Holy Spirit Power and Essence

Hello, I'm glad you could join us today. My name is Caitlin Humenik, and today we're going to be talking about the Holy Spirit's power and the very essence of the Holy Spirit. Let's open this up with a prayer. Father God, we come into your presence by the blood of your Son Jesus Christ. We thank you for this beautiful day. I thank you for the person watching this on the other side of the screen. I pray that you plant seeds today, Father God. I ask that you lower me so that you can be exalted, Father God. I just pray that you can bless the person on the other side of the screen, that you can open their eyes to learn something new today. And I just pray that we can just have a fun time together, that we can just, just enjoy the community that we have. And we thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is then given to anyone who receives Jesus as their Lord and Savior. When you are saved, God promises us the very Spirit of God will then come and live in you. That's only after you receive the salvation that Jesus died for you to have. The Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit, and that's what's promised to us whenever we have faith in Jesus. I wanna start off by talking about some verses. The first one is in the book of Acts in chapter 1, verses 8 in the ESV version, and it says, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria. and to the ends of the earth. Whenever this verse is talking about you receiving the power, it's talking about the power of the Holy Spirit. When you receive salvation, you're given the Holy Spirit. And from the Holy Spirit, you have the power and authority to trample on snakes and scorpions. You have the authority to do what Jesus did and better and more, because that's what Jesus himself told us in the New Testament. I love this verse too, because it's telling us that the very power, that we're allowed to use is coming from the Holy Spirit. It's not coming from us. It's not something that we ourselves can do. It's not something we ourselves can produce. It's from the Holy Spirit. And that's a beautiful thing because it allows us to rely on him. It allows us to look to him for the things that we need because he's the one that will guide us. He's the one that will help us in the times that we need it. In the book of John 14:26 in the ESV, it says, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all the things I've said to you. I love this verse because it's talking about how the Holy Spirit is the one that gives you revelation knowledge. He's the one that opens your mind to see things. He's the one that allows you to see the truth because the truth comes from Him. And it's amazing the fact that we can rely on Him for all of these things because when you start to read the Word of God, You absorb everything that it's saying in your spirit, and the Holy Spirit brings that back to your remembrance when you need it. And we can rely on that. We can rely on him in that way. And that's such a beautiful thing because we don't have to be stressed out and worried that we didn't memorize every verse in the Bible because the Holy Spirit got our back. All that I have said to you. I love this verse so much because whenever you are reading the Bible, your spirit is absorbing everything. Your flesh may not remember everything surface level. Whenever you go into different situations or whenever you're just thinking about it, you may not be able to think of and remember, in fact, everything that you just read. If you read the Bible cover to cover from Genesis to Revelation, your flesh may not be able to remember every single word that was spoken over you, but your spirit absorbed every single word. So your spirit remembers that. And that's the very Spirit of God that lives in you. So when you read this thing, this is why it's so important to read your Bible, because when you come into any kind of situation, the Holy Spirit will bring that back to you. The Spirit will bring up these verses that relate to the situation that you're in. And you can also obviously go back to the Bible to confirm that. But the Holy Spirit, once it's absorbed, the Holy Spirit will just bring that back. As said in the verse, the Holy Spirit will teach you And bring to remembrance all that God has said to you. All the things that are said in the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will bring that back to you once you have absorbed it. The Holy Spirit will teach you things, even things that you don't even know. That's why we have to, we have to learn to trust the voice of God, the voice of the Holy Spirit, because He can teach us things that we don't even know. That's also a confirmation. To use if you're struggling to understand whether something is from God is if he's teaching you something that you didn't even know. And that's, that's something really cool about the Holy Spirit because obviously it's God's Spirit, so he knows everything. He knows, he doesn't have a limited mind. He doesn't have limited knowledge. It's not something that he would forget or for like just not tell you in general. Like you, you have to realize that God will bring up in remembrance the things that you need when you need it. Which is why we don't have to fear anything. We don't have to go into any situation questioning anything, because even if we personally don't know what to do, God knows what to do. So he will tell you that. That's the part of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our advocate. We— the Holy Spirit is the person who teaches us things, and he brings back to our remembrance the verses that we read, the very promises of God, so that we can continue to keep it on our mind and live the holy life that he wants us to live. Another verse is in Romans 8:26 in the NLT version, and it says, and the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don't know what God wants us to pray for, but the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. I love this verse because this is talking about praying, praying in tongues. And I'm not going to get too much into that, but you can receive— that's a gift of the Holy Spirit. You can receive that gift by simply just asking the Father for that gift. And you simply just get in God's presence and you just start speaking sounds. And the Holy Spirit will use those sounds and pray them back to the Father, but they're perfect prayers. So they're perfectly aligned to God's will. And it's an amazing thing. If you don't know what to pray for, you can just pray in tongues and the Holy Spirit will take care of that. The Holy Spirit will intercede on your behalf, which is what that— the very essence of what that verse is talking about. Another verse is in Galatians 5:22-23 in the Amplified Version. And it says, But the fruit of the Spirit, the result of his presence within us, is love, unselfish concern for others, joy, inner peace, patience, Not the ability to wait, but how we act while we wait. Kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. This verse is talking about the fruit of the Spirit. And it's really cool to go back to this, 'cause these are all the things, the fruit, that we should be producing every single day. That's how whenever you look back at your