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The Person of the Holy Ghost by Andrew Hemstrought

Chapter One - God in the Earth Today

Knowing Him as a Person
There is no greater thing than to know the person of the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Ghost. People like to say Holy Spirit because they feel it's more reverent or that Ghost might scare people. I like Holy Ghost for that exact reason, that it might scare somebody! When you think of Ghost, you think of a person. You think of ...A... Ghost! Spirit ...ooh, it's like the wind... These are problems when people talk in a random, everywhere sense of the Holy Spirit, then they don't know HIM as a Person. It's hard to talk about Adam (a parishioner) the person, when where thinking (mystically) ...Adam... Everywhere.... No, Adam! I can deal with Adam cause he's standing right in front of me and I'm talking to him. He's a person.

We are to have a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is so wonderful, He is my best friend, He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother and He's the one I want to know! He's the one You need to know. He's the one that is supposed to be more intimate to you than your husband or your wife. That's the way it's supposed to be. You won't have a really good relationship with your husband or your wife, unless you Know HIM. He knows all about it. He made it. Do you think the Holy Ghost knows anything about relationship? Yes, He does, He knows everything.

Prayer for Wisdom
Well let's get into the Word, Father in Jesus Name, thank you for your written word, you precious Holy written word, I lift you word up Father above everything that we do here in this church, above everything I do, think and say. I ask to be changed Father into your word and so that we can flow with You. I ask you to use me today Holy Spirit, use my mouth, that I may say what you want said and do what you want done. Holy Ghost we lift you up and honor You, in the blood of Jesus, in the Name of Jesus, we thank you for it. I ask for ears to be opened today and hearts to be receptive. I thank You Father for these People who are here. I ask You to bless them and change their lives. In Jesus name, Amen! Glory be to God!

If you would open with me to 1st Corinthians Ch 2. This is going to be our main scripture for this series on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. He is a person and He works. Our job is to know Him as a person, and work with Him. Do you know you can do better works when you are working with the Holy Ghost? He's not a power, an entity, He is a Person! And you have got to know Him as a person.

1 Corinthians 2:3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Faith in the power of God
Here's Paul talking about the way he spoke, and how he spoke, with Fear and Trembling. Why, so that when he spoke, it would not just be him, with his big head chuck full of all this information. He could speak by the power of the Spirit; that it would be in demonstration of the Holy Spirit and of Power. What was the reason? That people's faith would not stand in the wisdom of men but in the Power of God. Your faith should be in the Power of God! He's referring here the Power of God - the Person of the Holy Spirit. Your faith should be in the Holy Spirit!

"...Well that just sounds new to me, I've never heard anything like that before. I thought my faith was supposed to be in the word..." Yes!!! Who wrote the word! The Holy Spirit! He's the one behind every single book. If you could scratch the words off the page and look behind them there would be the Holy Ghost there looking out at you! (Laughs) He wrote it! Your faith is in who? Think about it,... if our faith is in the bible, we believe in the bible....the inspired bible.... That's all we believe in.... Who wrote the bible? Who's your faith really in? Is it in the in the "inspired word of God"? Now if it's just words, than it's just words. But if it's the inspired word of God, your faith is in what the Holy Spirit said!

He's going to quicken to you WORDS. Have you ever had that happen? You're reading your bible and you go along and all of a sudden a word jumps out at you and you never saw it like that before - now faith comes. Faith comes!

Who's the faith coming from? It's coming from the Holy Spirit. I'm going to lay the foundation as concretely as possible so you know I'm not just speaking heresy or something weird. Our relationship in the Earth right now is with the Holy Ghost! It's not with Jesus and it's not with the Father. We pray to the Father in Jesus name. I'll prove this. Jesus was raised from the dead and in the book of Acts he was standing there and the bible says that He gave commandments through the Holy Spirit to the Apostles. Here's Jesus, raised from the dead, and He's still giving commandments by the power of the Holy Spirit to the disciples.

I was brought up Baptist, so we've been raised up putting Jesus on this super-high pedestal, and the bible does say "If I am lifted up I will draw all men to me". He was talking about the crucifixion. If I would be lifted up on to the cross to be crucified that I would draw all men to me. We've taken that too far and said we need to keep lifting up Jesus, lifting up Jesus, lifting up Jesus to the point of ignoring the Holy Ghost.
What did Jesus do when he was on earth? He was constantly lifting up the Holy Spirit. In fact that was the one thing He said, you can blaspheme me all you want. But, don't even think about blaspheming the Holy Spirit!

