Living With Holy Spirit Power 354

0:02 Welcome again to the Quality Christian Living Podcast. I am your host, David Friend. Our series on the Holy Spirit just is continuing on and on. I thank the Lord for it. We've had so many opportunities on so many different... topics that the Holy Spirit shares with us. We've talked about things like the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit. Today I'm going to focus on living with Holy Spirit power and how we can live more powerful a Christian life and talk about how does the Holy Spirit give us power and when does the Holy Spirit bring forth His power and anointing upon us. Jesus said in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. So that is the basis of today's podcast, so let's get going. But first, we need to pray. Heavenly Father, we love you, we need you. Holy Spirit, do what only you can do. Take control of this podcast, bless it. And I ask now for those who are listening in that they would receive greater power and greater instruction from the Holy Spirit. Bless each and every one of us, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. We know there are many places, numerous places in the Word of God, where we see the Holy Spirit power. We see it in action. We see it taking place. We see it overcoming and helping people and directing them. This podcast will be kind of a biblical tour, if you will, just kind of like a guide, if you will, of the Holy Spirit and that power. See, the Apostle Paul wrote several powerful scriptures in the book of Galatians on the Holy Spirit and His power, so let's get into those, because I just want to focus today's podcast discussion on what the

1:33 Word of God has to say and how the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write these things. We'll start with Galatians chapter 5 verse 16 in the New Living Translation. Listen to this, so I say let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. It says then you won't be doing what your sinful nature desires are. Or like the New Living Translation uses the word craves, the craving of our desires, the sinful desires that the Holy Spirit fights and helps us to control them. You know, this scripture tells us there's so much, but it tells us the things that I think are so important. Talking about guiding our lives. You know, the only way that we can allow someone to guide us if we surrender to them. So we need to learn how to surrender to the Holy Spirit. To submit to the Holy Spirit. Not our will, but God's will be done. To seek the Holy Spirit in every single thing that we do. I mean, every aspect of our life. Now, I like to apply it to just getting in the car and driving somewhere to go meet someone.

2:29 Get in the car and say, Heavenly Father, bless me and protect me as I'm driving. Pray that I'd be a blessing in this meeting. Ask the Holy Spirit to help me as we go through this meeting and I ask for your guidance in Jesus' name. Little things like that. Getting ready to go talk to maybe your kids or to your boss at work or someone. Holy Spirit, help me, guide me, direct me, and lead me, and guide my thoughts, guide what comes out of my mouth, and direct me. Any time something in our life that we're about ready to face, no matter what it is, we should ask for the Holy Spirit's guidance and direction. We should surrender, we should submit, and we should seek the Holy Spirit in all these things. And when we do that, things are going to change. I'm telling you, I can tell the difference. When I've had a day where I've been asking the Holy Spirit to lead me on a day when I just kind of tried to do things on my own. And when I try to do things on my own, it just doesn't seem to flow. But when the Holy Spirit is guiding us and directing us and leading us, things flow smoothly. Now, it may be something that we're struggling with. You may think it's not smooth, but if the Holy Spirit is leading it, it's smooth, it's direct, it's peaceful, and it's designed to help us and to bless us and to strengthen us. Now, Paul continues to write in a lot of scriptures. I'm going to use several of them today. Here's another one.

3:41 in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 17, in the New Living Translation, the sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the spirit wants, and the spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. Now, I'm telling you, that scripture just describes everything I've been talking about over the last 35 weeks in this podcast about the Holy Spirit. It really addresses all the issues of life that we have to deal with. Let's just go a little slower through that scripture. I sometimes have a tendency to read scriptures a little too fast and of course sometimes I just talk too fast and you can say amen to that but I'm trying to slow down and let the Holy Spirit guide us. Now listen once again to these words.