day, you have to take the time to think, was I bearing good fruit? Was I being kind to people today? Was I treating people with love? Was I— did I receive the joy of the Lord today? Because that's your portion. Did I receive the patience that God has for me? Did I act good today? Was I faithful to God? Was I being gentle? Was I being self-controlled? All of these things come from the Holy Spirit, and we can all the time just take the time to just look back and see, are we bearing good fruit? Because if we're not, then we have to take the time to Look at our heart posture. Look at the things that you're absorbing during the day. Are you watching things you shouldn't be? Are you reading things you shouldn't be? The first thing that we should be doing as soon as we get up is reading the Word of God and praying and just spending time with him because it allows our brain, it wires our brain, in fact, to every single morning to just focus on God the first thing. It wires our brain to do that. So when you wake up, that should be the first thing you should do because that's also part of putting God first. Whenever you're so focused on God and you're so focused on asking the one question, does this honor God? Is this honoring to him? It's such a beautiful question to ask yourself in every moment of the day. If you're about to say something to someone and you're questioning if it's something God would want you to say, ask yourself that question. Is this— if I were to say this to this one person, is this going to be honoring to God? If I If I were to wear this certain dress or certain outfit for that matter, would this be honoring to God? You have to take the time to ask yourself that question because that will prevent you from doing things that you shouldn't be. The Holy Spirit will convict you with these certain things, and that's part of the, the fruit of the Spirit is that we should be bearing that every single day. Because there's no question, without a doubt, that you should be bearing these fruit every single day. So you shouldn't have to ask yourself, if you're being kind to someone, you shouldn't have to ask if that's honoring to God, because it's the very fruit of the Holy Spirit. Going forward, we need to look back every single day and just think about, did I bear the fruit of the Spirit today? And if not, how can I do better tomorrow? We need to constantly be looking at the fruit we're bearing. We can't, we can't be so focused on all of these other little things that matter. We need to focus on bearing the good fruits that the Holy Spirit gives us, because it comes from the Holy Spirit. So you can't bear these good fruits if you don't have the Holy Spirit. Obviously that requires you to then receive salvation first, but all of this is from the Holy Spirit. Another verse that we can talk about is in 1 Corinthians 12:3-6 in the NLT version, and it says, so I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same God. God works in different ways, but it's the same God who does the work in all of us. I love this verse so much as well, because it's talking about how the Holy Spirit gives you gifts. Your gift may not look like your neighbor's gifts, and that's okay, because it's not always going to be the same. So there may be some that have similar gifts, that have the same, in fact, But it's not all gonna be the same because we play different parts in the body of Christ. And Paul talks about the body of Christ in this same chapter as well. But in this specific verse, it's talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And the spiritual gifts are only given by the Spirit of God. That's the Holy Spirit that lives in you. And that's pretty cool when you think about that. And it's like, We, we can all be different in a sense of having different gifts, but we serve the same God. And that, that's the amazing thing about it, is that the Holy Spirit gives each person different gifts, but he's the source of them all. So it doesn't matter what gift you have, because each gift can be used for God's glory in his kingdom. That's the purpose of it, is to unite us all and to have God's agenda pushed forward. In 1 Corinthians, in the same chapter, chapter 12, a few verses down, verses 7 through 11, in the NLT it says, a spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person, the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice. To another, the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else, the one Spirit gives— A gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what's being said. It's the only— the one and only Spirit who distributes all of these gifts. All of these gifts are from the Holy Spirit. He alone decides which gift Each person should have, which means that not everyone's going to have the same gift, and that's okay because we're meant to play different parts in the body of Christ. So to go back over this verse, one of the gifts is to give wise advice. So that's wisdom. That's one of the gifts that someone can have, and people can have multiple of these as well. It's not just one. To another person gives the message of special knowledge. So you can be given. Knowledge. The Spirit can also give great faith to someone. And another, he can give the gift of healing. To another person, he gives the power to perform miracles. And another, the ability to prophesy. All of these are beautiful gifts, and not every single person is going to have all of these, and that's okay. God can give you the gift of discernment. Of discerning whether the spirit is from God or a message or the words being spoken from someone, if that is coming from God. That's what discernment is. And then He gives the ability for people to speak in unknown languages, which is speaking in tongues, different from praying in tongues. And He's given another person to interpret what's being said. All of this is coming from the same Spirit, and they're beautiful gifts, and they should be stewarded properly. Another verse in Acts 2, chapter 2, verses 38, in the ESV, it says, and Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The verses here are talking about when you repent and you're Baptized in the Holy Spirit. That's whenever you're born again. You're born again with Christ as he resurrected from the grave. Whenever you receive salvation, you are resurrected in Christ. So you are a new person. That old person has passed away and everything has become new. And as well with this verse, Christ will forgive you for your sins. And that's part of receiving the salvation is you will, you will receive the forgiveness of God. And that's part of the gift of the Holy Spirit as well. 1 Corinthians 6:19 in the ESV says, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God with your body. This goes back to talking about how we need to honor God with everything that we do. We need to honor our bodies. We need to honor how we take care of them. Everything that comes The words that come out of our mouth, we have to honor that with God. We have to use our words to honor God. We have to wear things that honor God. This verse is talking about, it's basically like, almost like an analogy of what was going on in the Old Testament. You had the actual, the literal temple, the physical temple where