Did you ever say that to your kids? Don't even think about touching it! You have something really precious in your house. Everybody's probably got something really precious in their house, they don't want anyone touching it. Touch all my other stuff, touch this, touch that but don't even THINK about touching what's in the back of that top drawer on the left hand side (laughs). Because it's PRECIOUS! Or it's powerful, they might say it about a gun. I can show you the gun, you can look at it, but don't touch it. Because there something involved there that you don't understand yet.

2 Cor 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.

The communion of the Holy Ghost, what does that word "communion" mean? Fellowship -as it is written in most modern translations like the NIV. But it's that deep intimate fellowship that comes from the Greek word Koinania and it means really to live with somebody, to fellowship with them, to share your food with them, to do everything with them. The sharing of life brought about by the Holy Ghost! Yes, sharing! You're sharing life!
Deep intimate fellowship with who? Who did it say? With The Father? With the Lord Jesus Christ? Who does it say we are supposed to have this deep intimate communication and communion and fellowship with? And sharing of life? Who are we doing this with? The Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost!
This is just the way it is, I'm not making this stuff up. What we want to do is make sure that we take the word of God and go by just what the word says. Then we get to change according to that. If we have a pet doctrine and the word goes against it, well, the pet doctrine has to die. It has to go to the pet cemetery of pet doctrines. (laughs) What's that pet cemetery you have outside your church? That's all the pet doctrines we had. We had to bury them. (Laughs)

John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

Jesus was saying that He was going to be leaving them soon. And do you think they were a little worried? They were very worried. They were in close living fellowship with Him for three years? They even got their food from this guy! They became worried when they were on the boat, right after He multiplied the loaves and the fishes and they were going over the sea. Jesus started talking about the leaven of the Pharisees and they were like... leaven ah bread...we didn't bring any bread on the boat, aghhh!... What was Jesus' reply, "What's wrong with you people!" ( Laughs) We just multiplied bread for 5,000 people and you're concerned about bread! He had to explain to them He was not talking about bread, He was talking about the religious doctrines of the Pharisees.

I realize that what I'm sharing this morning, people have left this church over. This issue - worshipping the Holy Ghost, giving too much place to the Holy Spirit. How can you give too much place to the Holy Spirit!!! ... Well you do that too much... ...it's just extreme... OK let's see what extreme is, alright? You want to talk about extreme, the word says "I will pray the Father" this is Jesus praying to the Father "He will give you another comforter", another!
What does another mean? If I come to your house and I say can I have another cookie and you would say well did you have one to begin with? No, but I want another one... You can't have another of something unless you have received the first something! He's saying the Holy Spirit is going to come and live with you and just like I lived with you for those three years. Isn't that a good thing? How many of you would like to have Jesus right now, everywhere you go, everything you do, you just walking with Him? That's what they did, they were fisherman. He came up to their boat and He said "come follow Me" and they were like.. Yeah, OK and they dropped everything and they followed Him.

There had to be something going on in what He said to them, right? You know if we have the religious image of Jesus all gaunt with two sheep under His arms and He comes up along the seashore, and He says come follow Me, are people going to drop what there doing and follow? No! Something was going on when Jesus said "Follow Me" that it just struck them in a profound way. What was it? The bible says that every word He said, He said because the Holy Spirit told Him to say it. It was the Holy Spirit that effected them profoundly when He said "Come, follow Me". Just like He said " Peace, be still" was it Jesus doing it? Did Jesus go out there and calm the storm? When He said peace be still, who calmed the storm? The Holy Spirit!

We have got to learn this. Everything that we do in our life if it is going to be effective for the kingdom of God will be because we are walking with Him, the Holy Ghost. I can't wait to get into the gifts of the Spirit. I think we've missed it because we think that God is going to give you a gift and now it's my gift. It's my gift now, I can prophesy when ever I want. Blah biddy blah biddy blah... Or I can lay my hands on the sick whenever I want and have the gift of healing come through. No, it's still His gift! Any time that He comes and makes a manifestation, in whatever way it is, it's still His gift! He did it!
All the gifts of the Spirit come when the Holy Spirit comes. They come with Him. They don't come without Him. Do you know how many people are seeking the gifts without the Giver of the gifts? A lot of people do it! They'll say, "I just want the gifts, I don't want any of that tongues business and I don't want the Holy Ghost. That's just freaking' me out. I want the gifts of the Spirit."

