Manifesting Presence of the Holy Spirit

Truth by Receiving

Lies seem to get in more easily than the truth does. But the Holy Spirit is the Counselor who leads us into all truth. He establishes all truth. We guard our hearts by the truth of the Spirit. The word requires the Spirit to understand it!

Truth has to get inside of us. This is why Jesus taught us how to pray, “Our Father who is in heaven, Holy is Your Name. Your Kingdom come and will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” When the Holy Spirit comes in power into our meetings, the Kingdom of God has just manifested on earth as it is in heaven! God very literally is asking us to FIRST ask Him for the Presence to come! Then comes revelation!

Then comes the second request, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And what is our daily bread, but the manifesting Presence of God in our meetings, that we might eat of Him and drink of Him and receive from Him! Then truth comes our way in power! That happens through the eating of Him and the drinking of Him. And by this supernatural way I am fully released, healed up and ready to overflow.

Truth is spiritual not mental. The harder I try the worse it gets. That’s called striving. It’s not about head knowledge, it’s about heart knowledge.

Don’t ever stop receiving. Don’t let anyone detract you from that. Finding the truth requires a constant searching. Do not rush to catch Him, but wait on Him to approach you. That is soaking. That is waiting. That is seeking. That is not striving.

Waiting on the Holy Spirit for revelation is like casting your fishnet where the fish are. But, trying to figure it out is like throwing your fishnet where the fish are not! Like a fisherman in the boat with Jesus, so it is with us. We have to wait until Jesus tells us where to cast our net. But, after he has told us where to cast our net, we get more fish than we could have ever held. That is renewal! Renewal is waiting on God, then with Jesus in hand, going out and fishing. We are then directed by Jesus, through the Holy Spirit where to cast our spiritual nets! We then can reap a harvest greater than we could ever have imagined.

We have to get rid of our ungodly beliefs. We have to let God placed truth in our hearts. That is what renewal is all about. Constantly being in-filled with the truth, then giving it away.

God Is Our Comforter

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work. 2 Thes 2:16-17

In the world we look for comfort in all the wrong places. But God gives comfort in the midst of tribulation, so as to be a comfort to others. But we have to drink before we gain our comfort. We have to drink before we give comfort! We have to continuously drink and receive from the Lord. It is not selfish nor inward focused, it is vital!

Soaking or waiting on the Holy Spirit is all about receiving Him. As we are soaking, we are drinking. We are drinking Him in. We are receiving the Holy Spirit. We are receiving what Jesus Christ died on the cross to give us. We are connecting with God. The results of drinking him in, is the gaining of wisdom, knowledge, understanding and anointing. We are filled up! We are filled up to overflowing! What happens next? Rivers of living water will flow from our belly!

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John 7:37-38

What is it to come to him and drink? And what is it that we actually do drink? He gives us fresh waters… He gives us New Wine. He gives us his blood. By the fresh waters we are renewed and revived! By the New Wine we are filled with joy, and we are equipped with every good tool to get the job done. In the drinking of his blood, we are washed thoroughly clean through confession and repentance! These things we gain as we wait upon him, as we soak in his Presence.

Soaking Is All About the Heart

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23

As we soak in the Presence, He heals our hearts. He shows us his heart. We come together heart to heart. And so we come into the Presence and we soak, so that our hearts might be healed, so that lies might be exposed and so that we may walk in the truth; supernatural truth, not in the truths of this world.

Soaking is all about love. Soaking is all about intimacy. Soaking is all about relationship. Soaking brings me close to my Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And when I do, my heart is strengthened. My call is made known. My resolve becomes clear. And then I am given an ability to do things that I could not possibly do of my own strength.

Childlikeness

God bids that we come to him like a child. And one of the greatest understandings is that we must come to him like little children. We must be like children in our receiving. Little children never question when it is time to have fun!

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children…” Luke 10:21

“Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” Ma 19:14

We are His children, in as much as the actual child is offered to come in. Like the unquestioning child, we must naturally trust, and then come in!

No Respecter of Persons

God is not a respecter of persons. No one is disqualified from soaking in the Presence of God. Got has not chosen anyone above any other. God chose to “choose before the foundation of the world”. And this is His promise, that all who desire to come may enter in. We are all in the process of sanctification. We all need to soak in the Presence of God. We all need what He has to give us from His throne room!

For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Hebrews 10:14

How are we perfected in this process of sanctification? While there’re many ways that God does this, there is no better way and to soak in His Presence.

We need to know that God has already done everything, He has already set everything in place. Jesus work is finished. Our paths have already been set, even before the foundation of the world. We need to choose to continually walk in the path that he has already set before us. Sanctification is a process, but our paths have already been set. In both of these things, we need the Holy Spirit’s understanding. And this is an on going way of life.

Therefore we must understand that it is critical for us to go in to the Presence of God again and again and again. As we do, we move from glory to glory, from faith to faith and from revelation to revelation. Our pathway is re-illuminated in the Presence of God as we soak, as we seek His Face.

There will be every demonic plan to either prevent you from going into the presents or to stop you from going into the presence again and again. This must be clearly understood. We must overcome the lies in the mind. They come either from our pride and our flesh, or worse, directly from Satan. We must know that the enemy will level every plan of attack to stop the Holy Spirit from manifesting in times of intimacy within the church and within our meetings. Satan cannot stand the manifesting presence of the Holy Spirit. Because when one becomes filled with the Holy Spirit, that person becomes a threat to the devil. So we must understand the strategies of the enemy and choose as an act of our will to soak anyway!