4:33 It's so important. It says the sinful nature wants to do evil. Well we know that. When an evil thought enters in our mind It's not the Holy Spirit. That evil thought is the devil. He's the one that's trying to tempt us, to try and destroy us and to kill us. That's what it says in John 10, 10. The thief, that's what Jesus called him, who is the Holy Spirit, the thief comes to steal, to kill and destroy. But Jesus said, I've come to give you life and give it to you more abundantly. So the sinful nature wants to do evil. That's the devil, which is just the opposite of what the spirit wants. That means the spirit of God who lives and dwells in every follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. guides. us and gives us direction and guides our desires.

5:14 It says that those are things that are all opposite of what the sinful nature wants. So it's so easy to identify the difference between the leading of the Holy Spirit and the information that comes from the devil himself. The devil comes to kill, steal, and destroy. Therefore, he comes to give us a negative thought, a bad thought. We talk to someone and we get away from that conversation. We start thinking about all the negative things that were discussed or could have been discussed or could have been said or should have been said that that negative stuff is not from the Holy Spirit that negative stuff comes directly from the thief and we need to understand that so we can walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and it says that these these two forces the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the devil himself you know are constantly fighting and it's just inside of us each and every day I remember years ago I was watching a cartoon as a kid and way way back when I was in a Christian and didn't know the Lord Jesus Christ but I was a kid and I'd watch a cartoon and it was this one cartoon where either the person or the animal, whichever it was, would be thinking about something good to do or something bad to do. And then they would show like an angel on one shoulder telling them all the good things to do. And then another, a devil on his other shoulder, these little drawings.

6:24 And I remember that as a kid. And the devil would be saying, no, go ahead and get even. Go ahead and hit that kid or smack that kid or tell them off or whatever. And the angel would be saying, no, be peaceful and be kind and be gentle and be loving. And it's as simple as that. It really is as simple as that when we want to be led by the Holy Spirit and operate in the power of the Holy Spirit is that we can easily identify which spirit is trying to come after us. Whether it's the beautiful spirit of the Holy Spirit or it's the medieval spirit that wants to come in and just mess with our mind and our hearts. So I hope that's helpful. I don't know any better way to describe how I feel. Galatians 5 .17, how it tells us what to do and the instructions that Paul is giving us. chapter 5 in, let's see, verse 19, 20, 21, I think we'll kind of go over all those. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, okay, now we instantly know where that's coming from, right? The results are very clear. Sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures.

7:25 Then Paul says he continues to list our wrong desires in verse 20. He says, idolatry and sorcery and hostility and quarreling and jealousy and outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissension, division and envy, all those things are being looted. introduced to us or fed into us by the evil spirit of Satan himself. But the Holy Spirit wants us to focus on him. He wants us to focus on God's Word. He wants to focus on how we can overcome these things and rise above these things. So let me just kind of take a second and kind of analyze a little bit more, Galatians chapter 5, verses 19, 20, and 21. Because all of us need help with these things. Some of the challenges that we face, Paul listed them. And so I want to pray for you. I think that's how I'm going to address it. pray for you so that as I pray for you the thing that you're struggling with maybe you'll be able to identify that and say I take authority over that in Jesus name and I rebuke that I don't want that in my life I don't want that stuff in my life so look what Paul said when you follow the desires of your sinful nature the results are sexual immorality and on and on so let's let's address those Heavenly Father I pray Lord that the Holy Spirit would help each and every person who's struggling with sexual immorality Lord and the Spirit of God would rise up in them and deliver them from it.