Simon the sorcerer did that, he wanted the power to lay his hands on people and have them get filled with the Holy Ghost and speak in tongues. How much money can I give you to have that gift. He didn't get it. The gift came with the Giver of the gifts. Receive the Giver and all the gifts come with Him! You don't even need to worry about the gifts because they all come with Him! And they are all still His gifts. They never become ours. We think, that when He gives us a gift then all of a sudden we have that gift. "Well, I have the gift of discernment." There is no gift of discernment by the way. It is the gift of discerning of spirits. People run really far with that one, ...I have the gift of discernment... and they look at you weird (Laughs) ... I have the gift of discernment. I'm discerning something right now...

No, the Holy Spirit has the gift of discerning of spirits, and He gives it as He wills. He gives them as He wills. Once again, He, person, gives them as HE wills! He is a person and He has a will and He gives them as He wills. Right? That means they work as He wills. If He just gave it to you, it would work as you willed. Right?

If I give you a car, ...here's a car... then you can just take that car and drive it anywhere you wanted, whenever you wanted to. Right? It doesn't work that way with the Holy Ghost. He is the gift. He's the gift that is given. It is a He. He's given and then when He says OK Rich (a parishioner) I'm gonna show you something. And you get a moment of discerning of spirits and you see into the spirit world - which is what the "discerning of spirits" is - then it's because He moved on you with His gift. It never becomes yours. Do you understand?

One of the great mistakes about assuming the Holy Spirit is an energy force, is when you think of energy you want to just grab on to it and make it your own. You want to use it for your own purposes. It's what we do with electricity and any other energy source. The Holy Spirit is not an energy source. He is a person. We can all think if he was an energy source, we would all think we were something great because we had more or less energy than somebody else. As Pentecostals we're accused of this all the time. We speak in tongues, we believe we received the person of the Holy Spirit. Other people would accuse us of saying ...Well you think you have more energy than we do... But what they're misunderstanding is that it has nothing to do with the energy that the Holy Spirit actually does have! So we're not trying to possess more and more power, more and more energy, more and more anything. We're trying to be possessed by Him! - The Holy Spirit.

We are literally trying to be more and more possessed by a Ghost. Here at the Church of the Living Dead. (Laughs) The Holy Ghost, that's the difference, do you see the difference? If the Holy Spirit is just a power, just a force, then we would be trying to access His power for our purposes. Even if they were good purposes we would be trying to access His power to bring to pass our will and our plan. But He's not a power, He has power, but He is a person. Therefore we should be trying to have Him access us. It's completely different.

This is how we change. Why do we change? It's because we want to associate with this person who is great. He is a person, the best person, and the greatest person. As we talk about Him and the more we talk about Him, the more He's going to come in and affect us with Himself. I'm telling you He will literally come in the room and sit right down beside you in a chair and poke you. And shake you. He only has to do that once and that's it for you. Because you will be ruined. You will want nothing else for the rest of your life.

I think of Tommy Tenney in his book "The God Chasers", he said he'd been holding revival meetings for 20 years. In the ministry, having good solid revival meetings. People getting saved, filled with the Holy Ghost, Healed. Then one day the Holy Ghost came in and just ruined him. Just laid everybody out on the floor for hours and hours and there was a revival, REAL revival took place and I was never the same again. I'm just ruined.
All I care about now is the Holy Spirit… This is the change taking place in me and it's going to take place in you. If it hasn't already, it's going to increase and pretty soon all you'll care about is the Holy Ghost. And your gonna be Holy Ghost this, and Holy Ghost that, Holy Ghost this, Holy Ghost that, why? Because He's all there is! He is God in the earth today.

