulness. I thank you for those who are listening in each and every week and each and every month and all throughout the years, Father. I pray they be blessed, that they prosper, Father, and be blessed spiritually, financially, physically, emotionally, Lord. And we'll give you praise for it and all the glory. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Well, I hope this has been a blessing to you. I can't think of a single podcast that I've ever done that I've enjoyed more than this one. And it started out so differently because as I was preparing it, I asked the Holy Spirit, what should I do? How should I go about this particular topic that you put on my heart?

23:31 And it was just, read my word, read my word, read my word. And as I went through, I discovered all of these scriptures. I don't know, we used probably 16 or 18 scriptures or more in this particular podcast. And I truly believe that it was led by you and that these scriptures will come to life in each and every one of us, and I just thank you for it. Now if all of you who are listening would like to know more about Quality Christian Living, that's the overall name of our podcast. We're on a series now on the Holy Spirit. But if you'd like to know more about Quality Christian Living, you can go to my webpage at davidcfriendauthor .com. And when you get there, the front page will pop up and it will have a link to the podcast. Now this is podcast number 341, so obviously there's been a bunch of them done, and there's topics about faith and miracles and gifts of the Spirit, and finance, just a plethora of topics that I hope will be a blessing to you, and free of charge, go through and listen to all of them once or as often as you'd like, and refer people to them, because I believe there's a lot of teachings there that have been beneficial to people. I get comments all the time from people telling me how they've been touched and blessed, and that's just the Holy Spirit doing the work that He does in each and every one of us. After you've looked through all the podcasts we've done, I would like you to scroll down maybe another page on my web page.

24:43 Just go down to the next page. and you'll see a list of books that I've written, a number of them dealing with finances, topics on generosity, topics on having greater faith and how to walk in faith, live in faith, and how to receive everything from what other people call as nothing. And there's even a couple of books I've written for veterans to give them some help, which has been well received by a lot of people. So I served in the military, the United States Army, and I thought I should write and give them something to look at. So some of you may find those helpful, to those that you love, especially if they're struggling with physical problems through their service or post -traumatic stress disorder. It's called PTSD, and it's something that can create terribly emotional challenges in people's lives who served in the military or elsewhere. So I hope that'll be a blessing to you. If you'd like to subscribe to my podcast, you can do that by going to cpnshows .com or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

25:38 Well, once again, I thank you so much for listening in. If you enjoyed this episode, I would like to ask you to just take a moment to rate it and review the podcast. It really helps us to reach out to more people. You can leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Charisma Podcast Network, or give us a star on rating on Spotify. However, you choose to do that to support. We certainly appreciate you and are very thankful for that. I thought I should just take a moment and talk about the upcoming podcast we're going to be doing. Honestly, I don't know at this point whether it's going to be the Holy Spirit and power or the Holy Spirit giving us emotional strength. So I just know it's going to be something on the Holy Spirit. So I just am praying about that and need to know guidance and direction there. But I really don't, I do want to take a moment and talk about that one scripture, Luke chapter 24 in verse 19. When the word of God tells us, and now I will send the Holy Spirit just as my father promised, but stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power. from heaven. If you've not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of praying in a heavenly language, then I would encourage you to heed that scripture where it says, stay here in the city and wait upon the Holy Spirit to fill you. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is inside of you. But then there's another option, opportunity to draw closer to the Lord and have greater power in your prayer time, and that's through the gifts of the gift of your prayer language, having a

27:10 time of prayer when you pray in ways that you're not aware of and you pray about things that there's needs and you pray the divine will of God. So I would encourage you, if you've not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of praying in the heavenly language and that you would receive your prayer language, I pray that you would do that and just take a moment. So Father, bless those who desire that anointing and desire to have that gift in their life. I pray you would bless them now and keep them, Father. And I just thank you for it, Lord. you praise for it. In Jesus name I pray. Well I want to close with a blessing for you. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you and 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. So until next time may God richly bless you. May you walk in the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. May you receive the blessings of the Holy Spirit in your life. Thank you once again for listening to Quality Christian Living.

28:06 I'm your host David Friend, I pray God's richest blessing on all that you do.