8:43 And Father, for those who are being challenged with impurities, improper thoughts, Father, that the Holy Spirit, Lord, would bless them. And Lord, when Paul identifies those who are following the desires of the flesh, they'll have lustful... pleasures and evil thoughts. And I pray now that the Holy Spirit would go upon those that are struggling with those areas, Lord, and give them comfort and peace. And Lord, where Paul writes further comments that are even heavier, it seems like, Father, idolatry, Lord, may all of us, Lord, run from anything that could be idolatry. Idolatry could be in the form, Lord, of just worshiping golf or worshiping a hobby or worshiping money, whatever it might be. That's idolatry and evil thought. Holy Spirit, help us to rise above that. And Lord, those of us who maybe struggled when we were kids like I was, who looked at Ouija boards and read these crazy fortunes and things like that. I thank you that you've taken that out of my heart and out of my mind. I pray you would help those that might be struggling with that, Father. And the reading of horoscopes, which is totally contrary to God's Word. God's Word has the definition and the strength and the guidance that we need. We should run from those things, Father, that are opposite of what the Word of God is. And Father, Lord Paul talked about hostility. Help those those who are being challenged with hostility or quarreling, Father, that they get upset easily, outbursts of anger is what Paul calls it. Lord, help them, Lord, to deal with each one of us when we struggle with thinking badly about other people. And jealousy, Father, help us, Lord, to not be jealous of anyone,

10:15 Father, and that we should always be thankful to you for who we are and our situation in life and the plan that you have for each and every one of us. And help each one of us, Father, to rebuke and take I pray in the name of Jesus for those who are listening in today that they would have power by the Holy Spirit to take authority over all these things and that they would be cast out and set aside and they'd be replaced with the power of God, the strength of God, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding and it'll guard each and every one of our minds in Christ Jesus. I ask all these things now in Jesus name I pray, Amen. Well that was kind of a long prayer but I think it's necessary to be able to understand all the areas that Paul is addressing and all the areas of Holy Spirit power that we can have in our life. Now Paul goes on to continue writing in Galatians chapter 5 verse 22. I'm reading out of the New Living Translation and we're going to continue that to show us the Holy Spirit's ability to have power to help us in our life and everything. Galatians chapter 5 verse 22 -23 in the New Living Translation.

11:26 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit. Now we're going to switch over from the evil thoughts that the devil gives us, the desires that he's tempting us with, and all that stuff that we just covered. And we rebuke all that and move away from that. And Paul now is giving us the instructions on how we can have wonderful things in our life. In Galatians chapter 5, verse 22, 23, but the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit. Now, fruit is something that grows, right? It's produced. So we want to have this kind of fruit being produced in our life. And he continues to say, this kind of fruit in our lives, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. faithfulness, gentleness and self -control.

12:08 And it goes on to say, then Paul writes, there's no law against these things. What Paul is saying is there's no law against the fruit of the Spirit. There's no law that says we can't have this in our life and that we can't seek that in our life. All of the fruit of the Spirit align with God's will for us. Think of that, all of God's anointing of the Holy Spirit aligns according to God's will in us. So let's look at all of these fruit of the Spirit and cover them and kind of think about how they affect our lives. We did that with the evil desire, so why don't we counteract that and take authority over that other... junk, Lord, and allow these things to be in our life. And so I'm going to pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we've taken authority over those things that try to rob us and bring evil desires and wrongful thoughts in our lives. And we take authority over that in Jesus' name. And I pray now that you would replace that with the Holy Spirit's anointing of love in our life. Father, love for individuals even if they come against us. Love them in spite of them, of maybe their main spirit or wherever it might be. Father, we'll truly understand that Jesus had love for people who were crucifying Him. Jesus had love for those who talked against Him. And Your Word tells us that we should love people. I pray that all of us, Heavenly Father, would have that love and that we would have joy. We would have joy that's powerful, joy that overtakes us, joy that we receive even in the midst of difficult times and trials and challenges. That we will have joy unspeakable and full of glory. And I pray

13:39 for all those who are listening in, Father, that if they're struggling with being happy and having joy their life, I pray that you'd pour out your Spirit upon them and the power of the Holy Spirit would bring love and joy into their life. And Father, I ask for peace now for all of us. Peace is something, Father, that the devil hates us to have. He doesn't want us to have it, so he keeps attacking us and keeps throwing terrible things at us. But Holy Spirit, you're dwelling inside of us. If we're followers of the Lord Jesus Christ and we know Him as our Lord and Savior, then we can have this fruit in our life and the fruit of peace. And I pray, Father, that people would receive the peace of God that passes all understanding and it would guard their hearts and guard their minds in Christ Jesus. I pray now, Lord, that you would bring forth an abundance of peace. in the lives of those who are listening in today, Lord. Thank you for it. And they would have love, joy, and peace. And now patience, Father. I pray, Lord, that you would help us to understand what it means to have patience.