If you had a really good friend, and we've heard people do this. They've got this friend that's all they want to talk about, this friend, oh they cut their hair this way, they do this and they do that. Well my friend would of said this about that. You know, it seems like they've gone just psycho over their friend and your thinking, get a life! Your friend can't be that good. But our friend is that good! And when I sit in the presence of the Holy Ghost and I worship Him. Do this! This is where people left the church over this. So, if you want to leave the church, leave it over something besides this cause this is good. (Laughs)
Worship the Holy Ghost! My life began to change when I took time, and we all know, we say Father I worship You, Jesus I worship You. Nobody has a problem with that. Have you ever noticed that the devil really picks on things that are disturbing to his kingdom? You want to mess up the devil's kingdom start worshipping the Holy Ghost! Why, because He - the Holy Ghost - is the one with whom we have to do. Your communion, your fellowship everyday is not with Jesus. (Gasp!) It's not with the Father. It is with the Holy Spirit!

Jesus said, I will pray the Father and He shall give you another comforter, Another! Just like Jesus was to the disciples for those three years, He's going to give you another one and His Name is the Holy Spirit. He goes on in this chapter, read it, ch 16 in John, just describing what the Holy Spirit will be like when He comes. Jesus refers to the Holy Ghost as "He" ten times, in three verses. And people will question whether He is a he or not. Can you read? Just read the bible and believe it! It will keep you straight. Our fellowship is with the Holy Ghost. I guaranty your fellowship with Him will increase, if you spend time everyday and acknowledge Him.

I remember Benny Hinn saying, in his book "Good Morning Holy Spirit" he would say "Good Morning Holy Spirit" every time he woke up. Why? Because Benny has a relationship with the Holy Spirit. When you wake up, don't say hi to your wife in the morning? Shame on you! What kind of relationship is that. You just growl… Go make coffee! What? Coffee's not made, Grrrrr...
The bible is specifically telling you to have a relationship with the Holy Ghost. You want a relationship… you better start talking to Him. Some say, "Well, brother we just don't believe in talking to the Holy Spirit." So you don't believe in talking to God. Or, you don't believe in talking to your wife, or anybody else you have a relationship with? We can only have a relationship if we talk! And we communicate right? Isn't that the bedrock of a relationship - communication. This could turn into a marriage seminar - a Holy Ghost marriage seminar. (laughs)

If you want to have a relationship with somebody you got to communicate, you got to talk, right? Does that mean you can talk to the Holy Spirit, YES! YES! A thousand times, YES! Everyday, all day, about everything! What I'm trying to get you to understand, and to some people this is where they have a problem because in their mind they've been talking to Jesus the whole time. Or, in their mind they've been talking to the Father. Yes, we are supposed to pray to the Father in Jesus name when we're petitioning Him. That's a specific kind of prayer. But our fellowship, our daily communion is with the Holy Spirit.

There couldn't be anything greater given to you than the ability to communicate with the Holy Spirit. As we'll see later He is always the one present and doing things. Whenever anything is done, EVER, in the Earth it was and is the Holy Ghost doing it! He's the action part of God. We're called to action aren't we? Go! Into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature and he that believes and is baptized shall be saved and he that believes not shall be damned. And these sign will follow them that believe, in my name they'll cast out demons, right? Speak with new tongues. This is action! He's the one who empowers our action.

The bible says you will be witnesses when He comes on you! When He comes on you, you'll be a witness. We have a lot of people trying to witness without the power of the Holy Spirit and they're just falling flat on their face. Turning more people off probably than they are turning on.
I will pray the father, He shall give you another comforter that He may abide with you forever … even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it sees Him not neither knows Him but you know Him for He dwells with you and shall be in you.

The Holy Ghost is the one we have fellowship with on a regular daily basis. There is no greater relationship that you can build up with God than with the precious Holy Spirit. He is the Comforter, He is the one with whom we have to do. What we need to do is learn to acknowledge Him every single day.
When you are praying in other tongues. The bible says you 're speaking unto God in a mystery. 1 Corinthians 14:1-2 You can communicate with the Holy Ghost in your prayer language every single day, all day long. And you should. That's one of the ways you can communicate.