people would go in and literally come into the presence of God. That's kind of The same thing where now your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And that the Holy Spirit comes to reside in you. And now that's a holy place. So picture that in the Old Testament where the priests had to do a certain amount of things to be cleansed and purified in order to simply just step foot in the temple because they were coming into the presence of the Lord. And that's holy ground. So you can't— Come in almost as a sinner. You have to be cleansed in order to do that. So, whenever it's— this verse is talking about how now our body is the temple, we have to honor that. We have to take care of that. It's almost like you built a temple for God and you, every so often, you take care of it to keep it nice and clean. And you keep it fixed up the way it should. You keep it holy ground because that's where God resides. And that's the same thing when it comes to our bodies. Because now the Holy Spirit has been released because Jesus died on the cross for us and he rose again on the third day. The Holy Spirit has been released to us and now he— when you receive salvation, it resides— he resides in you. The Holy Spirit now resides in you and that's the temple. That's the temple that he resides in. So we have to take care of that. We have to take care of our bodies. We have to use our bodies to honor God. And that goes along with the things that you do. You— everything that you do should be honoring to God because that's taking care of the temple that the very Holy Spirit lives in. So we have to take the time to not only physically take care of ourselves, eating well, regularly cleaning ourselves, all of the things that go along with that physically, but whenever we go out and we— like, let's say you're meeting a friend for coffee, everything that should come out of your mouth should be Spirit-led. Everything that you do should be Spirit-led. It should be honoring to That's the point of this verse, is that we have to make sure that everything that we're doing is honoring to Him. There's another verse in Isaiah 11:2 in the ESV, and it says, And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, and the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. I want to read this verse again because I want you to make sure that you understand what this verse is saying. Isaiah 11:2 in the ESV says, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Isaiah in this verse is talking about Jesus, how when he receives the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will provide him with the wisdom and understanding, the counsel and the might, the knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Jesus had the Holy Spirit when he started his ministry. If you're already saved, it is the same Holy Spirit that currently lives in you. The same Spirit that Jesus had is the same Spirit that lives in you. Think about that. God is a respecter of no persons, which means that what he does for others, he can do for you. The same Holy Spirit that resurrected Jesus is the same Holy Spirit that lives in you. That's crazy to think about. We don't— a lot of the time it's like below the surface we understand that we receive the Holy Spirit from God, but we don't fully connect the dots that that Holy Spirit that we're receiving is the Spirit of God. It's the Spirit that resurrected Jesus Christ. That's the Spirit that lives in you. That's crazy to think about. The Spirit that resurrected Jesus from the The dead is the same Spirit that lives in you. That's crazy to think about. The same Holy Spirit that gave Jesus the ability to perform miracles is the same Holy Spirit that lives in you. The same Holy Spirit that gave Jesus the wisdom, the knowledge, the understanding, the discernment is the same Holy Spirit that lives in you. The same Holy Spirit that heals is the same Holy Spirit that lives in you. John 14:15-17 in the ESV says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells within you, and he will be with you. This is such a powerful verse because Jesus is saying that he has to go away because then the Holy Spirit's released. If he doesn't go away, then the Holy Spirit's not released. That's what Jesus is saying when he's talking about the other advocate, another helper. That's the Holy Spirit that when you receive salvation through faith, that the Holy Spirit will come live in you. That's the same Holy Spirit. And it's the same Spirit that gives you the truth of the Word that the world cannot see, because the world doesn't have the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is the very person who gives you the wisdom, knowledge, understanding, discernment to see below the surface, to see what the truth is. That's from the Spirit of God. You see the truth because God showed it to you. That's why. Not everyone can see the truth. In Luke chapter 11, verses 13, in the NLT says, so you sinful people know how to give good, good gifts to your children, but how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? This is such a beautiful verse as well, because if we can here on earth, for a birthday for example, give our kids and our friends gifts, then how much more would God the Father give us the Holy Spirit when we ask? Whenever we call upon God's name, whenever we receive the salvation and confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior, won't God commit to that promise that he gave you? He gave us the promise that once you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, that he will give you the Holy Spirit. God's character doesn't change. In Hebrews 13:8, it says that Jesus is the same yesterday, Today and forever. God doesn't change. So when He says He's going to give you the promise of the Holy Spirit, you can stand firm on that. You can rely on that. That when you're saved, you have the Holy Spirit. You don't have to deny that. You don't have to even question it because God Himself promised it. And this goes back to understanding God's character. When we understand that God Doesn't break His promises. He doesn't lie. It shows that when He's saying He's going to give you the Holy Spirit, when you receive the salvation that Jesus died for you to have, you will have it. It's not something you have to work for. It's just receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior by faith and confessing your sins. God will forgive you and the Holy Spirit will be given to you. It's as simple as that. In 2 Corinthians 3:17, in the ESV, it says, now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. This is such a popular verse because it's a very highlighted verse in a popular worship song. But this verse is talking about whenever the Holy Spirit resides in you, God is everywhere. God is everywhere at all times. He is always going to be with you, but especially whenever you have received salvation, the Holy Spirit literally lives in you. That's the Spirit of God. So the Holy Spirit is walking with you everywhere you go. The Holy Spirit is the one that gives you the wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and discernment to go through every season in in battle in your life, and he will guide you through that. He will tell you what you need to know, even