14:33 Lord, I know, Lord, I've been taught that we shouldn't pray for patience because then the Holy Spirit will come in and start testing us to see if our patience is there or God will want to test our patience. But I really believe that we need to ask for patience being led by the Holy Spirit, not patience that will be people who are not aggressive of people are witnessing to others, but that we'll have the patience that's from the Holy Spirit, that we can deal with the challenges of life, and we can know that something good is going to happen to us, that in the midst of a trial, that there's going to be a good ending, that we call for things that are not happening in our life, as though they are happening in our life. And I pray, Lord, that you'd help us to have that type of patience in our walk with you. I pray, Lord, for kindness for each and every one of us, that we would be kind to those, even those who've been against us or attacked us or said terrible things about us. Lord, whatever might be, that we would have a gentle spirit and a kind spirit. And Lord, that we would practice goodness, which is a fruit of the spirit, Lord.

15:30 That we would be good to all people. That we would reach out to them. Father, I'm reminded of a young lady who, on the news this week, her husband was killed by another man, Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk was killed, assassinated in public. And his wife, Erica, got up on national TV, looked up into the heavens and said, I forgive this man. who did that to my husband. Now, that's amazing. You talk about goodness. You talk about kindness, about the fruit of the Spirit operating in her. Just bless her. And I pray, Lord, that will help many individuals to forgive other people who have done things against them or against their friends or family. And Father, faithfulness, Lord, I pray the Holy Spirit would bring forth a the fruit of the spirit of faithfulness. We would be faithful to the house of God. We'd be faithful to our spouse. We'd be faithful to our children. We'd be faithful to our God. We'd be faithful in all things, Lord, that you provide for us. The blessings that we receive, Lord, whether they're money or not or whether they're cars or houses or things like that or whether they're just simply the peace of God and the love that you give us and the patience that you give us and the kindness you give us, Lord, may we be faithful to you for those things and be thankful for those things. And Lord, that we would be gentle people. The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness and self -control. So Father, I ask that each and every one of us would receive a double portion of gentleness and self -control.

16:52 That we would not let self -rob us of the power and the glory of God that the Holy Spirit brings to us. And Heavenly Father, I ask for all these things in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Now, once again, that was a long prayer. But I think that's what we need to do when we want to see the Holy Spirit's power operate We need to take these scriptures, we need to read them and have them apply to us. So if any of you are struggling with the first one talking about evil desires or you're struggling with the second one, we talked about the fruit of the Spirit, you can have the fruit of the Spirit. It will defeat the evil desires. It will take away those thoughts and those things and it will live in life of peace and love and joy. So I pray that you, I pray you were blessed by that because it was certainly a blessing for me to be able to read them because remember, I'm a person too. I'm an individual. and so I have thoughts that I have to deal with and I think that the Holy Spirit has given me the fruit of the Spirit as he does all those who seek him to deal with the challenges that we face each and every day, you know, in our life. Now here's another one Paul gave. It's Galatians chapter 5 verse 24. Boy this. podcast that's going by fast for me. Let me see if I can get the rest of this in. I have scriptures to read. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.