God in the Earth Today
Let's put these things in a proper perspective. With whom are we dealing with as a church today? Is it with the word? Yes, we walk in the word. Is it with the father? Yes, we pray to the Father in Jesus name. Is it with Jesus who's at the right hand of the Father? He's not physically here, and see some of our religious ideas are that ...Well, you receive Jesus into your heart... In reality no. You're receiving the work that Jesus paid for into your spirit man and you are born again - a new creation that never existed before on the inside. That's the work. Who did it? Remember, anything that ever gets done on Earth is done by the precious Holy Spirit. You want more power in your ministry? Begin to acknowledge the one who is doing the work.
I remember when I first started laying hands on people and I would say this, it was probably more for my benefit than for anybody else's benefit. I would lay my hands on them and I'd say "Holy Spirit now go into them and cause a healing and a cure." And when I said that I would believe that the Holy Spirit would come on them. Not an energy force. This is something we are going to have to keep in our understanding all the time because I really want you to know Him as a person.
Let's go back to our first scripture there, this is very very important.

1Cor 2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Your faith should stand in something. You should have faith in this relationship that you have with the Holy Spirit. The only way you are going to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit is by spending time with Him, acknowledging Him. My life changed dramatically. Some of you have heard this story before but I'll say it again cause it bears repeating. I went to Florida when I was a young man. This was before I went to Rhema. I had quit my job to go to a Kenneth Copeland convention, against the advice of just about everybody around me. They thought I was a nut. But I didn't care, I wanted to hear from God. That was more important to me than anything. Still is today.

Well, I ran into some people down there in Florida after the convention. His name was Buck Atwell. We went to his home bible study with some people who had also gone to the convention. You know, when your young and not married, your by yourself you can end up in all kinds of different places because you don't have to call up anybody and tell them, "I'm going to be over here." I just went. ...We're having a bible study, wanna come? Yes... So I get in their car and we go over to his house and here I was with this man, Mr. Atwell, and I think there were three or four older ladies.

So here is this man who was at least 70 years old and the ladies were all at in their late 60s here I am. I think I was 17 at the time. I looked around and asked myself this "what am I doing here?" I should be out riding a skateboard or something. But I knew why I was there as soon as that man (Buck) opened his mouth. He said something that profoundly effected me for the rest of my life and even now I'm preaching on the same thing. He lifted his hands up and he began his prayer by saying "Precious Holy Spirit, I love you so much. I worship You. You're everything to me Holy Spirit. Help me to pray." Immediately it hit me like a rock, this man had a relationship with the Holy Spirit. I didn't see that in any of the other people I knew. He had a relationship with the Holy Spirit. This guy had some power too.

By having that fellowship, that intimate fellowship, the power of the person that he had a relationship with began to manifest. Do you understand, it wasn't that Buck Atwell had any power, right? Are you hungry for the power of God? Are you hungry for the things of the Spirit of God? It's His power, it never becomes yours, but the more you walk in relationship with Him, the more His power will be able to be manifest. Make sense?
It's our relationship with Him, our communion with the Holy Ghost. This is what Paul prayed for the church, he said "I pray that you will have communion, fellowship with the Holy Spirit". You can have that fellowship with Him any time you want. That's what praying in tongues - your personal prayer language is for. I'm going to be telling you over and over, you need to pray in the spirit, a lot. Because that's one of the greatest ways you can communicate with the Holy Spirit.

The Gifts of the Spirit
If you've operated in any of the legitimate gifts of the Spirit at all you know that they are not coming from you. It's the first thing you know. You lay hands on somebody and they fall on the ground, you're like ah... It wasn't me... Or if you have a word of wisdom or give a prophecy about the future YOU KNOW it's not coming from you. It's not you and it's not your gift. It's Him and it's His gift. It is what He is doing at that moment. So the best thing we can do is to set aside our own personal agenda and let Him flow through us in whatever capacity He wants.
We've got to come to the realization that it is not us, it is the Holy Spirit! And as this church grows, and

it's gonna grow, ... We want the Holy Spirit and I hope you do too because this is the driving force of my heart. I'm trying to share this with you right now, I can care less about Andrew Hemstrought and his ministry. I want the Holy Spirit to show up and do whatever he wants to do. If it means we die a thousand deaths then let it be so. Let's just continue to die the deaths, why because it's so great on the other side. We're the living dead! And the Holy Spirit, when He comes in, it's just… wonderful. He comes in and He does things. And that's what you want.
Let's develop a relationship with this precious person. He's the third person of the trinity, a full membe

r of the Godhead. And people when they get upset because we are worshiping the Holy Ghost. Reply, you mean you can't worship God? Yes, we can and we are because the bible tells us that our communication is with Him! And when He comes in the room and we feel the presence of God… Who's presence is it that we feel? It's the Holy Spirit's. And He's the one that we want more of. He's honored when we talk about Him. He's also the one that can be grieved!