if you didn't know it before. He will bring back to your remembrance the things that you need to know as well. And he will protect you because he's there. And the last part says, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom. Because when you receive the Spirit of the Lord from your faith in Jesus, it's setting you free. Because Jesus's sacrifice is meant to set you free. So if you've received the Spirit of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, you are remaining in freedom. And that's just, that's amazing. We have to, we do have an enemy and he is real and he's gonna constantly try to win back anything that belongs to God. And we have to hold firm to that, especially our freedom. Your salvation can't be taken away. That's not what I'm That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying when it comes to being in bondage or just being a slave to sin, we have to take our authority over that. We have to— once we've received freedom, you have to remain free. That's the point of— that's how we can walk with unending peace. And you can receive your portion of joy every single day. You can receive all of these things, all of the fruit of the Spirit. Every single day because that's your portion. You have to hold on to that, and that doesn't mean it's freedom from sin. Jesus died for you to live in freedom, so we must keep that. And again, I'm not saying you lose your salvation. You're once you believe in Jesus and you've received salvation, your eternity is secure. Simple as that. There's nothing you can possibly do to. Have that revoked because it says in the Word of God that the gifts of God cannot be revoked. They cannot be taken away. So the gift of salvation is a gift. So once you receive that, it cannot be taken away. There's no question about that. I'm talking about when it comes to bondage, when it comes to us allowing sin to control us. Because even after we're saved, you still sin because We're sinners. God can forgive us and we're cleansed by Jesus, but we— it's a daily thing. We have to— Jesus said that we have to pick up our cross daily. That's a daily thing. And we have to hold on to the freedom of the peace that He gives us. Because if you're not going to receive the peace that Jesus gives you, then the enemy is going to attack you with something else. He's going to give you the worry instead. If you're not receiving the peace of God, you're receiving the worry of the enemy. Because when you receive the peace of God, nothing— you can't even explain it. Nothing can replace that. But you have to hold on to that. You have to receive that daily. It's a daily walk with these things. The enemy's not gonna sleep. He's not gonna give up. So we have to use our authority. And we don't have to be afraid of him either, because we have that authority in Jesus Christ. When he died for us, Yes. He gave us the authority when the Holy Spirit's power is where our authority comes from. That's how we can use our authority, is from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the very person that gives us the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions. That verse is talking about the Holy Spirit's power. We cannot do anything with our own strength, our own will, our own might. There's nothing we can do without the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is where that power comes from. So we have to accept that. We have to receive the Holy Spirit and then use the power that he's given us. God's not going to do for you what he gave you the ability to do for yourself. He gave you the authority, so you must take it. You must use the authority. And in And in order for you to use that, you actually have to know what the truth is, because we can't use our authority in any situation if we don't even know we're being attacked. If we don't even realize that we're actually receiving the spirit of heaviness rather than the spirit of peace. You have to know what the truth is. You have to know what the promises of God are so that you can actually receive it. Because you can't wake up every morning and receive the joy that the Lord wants to give you, the peace All of the fruit of the Spirit, you can't receive that if you don't even know they exist. So we have to take the time to understand what God is giving us, what God wants for us. We have to understand God's promises in order to hold on to them. Because we can't come in agreement with the right things unless if we know what they are. And that's how we can use our authority in the Holy Spirit. Because We know what the truth is. And you don't have to, you don't have to know all of the lies to know the truth. If you simply know what the truth is, you automatically know what's a lie. Because if something isn't 100% truth according to God's Word, it's absolutely a lie. The devil can, he's a liar. He's never going to tell the truth, even if it 99.9% of the time sounds like truth. This is why we have to immerse ourselves in the Word of God, because we have to know the full truth. It can't just be a familiar truth, because then the enemy— the enemy knows scripture. He's gonna take it out of context. Even whenever he was tempting Jesus, he used scripture against him. He used scripture. Satan knows scripture, so we have to know it better than him. We have to get to a point where we study the Word of God, not just reading it. Because of course our own spirit absorbs that, but we have to know the full truth, the full extent of what God is trying to explain to us. And we also have to know the context of it. That's what is so important about the verses in the Bible is you can't just read it and just interpret it in your own human way. Because we can't possibly do that because majority of the time it's probably not going to be right. You have to allow the Holy Spirit to give you the revelation of what this is supposed to be. There are some literal things in the Bible, but majority of the things that the Bible's talking about, especially in the New Testament, is like spiritual concepts. And it's not talked about all the time in a literal way. And we can interpret it in a literal way whenever we're trying to interpret it with our flesh. When we're trying to Just look at it and just figure out what it means by our own power. Because we can't do that. Because, as I said before, the Holy Spirit is the very one who gives you the truth, who reveals the truth to you. So, if we're not relying on the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth, how can we see the truth? Because He's the one who reveals it to you. Satan knows scripture, so we can't just read things and be familiar with it. You have to know it because that's how you use your authority. When Satan tempted Jesus, Jesus replied with scripture. Satan attacked him with scripture completely out of context, but Jesus replied with scripture in the right context. That's the thing that we have to note, is that Satan will take scripture but he will use it in the wrong context. This is why we have to rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal The truth, to reveal the spiritual meaning to it. Because there's so many things— this is what the Pharisees didn't understand. They looked at everything in a literal point of view, so