18:11 What that's telling me is the Holy Spirit drives out evil, evil thoughts, bitterness, unforgiveness, those things. And those are things that he wants us to nail to the cross where we place them and at the foot of Jesus at the cross and ask him to really Help us with it that the Holy Spirit would come in and remove those things and we we put them on the cross So they will die there and those thoughts those those thoughts and bitterness and those things will not come back I believe for that now in Jesus name You know when you think about it that spiritual power when the Holy Spirit can give us Authority over these things that we fought in our life that is power Galatians chapter 5 and verse 25 in the New Living Translation says since we are living by the spirit Let us follow the spirits leading in every part of our lives. Well, all that's telling me is that anything of great value comes from the Holy Spirit. That we need to give God the credit for every good and perfect thing that happens in our life. Always give God the glory. Give him the credit for a good thought that happens in our heart. If something pops up that's in our mind, say, thank you, Lord, for that. And don't take credit for it. Don't say, well, I'm glad I thought of that, or I'm glad I did this, or I did that. No, we want to run from that. We want to get away from the I did this and I did that, or I have this ability, and submit and surrender. to the Holy Spirit's power and ability.

19:26 In Galatians 5, verse 26, New Living Translation, let us not become conceited or provoke one another or be jealous of one another. Oh, that's pretty obvious, all of that. Pride comes before a fall. I've heard that all my life, that pride comes before fall and that greed destroys and that we should avoid all forms of greed. We should also avoid all forms of conceit and provoking each other and being jealous of each other. We need to avoid that. All those things are not of God and they rob us of the blessings and the power of the Holy Spirit to operate in our lives. So we just take authority over that stuff and we believe, Father, that we are not going to be conceited. We're not going to provoke each other. we're not going to be jealous of anything that other people have. And Father, will we place that with love and joy and peace and patience and goodness and kindness and gentleness and faithfulness and self -control and these things will operate in our life through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, remember what Jesus said that was recorded in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8 in the New Living Translation as I wrap up this podcast. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. What he's saying is that power is there and available to every follow the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in Zechariah in chapter 4 verse 6 it says, it's not by mind or by power but by my spirit when God's talking about how things are taken care of and things are handled. So now I just believe, I've got to wrap this up because we're running out of time, we're going to continue in our next podcast and do more of Holy Spirit power. And so therefore

20:59 I'm going to have to wrap this one up because there's a lot of things I want to talk about in the upcoming podcast. So before we do that though, I want to pray for you. I want to pray for those who maybe don't know Jesus as our Lord and Savior and that you would then understand what I'm talking about, how the Holy Spirit lives and dwells and takes control of our life. Heavenly Father, thank you for this teaching. Thank you for this series on the Holy Spirit and thank you for this particular podcast on how we can understand and receive the power of the Holy Spirit in our life. Lord, I know this didn't include the gifts of the Spirit in the sense of the power gifts and all that. We've covered that before, but Father, those are all wonderful and glorious but Lord if we don't love each other that's the number one thing we need to do and if we don't have joy and peace then we're we're missing out on what you plan for us so I pray now that you would help us father to have the fruit of spirit operating in our lives to submit to the Holy Spirit to surrender to his thoughts to seek him and ask him to guide and direct us to give him all glory and honor and praise for anything that's good that ever takes place in our life I pray that'll take place and father there be anyone here who doesn't know Jesus Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. They're not sure where they're going to spend eternity. I pray right now, Father, that they would just maybe close their eyes. If they're riding the bike or something, then please don't do that. But if you would just pray this prayer with a sincere heart and you don't know Jesus, you're not sure if you're going to go to heaven or not. You got confusion about that. You don't have to worry about that any longer. You can dismiss that and get rid of that. So I'm going to ask you to repeat this prayer. Say, Heavenly Father, I need you.

22:30 I need the Savior. I need you to be Lord of my life. But I've sinned and fallen short of glory. So therefore I repent of my sins. I ask forgiveness of my sins and I receive you now Lord Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I believe that you are the Son of God and I believe that you were born of the Virgin Mary and I believe that you suffered but I believe that you were crucified but I believe that you were and are resurrected and that you brought life and hope to each and every one of us. So on this day I receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and I promise to serve of him all the days of my life. And I ask for these things now in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Well, if you prayed that prayer, you need to find a good church. You need to find a nice Bible preaching church that brings the word of God. So if you have friends who are Christians, talk to them.

