Most people’s view of Holy Spirit is so watered down and diminished. To most Christians he amounts to nothing more than a force that gave their spirit life after they accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
This limiting view is equivalent to a wife only accepting a new husband for the sole purpose of getting pregnant. If she sees her husband only as a means to having children, then she will miss out on having a best friend, a partner and a leader in her life… and a leader for her children. Through this illustration we can start to perceive how significant he should be in our lives.
In my 20s, I was attending a small black church with some friends. I didn’t have a job at the time. I would spend most of my days reading scripture, hoping to gain approval at the adult Sunday school class. I was extremely immature. I’ve always had a natural gift towards theology, so my subconscious mind began using this gift, hoping to win favor. Over the course of three months, Holy Spirit started invading my thought process. He began to whisper truths to my heart as I wrote down my thoughts every day while reading the Bible. This period of three months marked the very first time in my life that I found freedom from pornography. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was effectively abiding.
During this period, mysteries started happening around me as the Holy Spirit began working. My discernment would kick in at odd times, and I would understand things that I should not know. I started having encounters. I started seeing visions. My friends received healing as I spoke over them. It was transformative. I was steadily listening to the voice of Holy Spirit and through these experiences I started to learn to discern.
Some 13 years later, at a youth conference in Alabama, a similar experience began happening. I was a youth pastor taking a group of teenagers to a weekend event. Over the course of three days, I gave myself to worship. In my heart I made the decision that God was worthy of all my praise with all my strength. I began worshiping with fervor, as did many of the teens around me. Again, the Holy Spirit came over me, and I began prophesying and witnessing. I begin ministering and releasing power to those I touched. I was under his direct influence. I had wisdom that I shouldn’t have. I started having dreams that again directed the course of my life. I didn’t realize it, but that decision, to give myself to Jesus and worship, opened my heart up to hear Holy Spirit at a deeper level. The teenagers in my group were radically changed that weekend, and we all came back on fire, excited to see what God was going to do next.
What I didn’t realize at that time was that during both of these events I was accessing the fountain. Every time I have surrendered myself to God, and taken a position of tarrying before him, he has come and enveloped me with the life of God. The results of these encounters have always been power, freedom, and joy.
The Fountain Promised by Jesus
The women at the well in Samaria did not want to discuss her love life nor her painful relationships with a Jew. Those groups didn’t interact. Yet, Jesus could see right through her. He knew her past, and he knew what she longed for. She was desperate for love.
John 4:10,13-16 NKJV – Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” [13] …”Whoever drinks of this (well) water will thirst again, [14] but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. …” [15] The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” [16] Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
This is a set up. He’s promising her water, but he’s actually talking about her love life. The well she was drinking from was love from men, and that well had always left her dissatisfied.
Think about what he is really promising her.
John 4:13-14 NKJV – Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, [14] but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
He would give her water that would cause her to never thirst for love again, and water that would leave her completely satisfied. This water would also produce tremendous life and love would come pouring out of her.
What would it look like to never thirst for love, acceptance, and approval again? In a little bit, we will discover the mechanisms through which this promise gets fulfilled. At a different times Jesus says this to the crowd following him.
John 7:37-39 NKJV – On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. [38] He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” [39] But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
The water that will cause us to never thirst again is Holy Spirit. What kind of love relationship is this that will cause us to never thirst or hunger for love again? So many of us have chased love and acceptance our whole life, not realizing that the solution, the real solution, was actually a person. God has been wanting to draw us so near to him so that every longing of our hearts gets fixed with a solution that is permanent and not just a Band-Aid.
Many people have had the epiphany that the description of love found in 1 Corinthians 13, is a description of God’s very nature. Another revelation is that the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22) is a description of the fulfillment that Holy Spirit releases into our life.
God is love (1John 4:16).
Here is 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NKJV with the word “love” swapped with “God” so you can see God’s character easily.
God suffers long and is kind; God does not envy; God does not parade Himself, He is not puffed up; [5] He does not behave rudely, does not seek His own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; [6] He does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; [7] He bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [8] God never fails.
When this is your experience with God, the result is that you get to experience the fruit of the Spirit and find fulfillment in the love that God is pouring out. God is releasing the fruit into you as you experience his love. The fruit of the Spirit is the fruit of love. They are the result of the life that God releases as we learn to openly receive from him.
His love will fill you with joy and peace. It will cause you to experience love, and also become love. You will experience the long suffering of God and the kindness of God. This will cause long suffering and kindness to be your normal reactions. The Holy Spirit is the manifestation of God’s love. He is the reality of God’s true character, manifesting in intangible ways so that you can know that God’s love is real.