they missed all of the spiritual perspectives of it. Jesus talked in parables so that people can seek him with faith to understand the real truth. People questioned without faith. No one knew what he was saying because no one actually had the desire To see the other side of it. No one saw the spiritual side of it. Everyone took it literally. That's exactly why the Pharisees were just on the wrong track, because everything that Jesus said, they took in a literal perspective because they weren't relying on God to see the full truth. That's a lot. That's really why a lot of people that were around Jesus whenever he was on this earth, why they didn't understand what he was saying, because they didn't look at it in a spiritual perspective. There's so many different meanings to scripture. We have— it's not just one meaning. Majority of the time, there may be even more than 2. We have to look at it in the context that it's talking about, because a lot of the time we even ourselves take scripture out of context because we don't even understand the full thing. A lot of the time we look at one verse, but then we don't take the time to look at the whole story of what that verse was actually referring to. We sometimes, we look at a verse and we just assume a certain meaning of that verse instead of taking the time to realize that, okay, this verse was actually talking about something completely different. You have to look at the context of the verse as well. Because even in my own testimony, the devil has used scripture against me to make me think that God is talking to me Where I would, I would think like, okay, well, this is in the Bible, this is a verse in the Bible, so this has to be God. But if you don't understand the context of the verse, you're just gonna agree with everything that's said to you. The enemy will use scripture against you, so you have to understand what that scripture means. You can't just assume that it's God because it's from the Bible, because Satan will absolutely use scripture to throw you off. It will just be in the wrong— it will either just be a complete lie, meaning it's interpreted wrong, or it will be in the wrong context, meaning that you, you don't— there are certain verses that are only meant to be interpreted for certain events in your life, and that's it. Just very specific things. And he will use that out of context to make you think that you need to do something that God is telling you to do. This is part of the discernment gift that the Holy Spirit gives. We have to start discerning Whether the things that we're hearing is from God. Because we can't just assume because it's a verse in the Bible that it's from God. Because Satan in Scripture literally used Scripture against Jesus. Among everyone else, he used it to Jesus. He tempted him 3 times and he used Scripture every single time, but it was completely out of context. But Jesus already knew Scripture because he is the Word. He's the Word made flesh. So of course he's going to reply with the proper Scripture in the right context. We can't, we can't be afraid of the enemy, but we still have to do our part and study the Word of God. Because that's exactly why in Ephesians chapter 6, when it talks about the armor of God, specifically the sword of the Spirit is the The Word of God. The Word of God is literally our weapon. That's our only offensive weapon minus prayer. But we have to think about that. Our only offensive weapon is the Word of God. So how can we use our only offensive weapon if we don't even know what's in the Word of God? If we don't even know the promises of God? That's exactly how we fight back against evil authorities. We—it's not a battle against flesh and blood, but a battle against the unseen evil world. The evil spirits are attacking you. That's spiritual warfare. But we can use our authority to kick every single evil spirit out. We have the authority to do that because of the Holy Spirit. You can kick those evil spirits out. But we use that. With truth. And the truth is the Word of God. We have to use the Word of God, and we can't use it if we aren't even familiar with it. We can't use it if we don't know the very promises of God in it. Whenever, for example, in Romans 8:1, it says, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's a very truth in the Word of God. In Romans chapter eight verses one, it says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So that is saying that God is not going to condemn you. So if you're hearing a voice that's saying you're condemned, you're never going to be forgiven. You can use your authority by using that verse, for example. That's using your authority from the truth that we're given because you can say no because I know in Romans eight chapter one it says there's no condemnation. for those who are in Christ Jesus. You can use that to your advantage because that's exactly what your weapon is. So we have to understand the promises of God. That's a promise. It may not— it doesn't have to say the word promise in it for it to be a promise, a promise from God. That's a promise. God's not going to condemn you because it says it in His Word and He's not going to lie. If it's saying You can find so many promises of God in the New Testament because they're, they're just simply given to you as that verse in Romans 8:1. But we need to use that. That's our part of our authority. We can't use our authority if we don't even— first of all, if we don't even know we have it. You have authority in Christ Jesus if you've received salvation because you have the Holy Spirit. The enemy cannot overtake you When you have the Holy Spirit. The only power that Satan has is the power that you give him. Think about that. He has power, but it's only what you allow him to have over you. If you're allowing him to attack you and you're not fighting back and you're not using the authority that the Holy Spirit gave you, that Jesus died for you to have, the enemy is just gonna trample over you day in and day out. But if you take your authority, the enemy has to flee. If you turn to Jesus, the enemy has to flee. He cannot stand in the presence of God. He cannot stand with just you saying the name of Jesus. The demons tremble at his name. That is so powerful, and we have to realize that. Demons tremble at his name. Amen. The very things that are attacking you every single day that seem super scary, the demons tremble at just the name of Jesus. So what does that tell us? Speak the name of Jesus. Speak the name of Jesus in every situation. Take your authority. That's what the— that's the power of the Holy Spirit, the very essence of what he's there for, to guide you, to protect you, To help you use your authority, because that's exactly where it comes from. We can't— we need to stop letting the enemy trample over us. We need to stop allowing him to just run over us with all these attacks. Because Satan knows when someone is saved, but they don't even realize their authority. He knows that because he can see what you're doing. He can't read your mind, but he can see what you're saying. He can see how you're acting. The enemy is watching. And again, we don't have to be afraid of that, but we need to rise up with boldness, thinking about, okay, if the enemy is watching