23:17 Find out where they're going to church and get yourself active in that. Get the Bible out and start reading it. I encourage you to read the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And I encourage you to read the writings of Paul in the book of Romans. These are wonderful, wonderful foundational teachings that will help you build your walk with God. So I pray you'll be blessed. Well, I have to get that in there. When the Holy Spirit tells me it's time to do what we call an altar call, a time to get people a chance to commit their lives to Jesus, then I don't ever want to run from that. I've got to step into that and I don't regret that and I'm thankful that the Holy Spirit continues to place that in my heart throughout these podcasts. So I just thank you for that. Now I just pray if you've enjoyed this particular podcast, I pray you'll look forward to the next one. dealing with more of the Holy Spirit. Now, after everything we've talked about today, you're probably wondering, how can we have any more of the Holy Spirit if we've already covered all these things? Well, we're going to continue to talk now in the next podcast on how do we receive the power from the Holy Spirit so it'll be helpful in every single day of our life. And how can we be careful about those who don't have the power and who talk negatively?

24:26 What can we do about that and deal with people who are rejecting God's Word or are turning their back on the Holy Spirit and how can we better understand what the scriptures have to say about the power of the Holy Spirit and that our desires need to line up with the Word of God. So these are all things that the Lord's put upon my heart that we'll bring to you in the next podcast and I hope that you'll listen to that. You might want to let your friends and family members know about it and invite them to be part of the Quality Christian Living podcast. Now if you'd like to know more about the Quality Christian Living podcast, I'd like you to go to my webpage, davidcfriendauthor .com. And when you do that, that front page will pop up and it'll have right on the front of it linked to podcasts. If you'd like to know more about what quality Christian living stands for and what we're teaching on, you can press that link button and you'll get some 350, approximately, podcasts dealing with various topics for living a good Christian life. And we'll talk about things like finances, about faith, about miracles, about the gifts of the Spirit, about the power gifts, about operating in the fruit of the Spirit. We'll talk about so many different topics. We'll talk about marriage. I even have some things in there I've talked about to help veterans on how to deal with some of the challenges that we face and so I hope that that'll be of interest to you and if you'd like to scroll down on my webpage to the next page there you'll notice that I have a number of books that I've written dealing with having faith also on finances how to live a debt -free life and so all that is available to you and I hope that that will be a blessing to you so with that I'm gonna have to close this out

25:58 but as I close I just want to give you a blessing I guess before I do that though let me just thank Thank you for listening. I don't do that enough, but thank you so much for listening. If you've enjoyed this podcast, I'd like you to take a moment to rate it and give me a review of the podcast. It really does help us when getting outreach to more people. We can be blessed here as the Holy Spirit blesses you through these podcasts, and you can be a blessing by leaving a review that would be very beneficial to many other people. You can leave a review on Apple Podcasts, on Amazon Music, Charisma Podcasts. or just give us a star rating on Spotify. So, however you choose to do that, we would appreciate your support. Thank you much for 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 podcast. So, I'm going to close out with this little blessing for you as I do each and every week. It's something that's very important and some people, you've heard this in your church services as the pastor dismisses you. Let me just pray this little blessing over you. Heavenly Father, I pray that you will bless those who are listening in and that you will keep them and that your face will shine upon them and that you'll be gracious to them and that you'll give them peace. And I pray, Lord, that they would prosper and be in good health even as their soul prospers. So Lord, I thank you for this time.

27:19 I thank you for those who are listening in. So until our next podcast, may God richly bless you. Thank you for listening to the Quality Christian Living Podcast. I am your host, David Friend, and I pray that you'll operate in the power of the Holy Spirit. God bless you.