Thursday, March 18, 2010

The Holy Spirit Bible Study

The Holy Spirit

What is the Holy Spirit?

1. John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” It is our teacher.
2. Acts 2:38 It is a gift from God.
3. Acts 8:15-17, Ephesians 1:13 It is something that we receive. It is not a right but a gift.
4. 1 Corinthians 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” It is the Spirit of God that lives in us!
5. John 14:16-20” 16 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. 19 “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. 20 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” It is our helper and our source of truth.
6. Ephesians 1:13-14 It marks us in Christ as a seal. It is a deposit of Christ guaranteeing our inheritance with Christ. In other words we are sealed with the spirit of Christ in us.
(Spirit of God, a gift we receive, that teaches, helps us, is a source of truth and seals us)

What does it help us do?

1. Mark 13:11, Luke 12:12, 1 Cor 2:13, Matt 10:20 It helps us speak what God wants us to say.
2. Luke 2:26, Acts 20:23 It reveals things to us.
3. Luke 4:1, Acts 16:6 It leads us where God wants us to go & out of places He does not want us.
4. Acts 1:8 It gives us power.
5. Acts 2:4 It helps us speak in tongues.
6. Acts 4:31 It helps us speak God’s word with boldness.
7. Acts 9:31 It comforts us.
8. Acts 13:2, Acts 21:11 It speaks to us. Sometimes God has a word for us.
9. Romans 14:17 It helps us live righteously, finding peace and joy.
10. Romans 15:13 It gives us hope.
11. Hebrews 2:4 It gives us gifts according to God’s will.
12. Luke 24:45 It helps us understand the Scriptures.
13. Romans 8:26 It helps us pray.
14. John 16:8 It convicts us of our sin.
15. John 16:13-14 It can only speak to us what he hears, it cannot speak on it’s own. Only truth.
16. 1 Cor 2:15-16 It helps us know God’s thoughts. It gives us the mind of Christ.
17. 2 Cor 5:17 It helps us become a new creation in Christ.
18. Galations 5:16-17 It helps us overcome our desire to sin.

How does the Holy Spirit know what to tell us?
1 Corinthians 2:10-11
(New King James Version)” 10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God”. How incredible is that? You have inside you a Spirit that knows the mind of God. It knows His thoughts and His will; you have complete access to all of God/Jesus through the Holy Spirit! It is through His Spirit we receive what we need. Why do I not feel tapped into this you may ask? Well, now that we know what the Holy Spirit is and what it does let’s look at how we can live by the power of the Holy Spirit and what may hinder us.

Ephesians 4:30 “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Oops! You mean we can distress the Holy Spirit? Yes, we can.



How can we grieve the Holy Spirit?
Ephesians 4:31-32 (New International Version) 31Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Ephesians 4:3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Notice a theme with the above? Peace. A loving, kind, compassionate & forgiving life is pleasing to the Holy Spirit. Negativity, anger, bitterness, fighting is a source of distress to the Holy Spirit.

I’ll be very honest here. A few years ago I was seeking hard after God and truly focusing on staying plugged into the Holy Spirit but I could just feel something was not right. I asked God to show me where I needed correction so I could truly live life by the Spirit. He took me to passage that tells us how we grieve the Holy Spirit. I immediately recognized a description that defined a part of me and I immediately set out to rid myself of, in my case bitterness, and I did this through a concordance study, lots of prayer and calling upon the Holy Spirit to help me overcome and live truly by the fruits of the Sprit Gal 5:22. Together we were able to overcome this terrible trait I displayed at that time and I can tell you honestly that there is a big difference for me personally after I rid myself of something that was grieving the Spirit inside of me. I would love to encourage you to look at those things that grieve the Spirit and look deep inside to make sure these are not present in your life as to hinder/grieve God’s Spirit inside of you.

What the Holy Spirit Produces in us.
Galatians 5:22-23 (New International Version) 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Romans 8:12 We have an obligation as believers to live according to the Holy Spirit within us. Romans 8:13 …but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that we can put aside, defeat and overcome the sinful things we struggle with. How you may ask? Struggling with a desire to sin? Pray and ask God to help you overcome this “thing” and help you to live with self control. Look in your Bible’s concordance and look up every scripture on self control. Study them, pray them back to God, memorize them, think on them and ask the Holy Spirit to help you overcome your lack of self control. Through the process of prayer, study and allowing the Holy Spirit to help you overcome, you will have the victory. The fruits of the Spirit are traits we should all display. If something is lacking pray and ask for the Holy Spirit to show you how to live this way. After all, it is there to teach us. Ask God to teach you what you need to know to live this way. Then pray, listen and study the Word. You will be guided. “Fruit emerges by no effort of your own. It grows as you abide in Him.” Wendy Blight. We will discuss abiding a little later in the study but it is essential if we want to live by the fruit of the Spirit.