Most people will shy away from this love because they cannot accept the depths of God’s forgiveness. Jesus says that he who is forgiven much, loves much (Luke 7:47). But most people are afraid to accept God’s forgiveness, so they never really understand how truly forgiven they are. His forgiveness becomes our reality as we accept the love he is offering us in this moment. He is revealing the love displayed on the cross and also offering us more. It is this experience of God’s kindness and of God’s goodness, when we know we don’t deserve it, that causes us to be overwhelmed with the reality that he has truly forgiven us. Holy Spirit is what causes the intangible to become tangible. He takes what, for most people feels like a theory, and turns it into an emotional, psychological, and even physical reality. If we don’t experience the love of God, and we don’t experience the forgiveness of God, then the fruit of the Spirit won’t become living within us.
Our encounters with God’s realities, produce the fruit of life within us. Theorizing, or choosing to believe certain theologies, will never produce the results that naturally comes from encountering God’s heart. His light transforms us and strips away our darkness, causing us to become like him.
You might be thinking, that’s just emotionalism. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. When true forgiveness is received, it is very emotional. If you only know something with just your head, then you will be struggling to believe it at a heart level. True faith is expressed from both the heart and the head simultaneously. This is why experience is so powerful, because it will convince the heart to believe what the head already knows.
You might be thinking that I’m suggesting we need more than a simple faith. No, I’m saying, we need to believe from the heart what is true. There are many people who believe with only their head that they’re forgiven, yet they live like they’re not forgiven, full of shame and regret, because their heart doesn’t believe. When your heart believes, your life will testify that you believe.
Learning the truth, directly from God, as you are disciples by him, is what allows us to step into the freedom that only the truth he gives can bring. So many people who are fervent Christians lack freedom because they’re not being disciples by God himself. They try to learn the truth outside of relationship with him. Many of them are being disciple by other men, or by their own understanding, instead of leaning into the discipleship that Holy Spirit brings. You can see how this trains the mind but does not convince a heart. We must learn to trust Holy Spirit as our teacher and allow him to manifest the water of life so that we can drink from his cup. He’s the only one who can give us this water. You cannot get this water from good preaching. You must go directly to the source. He gives the exact same water that Jesus promised. In fact, Jesus says that Holy Spirit is that water.
John 7:38-39 NKJV – He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” [39] But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Why should you continue to drink from other wells? Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit so that we can drink deeply of him. This is the only way to never thirst again. This is how we can stop chasing what doesn’t satisfy us. No relationship on earth will satisfy the way our relationship with God satisfies, and Holy Spirit is the full manifestation of that relationship.
The promise of the Father
Luke 24:49 NKJV – Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
Acts 1:4-5 NKJV – And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; [5] for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
Acts 2:33 NKJV – Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.
There are some churches who believe you shouldn’t focus on Holy Spirit, because Jesus said Holy Spirit would glorify him. They suggest that in order for us to be aligned correctly with Holy Spirit, we should not be talking about him, but rather we should only be talking about Jesus. Yet Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they had received the Holy Spirit. That is 50 days of seeking the Father for Holy Spirit. In the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit is mentioned more often than Jesus himself is mentioned. The apostles were always talking about how he was leading them to do this, telling them to do that. They are the first ones to display Holy Spirit as their best friend. The reason they’re talking about himself so frequently is because he is now the one that is present and interacting with them, not Jesus. Should we really refuse to talk to, interact with, or refer to someone who is supposed to be our partner, friend, and mentor? We need to talk about him more, because ignoring him has not worked. By showing you the things that Jesus said about Holy Spirit, you can begin experiencing the reason he was sent.
Your reception of Holy Spirit is very important to Father God. So important that he has promised to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. Receiving Holy Spirit is important because this is how Father releases his love to his children. Here is the promise.
Luke 11:11-13 NKJV – If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? [12] Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? [13] If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
Papa considers Holy Spirit to be the best gift he can give. He is food and water that leaves us fully satisfied. Notice that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is better than the baptism for repentance (Act 1:5). The baptism of Holy Spirit is our level up. He is not the same as the baptism of repentance that John offered. In fact, when Paul found some believers who had only received John’s baptism, Paul first baptized them in the name of Jesus, and then released the Holy Spirit to them.
Acts 19:2-6 NKJV – he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” So they said to him, “We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” [3] And he said to them, “Into what then were you baptized?” So they said, “Into John’s baptism.” [4] Then Paul said, “John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.” [5] When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. [6] And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.
This is how important it is that we receive what the Father promised. He wants our life to be a witness that we have surrendered ourselves to Jesus.