He's the only one the bible talks about that 'we can grieve the Holy Spirit'. He's the only one we can blaspheme! So, when we give Him the proper place in our church, of course it starts in our life, but when we give Him the proper place He will begin to draw near. His ears will perk up and He'll go ... Ooh. That church down there… that's where I'm going. Because they saved a seat for Me.
He is a person, He even has a body, You mean, "like a doves body, He came like a dove." No, you are so far off base when you think like that and I hate it because the Christian world has just swallowed that bad doctrine hook, line and sinker. And they put little doves on everything. ...That's the Holy Spirit, He's like a dove, He's so soft and gentle... No, the bible says emphatically 'make no image in the form of an animal to be like God'. Duet 4:15-17
Yet, this is what we've done with the Holy Spirit! ... "He looks like a dove"... And I've heard people quote that scripture wrong. ...He came down in the form of a dove... No! That's just bad and it's wrong in so many ways. He came down on Him like a dove, LIKE a dove.

Like doesn't mean He was or He had the shape of. He came down like a dove. The dove part was to describe the coming down. Have you ever seen a dove land? Doves are not the most graceful landers. They come down , swoosh, swoosh, and as they get slower and slower they get more ungraceful. And then about a foot off the ground, they just kind of explode on the ground. He was describing the best that he could that he was going to see Him come down like a dove. They are beautiful in flight but when they land it's like, FWAM! (Laughs) Have you ever experienced that with the Holy Ghost? He seems to be hovering and hovering and then all of a sudden, how many times does the bible say, SUDDENLY! Suddenly, WHAM! Suddenly He comes in like a rushing mighty wind. Well you see they take that, like a rushing mighty wind and they say... Oh, He's like the wind, He's a wind. He's a dove and a wind. He's a wind and a dove and a water. Well, what is He then?! He's a person!

We we're created in the image of God. You want to see what the Holy Ghost looks like, go look at yourself in the mirror. And don't get too carried away with that. You are like Him. If He has a form and He does - it would be a form of a person. Right?, not a dove. He is a person like any other person - eyes, ears, hands, - except He's God.
So let's acknowledge Him as a person. Let's not ignore Him.

How many churches ignore the Holy Ghost? They do it in their doctrine. ...Well He's the third person of the trinity... "Third, ya came in third. We're running a race and ya came in third. Your don't even get a trophy cause you came in third."
Jesus put the emphasis where the emphasis is due. When I go, I'm going to send Number One. He said, don't leave Jerusalem until Number One shows up. There is a Number One. His name is the Holy Ghost. You will see Him bearing witness in powerful ministry. He will bear witness in you too, if you will listen with the ears of your spirit and give place to Him as Number One in your life. Are you gonna go there to that movie? No, cause the Holy Spirit isn't going. Jesus said, I don't say anything unless the Holy Spirit tells me to say it. I don't do anything unless the Holy Spirit tells me to do it. I cast out demons by Spirit of God, He said. Everything He did it was by the Holy Spirit.

Do you think it's worth getting to know Him as a person? Spend time everyday acknowledging Him as a person. Say, Holy Spirit you are just so wonderful. I love you. If you do that, I'm telling you, you will be ruined! Ruined in a good sense of course. All your plans all the things you thought you really wanted will just go right out the window because the Holy Spirit is so awesome! He's so great! He's so wonderful!
I used to sit there for an hour or two and simply say, Holy Ghost I worship You. I am nothing and you are everything, I worship you. The closer He'd get I'd say, I'm so nothing. You are everything. You are so glorious. You are so wealthy. Can you even imagine how wealthy the Holy Spirit is? He is all wealth! Isn't it good to know Him?