everything I'm doing to plan out his attacks, and he's trying to attack us in any way he can to figure out a soft spot where he can get us to cave in, in a sense, we need to stand up and not give him the opportunity to figure that out. Sometimes Satan won't even know what to attack you with, so he attacks you with anything to figure out, okay, what is this person gonna give in to? And if you— once you give in, he knows that that can be a key attacking point that he can continue to keep attacking you with. Because if you're gonna give in to it, he's gonna keep attacking you there. Satan is gonna tempt you with things you desire. He's not going to tempt you with things that you don't desire because he knows it's not going to go anywhere. With the very things that you desire, he's going to tempt you with, which is why we have to take our authority. We have to use the very thing that the Holy Spirit gave us, that Jesus gave us because of his sacrifice. We can't let that go to waste. It's not about just receiving salvation and then just living your life how you want to. In Galatians 5:13, it says you are now in freedom. So don't use your freedom to go and sin. Don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Don't go back to the way you lived. Because when you're— when you receive salvation, you are born again. That means that you are now a literally new person, a literal new person. So the old person has passed away. So you can leave all those old mentalities, all those bad choices behind, all of those— anything that was not aligned with God, you can leave all of that behind because you are now new and made new in Christ Jesus because of what he did on the cross. He didn't just die because he felt like it. He died so that you can be in freedom. And we can't use that freedom to just do what we want. We have to take our authority. That's what the enemy is scared He is scared of Christians realizing that. He is scared of Christians rising up and using their authority because that means that he doesn't have any. That's exactly why he is attacking so many people in so many ways that they don't even realize, because he wants power. He wants, he wants all of this. He wants to take over everything. He doesn't want God's plan to prevail. He doesn't want God's freedom to be present in anyone's lives. The enemy is scared of those Christians who can rise up in boldness and use their authority. Think about that. He is scared. The demons tremble in just hearing the name of Jesus. They tremble in fear. They're scared. It may seem like the devil isn't scared because of all the things he's throwing at you, but he's He's throwing those very things at you so that you don't see that you have the authority to rise up against it, to make it stop. You have the power to say no. You have the power to not choose to sin. You can say no and say yes to Jesus. The devil is afraid of the Christians who will do that. The devil is scared of the very people who know Who they are in Jesus. He's scared. He's trembling thinking about the very, the very people that will rise up against him because he knows that he can't do anything about it. He doesn't have power over the people who've received the Holy Spirit and are using the authority in the Holy Spirit. Because God is more powerful than Satan. This is why we can't be scared of what the enemy is doing. Because we literally have the ability to trump what he's doing, to literally take what he's doing and throw it into the abyss. We have the power to do that. You have the power to bind spirits so that they never bother you again. If you bind a spirit and cast it to the feet of Jesus, that spirit is gone. He's losing troops and he's afraid of that. He's afraid that he's going to continue losing troops. But what we don't realize is that there are so many of us who don't take that authority. This is why this world is so corrupt in the way that it is, because so many people choose sin over God. So many people choose sin over freedom. And even those who are saved continue to choose sin over freedom, to choose sin over the authority over the devil. A lot of people just feel so scared of what the devil's going to do, but we have to understand that he literally has no power if you don't give it to him. If you don't give him an inch of your life, if you're not going to fall into any temptation, if you're going to pick up your cross daily, if you're going to walk aligned to the perfect will of God, not just the permissible will, the perfect will of God. The enemy is afraid of that. That's what we have to realize. We have to get that in our heads to take our authority. We have to rise up. God has given us the armor, a sword, a shield. We have everything we need. The very Spirit of God who will guide us through every single battle. God the Father who will go before us. Jesus who is alive at the right hand of heaven. The right hand of God in heaven. Jesus sits on the throne. He died on the cross for you so you can live in freedom, so that you can live in eternity with Jesus and God and all the angels. Jesus died for you to have that opportunity. So you can choose Jesus. It's your choice. That's a choice that you have to make. Someone can't make that choice for you. You have to choose Jesus because it's a free gift. He died for you to have the ability to receive it. And then he rose again 3 days later. He took the keys of death, the keys of hell. He took it. So it, it's literally wiped of its power. Hell is wiped of its power. Literally, because you have the Holy Spirit inside you. So they can't do anything if you don't let them. That's the trick, is you cannot let them. You cannot let them have a say in your life. You can't let them have a say of what your family does. You cannot allow the enemy's agenda to be pushed forward in your life because something's comfortable. We can't get used to comfortable Christianity. It's not about that. Jesus told us to pick up our cross and daily. That's not comfortable. Imagine that Jesus carried, I don't know, a 400, 500-pound cross. The very cross that he was gonna be nailed to, he had to carry himself. That was a heavy cross. We have to carry our cross daily. So that's saying that we're gonna go through things, but you have the authority to not allow the devil in your life. You have the authority to kick him out. The devil will flee in the name of Jesus. If you turn to Jesus and command him to flee, he has to because he's afraid and he doesn't have power over God. We have to take the time to understand what that means. Picture that. Understand what that means. If you're saved and you have the Holy Spirit inside you, you have authority over Satan himself. So that means you don't have to be scared of him. There's nothing to be afraid of because that's actually a very spirit of the devil, is the spirit of fear. God doesn't give us the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. That's written in God's Word. So when you're feeling afraid, taking your authority is not only binding that spirit of fear, but you declare that it says in God's Word, God himself is Gives me the spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. In Isaiah 26:3, it says that those who keep their mind on, on God remain in perfect peace. If you