Tuning into the Holy Spirit.
I love this prayer by Lysa TerKeurst. She prays this every morning before her feet hit the floor. “God, I want to see You. God, I want to hear You. God, I want to know You. God, I want to follow hard after You. And even before I know what I will face today, I say yes to You.” Lysa says “this simple act of surrender each morning will prepare your eyes to see Him, your ears to hear Him, your mind to perceive Him, and your heart to receive Him. This is how to live expecting to experience God. You see, we have become so familiar with God yet so unaware of Him. Women who say yes to God daily live expecting to see God, to hear from Him, and to be absolutely filled by His peace and joy-and, therefore, they do and they are. Also, a woman who says yes to God isn’t afraid to be honest with God.” –Lysa TerKeurst
“I am the vine,” Jesus said to His disciples, “(and) you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5) We are not simply followers, we are connected to Jesus literally, just as branches are connected to a vine. The KJV uses the word abide instead of remain. In the original translation the word is meinate, which means to remain or stay. The dictionary defines abiding as “remaining in a fixed state or continuing in one place for a significant amount of time.”- Wendy Blight, Hidden Joy in a Dark Corner. I want you to really get this next part. How does the Holy Spirit communicate with us? Is it through our body? No. So it is not our bodies that must remain fixed on Jesus. That is where we slip perhaps? We focus on Jesus when our bodies are in Church or in our special prayer time. It is through our minds that we hear from the Holy Spirit! Our minds must “remain in a fixed state or continuing in one place for a significant amount of time”. It is through an abiding relationship with God that we will come to know Him more and His will for our lives. It is through keeping our minds fixed on God, fixed on Jesus, fixed on hearing from the Holy Spirit that we can expect to actually live those things out.” It is through this fixed connection that we will receive His “sap”. –Wendy Blight What a revelation that is! Our minds are to remain fixed on Jesus wherever we are. The more fixed we are on Him, the more we will become like him. (Fruits of the Spirit)
I like what Wendy Blight says here “I had surrendered my life to Christ. I knew Jesus lived in my heart. I knew the Word of God. I prayed. My heart was connected, but it was not altered by His presence. Accessing the power available in God’s Holy Spirit requires that we tap into His power. Tapping into His power can only happen when we abide in Him. Through His Spirit, He moves you to discern, to pray, to cry, to worship, to love, to rest, to act, and to obey. The more you abide in Him, the more He continually pours Himself into you”. Basically, the more we are focused on hearing from God, the more we will be able to hear from God through His Holy Spirit. If you want to hear more, listen more. This requires keeping a part of you always alert to hear from Him. If we aren’t listening it’s a little hard to hear, right? If you are married I am sure you can recall several conversations with your spouse when you were talking right next to them and they never heard a word you said.

Now we know who the Holy Spirit is, what He helps us do, what grieves Him, what He produces in us, & how to hear from the Holy Spirit. But wait, what does the Holy Spirit sound like?

We receive from the Holy Spirit in different ways. Sometimes it is an impression of thought in our mind. In other words our mind may just suddenly have a thought pop in, when that happens we need to discern if that was us or the Holy Spirit and ahem, even the enemy. Sometimes it is a scripture or parable that will come to mind. Chances are if you weren’t thinking on these things you are receiving something from the Holy Spirit and you should go look those up and study them. God is probably trying to tell you something. Once you get there His Holy Spirit will guide you to receive what God is trying to give you. Sometimes it is through revelation. When studying the Bible and something just reaches out and grabs your heart, mind and attention & it is suddenly just brought to life in various ways that is the Holy Spirit pouring something into you. It could be pointing you to a direction you need to go in or something to learn. For me, it is mostly though impression of thought. For instance a sudden thought to call someone I would not normally think to call or a thought to go do something for someone that would be out of the ordinary. I now do not dismiss those things as odd; I look to see if that is the Holy Spirit asking me to do those things. Sometimes I am talking to God and I ask questions and I receive an answer back. If you are talking with God and you suddenly have an answer, you have just heard from the Holy Spirit. Mostly, you will learn to recognize the voice of your Father once you are used to hearing it.

How do I know if God is speaking to me? – Lysa TerKeurst
1. Does what I’m hearing line up with Scripture?
2. Is it consistent with God’s character?
3. Is it being confirmed through messages I’m hearing at church or studying in my quiet time?
4. Is it beyond me? (God has called me; therefore, I am equipped. God uses ordinary people in extraordinary ways all throughout the Bible. If it is beyond you, don’t count it out as not being from God.)
5. Would it please God?

These are five great questions to ask yourself if you are not sure if what you are receiving is from the Holy Spirit. And always remember, you can’t tune in if you’re tuned out. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. Please feel free to email me anytime if you ever have any questions or thoughts. For those of us in class, we will now discuss ways to stay tuned in and live by the Spirit.

3 comments:

Andrea said...

So very thankful GOD gave us the Holy Spirit.
Hugs,
andrea

Heart2Heart said...

This is a great study on learning more about the Holy Spirit and a vital part of the trinity of who God is. I love the simple prayer of yielding to God's will before we begin our day, what a perfect way to set the expectations for our day!

Love and Hugs ~ Kat

Tasha Simons said...

I really enjoyed this post on the Holy Spirit. I think I'll spend some time in prayer reflecting on what I read. It coincides with our study of Acts. The gift of the Holy Spirit is truly a gift... Christ lives in us, yet it's so easy to forget and not listen for His voice.

Tasha