Trees of life
How fulfilled are you? Do you find that you still long for acceptance? Is your soul at rest or do you struggle with worry or doubt, fear or insecurity?
John 6:35 NKJV – And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.
Jesus says he is the bread of life. He calls the Holy Spirit the water of life. He says that as we partake (receive from him and Holy Spirit), we become a fountain of life. All of these are metaphors of how we are transformed by receiving from God himself.
John 3:8 NKJV – The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
When we are born of the Spirit of God, there is a mystery to us, a mystery that the world can’t fathom, a uniqueness. We are so different from the way of the world that we become perplexing. Have you found that your ways are changed so that you often do things that the world can’t understand?
1 Corinthians 2:14-15 NKJV – But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. [15] But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.
John 3 is obviously about salvation, but there is so much more to this scripture. Jesus is proposing that there should be such a transformation in us that the natural man cannot comprehend it.
John 3:6 NKJV – That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
There are far too many fervent Christians, struggling through life, living as if they are still natural men trying to believe for something different. They don’t look like spirit beings. They look like they’re just trying to be a slightly better version of someone who is not saved.
This exposes the whole reason for this little book. So many of us are living short of what God designed for us. It seems that we have fallen into the trap of the blind leading the blind. When Jesus says it’s enough for a student to be just like his teacher, and also says that we are to call no one teacher except him, and then directs us to Holy Spirit — he’s showing us that if we will lean into the teachings of Holy Spirit, that we can become just like Jesus. If, as a rule, every Christian looked like Jesus, then there would be great unity in the church, and Christians would stop struggling with sin and failure.
There are prophecies about us in the Old Testament that speak to this. These prophecies describe us as trees of life whose roots drink from the water of life.
Psalm 1:1-3 NKJV – Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; [2] But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. [3] He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.
Here we see that a man under the law, who keeps the law and cares about the law. He is like a tree planted by waters. Notice that these trees, that drink from the law, produce only in a specific season, but their leaves never wither. The river they are planted by is not called living waters, just waters. But God desires, even more than that.
Ezekiel 47:7,12 NKJV – When I returned, there, along the bank of the river, were very many trees on one side and the other. [12] Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.”
Revelation 22:1-2 NKJV – And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. [2] In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
There may be some who disagree with my interpretation of these two scriptures. But still, I believe the interpretation is fairly obvious. This tree of life mentioned in Revelation is actually the believer, because psalms made that comparison already. The water of life is Holy Spirit, flowing from the Lamb of God, and the throne of God. Because we are planted with our roots growing in the water of life, we are producing fruit in every season. And our leaves not only don’t wither but are now for healing. This is a perfect picture of a child of God producing the fruit of the Spirit and bringing healing to all that’s around them.
John 12:23-24,26 NKJV – But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. [24] Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. [26] If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.
Jesus is our tree of life, who died to produce many more trees of life. So that the whole world would know that he is the Christ.
Best friend
If you had Jesus as your best friend, your life would be golden.
John 14:16-18 NKJV – And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever- [17] the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. [18] I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
John 16:7,13 NKJV – Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. [13] However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
It is to our advantage that Jesus left. Jesus says this to the disciples that are sad with the idea of Jesus leaving. Some translations translate, another helper, as another savior. Others translate this phrase as “another helper, just like me.” The Holy Spirit can be best friends with every Christian on the planet at the same time. He is not limited by time and space like Jesus, the man was. The Holy Spirit is the same anointing that rested upon Jesus. He is the mantle that Jesus wore. And now he is our friend just like Jesus was a friend to the disciples.
There are many in the body of Christ, who have done tremendous feats of great faith in the name of Jesus. A large number of them have called the Holy Spirit their best friend. What are we missing out on by not approaching Holy Spirit the same way?
The only reason Holy Spirit’s role in our life has been so small is because that is what we have chosen. He is called a comforter, counselor, helper, teacher, and advocate. In the Greek version of the Old Testament, the same word for Holy Spirit is used to describe Eve when God says that Adam needs a help mate.
He is the bringer of peace and joy. He is the fountain of life. He is living waters. How much are we missing out on if we continue to see him as just some unspecified force that we can’t really know? We need to change our perspective.
Papa has told me that Holy Spirit is the manifestation of his very heart. Paul tells us that Holy Spirit is our guarantee. If you can see it, Holy Spirit is therefore our security. When we feel the presence of God, it is Holy Spirit giving us a hug. We need to see him so that we can surrender to his work. And what is his work? His work is to make us look like Jesus. This is how he glorifies Jesus, by replicating Christ in us.