don't have peace, your mind is wandering. If you don't have peace, your mind is elsewhere. We have to focus on God because we can't use our authority. We can't even realize what is attacking us If we're not focusing on Jesus, because he reveals that. The Holy Spirit reveals that. The Holy Spirit reveals the truth. He gives you the discernment to understand what's going on around you. He gives that to you, and it's a free gift. You just have to ask for it. Same with the Holy Spirit. You just believe in Jesus Christ and repent of your sins, and you can receive the Holy Spirit. And all of that power that the Holy Spirit gives Is from just believing in Jesus, having faith in Jesus. And you get that, you get that kind of power from the Holy Spirit to then take your authority over any demonic force, any demonic power. You have the authority to do that, and God wants you to realize that. This right here is God revealing the truth. The enemy doesn't want you to know this. The enemy doesn't want you to hear this. That he is scared. He's afraid of those who know their identity and their authority in Christ. He's afraid. He's not afraid of those who don't know that their identity comes in Christ. He's not afraid of those who don't use their authority because they don't even realize they have it. But he's afraid of those who do. And that's the whole point of this, is to reveal the truth so that you can finally see That you need to take your authority. Take your authority. Pick up your cross daily. Do the natural and God will provide the super. The enemy is afraid of those who see the truth, which is why he's attacking this world so hard in such demonic ways so that people don't see the truth. People aren't relying on the Holy Spirit anymore, which is why they're not seeing the truth. The enemy is doing this because he knows that if Christians realize their authority in Christ, that he's done. Jesus already has the victory. That's an eternal mindset to have, that he has already won. He already stole The keys of death. He already won. And that's the mindset we need to have daily. We need to have a conquering mindset. And we can do that from the very promises that God gives us through the Holy Spirit. We have to understand our authority. I'm going to emphasize that so much because we have to understand how important that is. We can't just go about living our lives the way that That we want to, because the enemy is just going to attack you in every way that he can to disarm you. We are armed with the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit that rose Jesus from the dead, the very Spirit that has the power over Satan and his whole kingdom. We have that power living in us. We can do ourselves a favor by realizing that. We can do ourselves a favor by living in the freedom that Jesus died for us to have. One time there, I have one of our pastors at my church said this, and it has stuck with me ever since. And I, I keep thinking about it so much. But she said, Lord, forgive me for not living the life that you died for me to have. Amen. And that, that hit me so deep because it made me realize that Jesus died for all of us to live in peace, to live in authority, because we have the authority over the devil. The devil is real and he has power, but not more than Jesus, not more than God. And we have more power than him. We cannot give him any And I hope that resonates with someone, that we need to, we need to repent for that. That Jesus died for us to live a free life, and a lot of us aren't living that free life that he died for us to have. A lot of us aren't living in the beauty and joy of God's presence every day. A lot of us aren't living in the very promises of God. Because we're not realizing what they are. We need to remember that, that he died for you and he rose again for you. We hear that verse so much that we sometimes we forget what it means, but we can't, we can't allow the enemy to strip us of the power of that verse. You can't allow him to strip that from you. We have to go back to John 3:16 and realize how powerful That is. God gave us dominion over the earth. So he literally gave the only thing he had because he loved us that much. And obviously we are— we already know the end of that story, that Jesus rose again. God already knew that he would rise again, but he still had to sacrifice him because he wanted to give us another chance. That he wanted to restore us. He wanted to restore the relationship that he had with us in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve sinned. He wants to restore that with you. And that's— that, that, that very sentence that my pastor said just hits so deep, and I constantly think about it. The times that we just go about living our lives and we're just focused on the day at hand rather than just being spiritually on our toes at all times. And I'm not saying being afraid. Spiritually on your toes is rising up with your boldness, ready, ready to use your authority. But that, that just hits. Father, forgive us for not living the life That your Son died for us to have. Forgive us for not living in freedom, the freedom that he died for us to have, that he paid for us. A lot of people don't understand that God put on Jesus the whole wrath of the world. The wrath of God laid upon Jesus because of the sins of the world. Amen. And Jesus took that for you. And we can't forget that. That's the very essence of the verse in Galatians 5:13 where it says that we can't use our freedom to satisfy our sinful nature. Because we don't receive the freedom from Jesus and then go about living our lives like nothing happened. We have to go and use our authority. Take over. Use your authority. Don't let the enemy have any leeway in your life. Don't let him. Don't have an open door in your life. Don't let anything be open to the enemy because you have the power to keep all those doors shut from him because the Holy Spirit lives in you, and that's that's the the very essence of that. That's the beautiful. Thing about that. And we can't, we can't be bothered trying to focus too much on our sinful desires, focusing too much on the things that we shouldn't be, the very little details every single day, the things that have happened in the past, worrying about the future when the enemy is here now trying to attack you. We need to focus on the fact that God has given us freedom by sending his Son to die for us. And that's, that's amazing. That's not, that's not something that we need to, that we should take advantage of because we can't take advantage of God's grace. He had grace over us. He had grace over you so that you can have a relationship with him. Amen. There's another verse in Ephesians 4:30 in the ESV, and it says, and do not be grieved— do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whom you were sealed for on the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with any malice. Be kind to one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. God forgives you because of what Christ did. That's the power of what Christ did, is God forgives you because of what Jesus did. And this verse is just— this verse hits really hard too because it says, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. We sadden God. We grieve the Holy