If you could only pick one person to have on a team. He'd be a good guy to have on your side. You could pick the Holy Ghost and let the other side have everybody else. Remember, every time you get the ball, give it to Him. I've got the ball ehhh, get rid of it as fast as you can and throw it back to the Holy Ghost. You know with the Holy Ghost, He is everything, He is everything to me. He is everything to this church. We need to put the emphasis on Him!
There are several things that have not been done in this area, that need to be done. One of them is lifting up the blood of Jesus. We need to lift up the blood of Jesus. We need to speak about healing in the atonement. These things are just not being covered like they should be. But the one and the greatest thing that needs to be lifted at this time is the person and work of the Holy Ghost and I think we're doing it. I want to stay on this topic for a while because I want Him to come and be in your house! The Holy Ghost personally moving in with you. Make room for Him.

In the House
Obed-edom, remember him? Israel lost the ark of the covenant. They said, Let's take the Ark of the Covenant out and win this battle. Well they lost the battle and the Philistines took possession of the ark of the covenant. The ark went into enemy territory and everywhere the ark of the covenant went, it caused havoc among the people. So they finally said we don't want this in our land. The Philistines got a splendid idea, "let's put it on an ox cart, spank the oxen and send it back into Israel and get rid of it." Actually they put gold and things all over the ox cart, for an offering. Well, there's Obed-edom out plowing in his field when all of a sudden a wild ox cart comes running down the road with a box on the back of it. What's this?

Well he goes out and stops the oxen and he realizes what he's got on the back. I mean every self respecting Israelite would know, this is the Ark of the Covenant. So what did he do? The bible says he brought it into his house. You know houses back then weren't really big. If you had five kids, well, maybe 15 kids, back then. Room in the house would have been at a premium. But he made room for the ark in his house. He brought it in the house! It had to have been inconvenient when you've got that small of a house. Right? But, he brought it in.
The bible said that God blessed Obed-edom and all of his house because of the presence of the ark of the covenant. To the point where David the King said, I've got to have the ark of the covenant in My House.

This is what I want you to have, the Holy Ghost. The Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of God. The presence of God is the Holy Spirit. I want Him in your house. But you're going to have to make room and it may be inconvenient at times. Right? Anything that's keeping Him out of the house, get rid of it. Let the Holy Ghost come in your house. Then what's going to happen? He brings all His gifts with Him. They all come by the Holy Ghost.
People seek wealth by doing biblical prosperity principles. There are hundreds of books written on biblical prosperity. How to do this and how to do that, and they work. Giving, receiving, etc. and I believe in it all. But if you want wealth, and I'm talking the wealth of God, then it comes with Him just like everything else. He brings it with Him. People are trying to seek the wealth of God without having God. People are trying to seek the gifts of the spirit without having God. You want all of it, you want all of it, you want all of it, then just get Him. Make room for Him in your life. Acknowledge Him, He's the Holy Spirit! He's the Holy Ghost. He's a person and He wants to move in with you, and totally effect your whole life. Glory be to God forever!

1 Cor2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Your faith should be in the power of God! He is the power of God. You should know Him so well that you have faith in Him. That is a big part of a relationship. You have faith in the person you have a relationship with. John will be back at 5 o'clock because he's always back for dinner. He's always punctual, always on time. You have faith in that because you know him -John. Right? How do you get to have faith in anything or in anyone? It's by relationship.

By the end of this, we're going be so pumped up and we're going have such an intimate knowledge and understanding of the Holy Ghost, that we will have faith in the power of God! I don't know if you've ever heard that before - faith in the power of God. It sounds strange to your ear the first few times you say it. It did to me. That's because we've been brought up in, having faith in the bible or having faith in the doctrines of the church. According to the Bible, we need faith in the power of God!

We are going to have faith in the power of God. Glory be to God forever! I'm excited, and I believe the Holy Ghost is excited when we talk about Him. He's precious, sensitive, and lovely. He just comes in and starts to change you. Acknowledge Him right now!

Let's just acknowledge Him right now, Holy Spirit, we give you place, I thank you Holy Spirit that you are the great and mighty God. That you've come to the church. That you've come to me. You're the one who comes in and fills us and lives in us. You are the one we give place to Holy Spirit. I love you so much. I ask you to change me. I ask you to change everybody in here. I ask you to come and sit right next to us and be our closest most intimate friend. Show us how we can have you in our house, in our relationships, in everything we have and say and do. Holy Spirit I ask you to reveal yourself, and manifest yourself to us as a person, in your power, that we may have faith in you. In Jesus Name, Amen.

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