Spirit. Whenever we choose to do things that we shouldn't be doing. We grieve the Holy Spirit when we choose to live a sinful life after we've already received freedom. We grieve the Holy Spirit when we choose sin instead of Jesus. Jesus died for you to live in freedom. A lot of people may not realize, but you don't just receive freedom and then life is gonna be cupcakes and rainbows for the— until you go to heaven. We still have an enemy. We're still battling against the authorities of the unseen world. We still have an enemy that will attack you at any moment that he can get. And God has given us the authority to take our authority He has graced you to do that because you have the Holy Spirit. So we can't, we can't go and grieve the Holy Spirit because we're not using our authority. And we're not— when you choose to do something that's not aligned with God's will, when you choose to do something aligned with your fleshly desires, something that's sinful, it grieves the Holy Spirit. It saddens God. And to think about that, it makes me sad that That when we choose to do things that aren't right, that makes God sad. Literally. It grieves the Holy Spirit. And I don't want to live a life that has grieved the Holy Spirit. I don't want to look back, live a whole life of sin, and then look back and think about that everything I did grieved the Holy Spirit. I want to live a life of the authority that Jesus gave me through his sacrifice. I want to live a life as a dominating Christian so that when I go to heaven and God says, well done, good and faithful servant, I can look back and see all of the things I did for the kingdom of God because I understood the authority that God gave me. I want to live a life like that. I don't want to live a sinful life, um, and at the end of time Go to heaven and look back and see that I could have done so much better. Look back and see that I could have, I could have, I could have just done better. I don't want to, I don't want to have that regret at the end of this life, looking back and feeling that regret and feeling saddened that I grieved the Holy Spirit because I didn't do what I was supposed to. And I don't want you to feel like that either. And you don't have to, because you just need to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior and repent of your sins, and you have the Holy Spirit. But that's not all. We have to take the time to live a free life now. Go and live a free life. Go and receive that peace that God wants to give you. Go and receive that joy that, that God wants to give you. Start bearing the fruits of the Spirit. Start doing things for the good of the kingdom of God. Start doing things for God's glory. Start speaking for God's glory. Speak in ways that honor him. Dress in ways that honor him. Act in ways that honor him. I want you to get to the end of your life and hear those words from God saying, well done, Good and faithful servant, and that he can look at your life and he doesn't have to be grieved by the way that you lived it. I want him to look at your life and say, I'm proud of you for being a dominating Christian and bringing all of these people to me. I want that life for you. I want you to live a dominating life, and so does God. And you can do that with the authority in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives you the power to live that life. God has so many promises in his Bible. You should read up on it. God has so many promises that you can receive daily because that's your portion. We've said that so much on this channel, is all the promises of God are your portion. That means that everything that God is telling you Is for you. And God's a respecter of no persons, which means that what he does for others or what he gives others, he can give or do for you. So these promises are not limited to one person. It's, it's not limited to just like a tiny group of Christians. It's, it's for everyone. Those promises are for you, and you can receive that today. Amen. As we close out, let's bow our heads and I will pray out. Father God, we thank you for this live. We thank you for the person across the screen. We thank you for that you allowed me to be lowered so that you can be exalted during this moment. Father God, we thank you for the community that you've provided for us. We glorify you, Father God, and we thank you for sending your Son to die on the cross for us. We thank you for giving us the free opportunity to receive salvation, to live with you in heaven for eternity, to have a relationship with you, to receive the, the Holy Spirit, Father God, to use our authority whenever necessary. Father God, help us to rise up as bold Christians. Help us to dominate this life, giving glory to you in every moment that we That we are living, Father God. Everything that we say, everything that we do, everything that we wear, Father God, let it be glorifying to you. I pray that, that this livestream has planted seeds, Father God, that you can plant seeds of wisdom, knowledge, that you can open the eyes of the person watching this, Father God, that they can see you. They can see the very love that you have showed them. Amen. By sending your Son, Father God, that they can see the authority that they have with the Holy Spirit, Father God, that they can use that authority against the enemy. Because the only power he has is the power that we give him. We can't let the enemy have any power over us. We can't give in to sin anymore. We can't give in to our desires, Father God. We have to pick up our cross daily, Father. And I ask that you can You can encourage this person across the screen, Father God. On the other side of the screen, give them strength. Pour out wisdom, Father God. Pour out an abundance of discernment, Father God, that they can receive the truths that you have for them, that they can— fill them with the fire of the Holy Spirit. Overflow them with the fire. Give them a burning passion to serve you in everything that they do, Father God. Amen. Give them a burning passion to seek you because you are our provider. You're Jehovah Jireh. You're Jehovah Rapha, Father God. You heal us. You're our covering. You, you protect us, Father God. We thank you for that, Father. And I just pray that you can just pour a fresh anointing of oil over the person on the other side of the screen, Father. Amen. Father, that they can be baptized in the Holy Spirit, that they— their eyes can be open to the very things that are in front of them, Father God, the very things that you want them to receive every single day, that they can receive their portion, not just one time a week, not just once a month, not once a year, but every single day. And we thank you, Father God. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Before we close out for today, I want to share with you the bold vision that we have here at John Humenik Ministries. We plan on reaching everyone with the gospel before the rapture, as well as confirming 1,000 salvations per month. I ask that you prayerfully consider becoming a monthly partner with us or make a single donation. We take all the proceeds and push it back to the ministry. Amen. If you feel led, you can do this at our website, which is humenik.com/give. That is spelled H-U-M-E-N-I-K.com/give.