Psalms 23 is perhaps the greatest psalm of them all. “He prepares for me a table in the midst of my enemies.” We need to understand that as we move in the Presence of God, as we wait and seek His Face, and as we give away what we have been given, all these things will happen in the presence of our enemies. God prepares a table for us in the midst of our enemies. Therefore we eat in the presence of our enemies. Who cares if Satan stands right next to us. We know he’s there. And so, even in the presence of our enemies, we soak, we love, we give. We know he’s there, but we choose not to let him have an influence against us. This is a critical understanding.

Sin

As we soak in the Presence of God, one of the wonderful things that happen is that God reveals the condition of our hearts. But God does not violate our free will. And so when renewal happens, it does not magically remove sin from us. We must choose this.

I have seen many times in renewals that I have witnessed, people greatly touched in the Presence of God. I have seen how the presence of God stirs the hearts of people toward great repentance. Tears of sadness, of godly sorrow streaming down people’s faces under the weight of conviction! What a glorious site this is to witness. And I have felt this upon my own soul time and again. Yet even so, God never violates the free will of mankind.

When the Holy Spirit comes in renewal, we are convicted of our sinful state. But then we must respond, we must make a choice. We must confess. We must repent. Then Jesus acts as our Advocate before the Father! The courtrooms of heaven open up. Jesus pleads before the Father our case. And we are guilty… until Jesus presents his blood. “Not guilty”, the father says! Oh what joy! God’s word is proven true. Jesus has just set us free from our sin guilt! First John chapter 1 comes to life!

All of these things happen in renewal. The light of Jesus is shed upon the darkness of our souls, and we can do nothing but confront this darkness. We cannot turn to the left, we cannot turn to the right. We must now confront it, or run out the door! We are left to make a choice to appropriate the shed blood of Jesus, to receive his propitiation. Or, to walk away in a state of worldly sorrow and miss the greatest opportunity for eternal life we can ever be given.

This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John1:5-10

But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 2:1-2

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal… 2 Corinthians 7:10-11

Salvation without regret is one of the very great hallmarks of true revival and renewal! People go in one way, and come out without regret. For they have left their sins at the feet of Jesus, have been washed from head to tow in the blood, and are now standing with no regrets!

As we soak in the Presence of God, our hearts connect to his. In these times of intimacy, our lover begins to express his deepest secrets. So it is with all intimate relationships. Only through intimacy do we learn the heart of our lover! So it most certainly is with God! God loves us intimacy! He loves it! He responds to it! And God knows everything. He knows all of our failings. He knows everything we’ve ever gone through. His heart breaks when our hearts break, and rejoices when we rejoice. And like the very beautiful merciful and graceful Father that He is, He wants us to enter into fullness; first for our salvation, and then for our success in this world. And what is success in this world, but dying to self.

And so as we soak in the Presence of God, He begins to reveal His heart to us. And because He already knows everything about us, He begins to reveal to us about our own hearts. He begins to show us just how much we are in need of His saving grace. He breaks through the walls of our pride in times of His Manifesting Presence. He shows us the error of our ways. And then we are given an opportunity, a very great opportunity. We can neither turn to the left nor to the right. Under the weight of his deep deep love for us, we become convicted. We are made witness to our miserable condition. We are shown our sins. Father then shows us His heart in the matter. Jesus displays His powerful blood, and His broken Body! We are then left with the choice! But God will not force us to confess. He will not force us to repent. He gives us the choice. And this is my point.

As we soak in the Presence of God, we are given one of the greatest gifts of all. We are given the opportunity to come clean. We then are given the choice to do so or to not. And so I have seen many people in renewals come in one way and go out washed completely clean. And I have also seen many people and renewals go in one way and go out the same way. And that is very sad. God never violates our free will. He loves us so much that he wants us to know, to be humbled, to be revealed to our needful condition, to be confess and repentant, and to be changed.

And so the very greatest manifestation of renewal is this, that peoples sins are always dealt with. Every great revival or renewal that has ever happened in world history since Pentecost has always included repentance. Repentance that leads to salvation. The church must understand all who declare the name of Jesus Christ shall be saved, and all who are saved must live the lifestyle of confession and repentance. For there are millions of souls languishing in the fires of hell who would not confess, who would not turn from their wicked ways.

The church must understand that it must be the very place by which the people within are freely given the opportunity to confess and repent of their sins, without anger, without penitence or without judgment. For renewal to remain with in the church, there must be a free-flowing ministry solely designed to have a place for its people to openly and freely confess and repent their sins. For, whenever confession and repentance is shutdown for whatever reason, one can be assured that the Holy Spirit shall leave the building, and revival and renewal shall quickly come to an end. This is a critical understanding.

We either disqualify ourselves by our willful sin and shame or we disqualify others by our judgments of sin and so put the fires of revival out. Or, we disqualify ourselves through false beliefs. We must understand that when renewal and revival happens within the church, all these things will resolve through the revelations given by the Holy Spirit. We must submit to Him, and let Him lead our meetings. Then suddenly we understand the revelation of God’s forgiveness, of God’s love for us, of God’s desire for intimacy with us. We are made known of our false beliefs, and we confess them and repent of them. We learn, we grow up, we graduate off of the baby’s bottle of milk and begin to eat fresh meat. We begin to eat meat that we’ve never eaten before! And this food wells up to the salvation of the world!

Maintaining Renewal

Maintaining a renewal is actually very easy. All we have to do is to get out of God’s way, and stay out of God’s way. It’s as simple as that. Every revival that I have ever witnessed that has come to an end, it was not God’s desire to bring it to an end. Every revival that is ever come to an end has come to an end because some leader or someone in responsibility chose as an act of his or her will to go in a different direction then what the Holy Spirit was requesting. The quickest way to put the fire of revival out is for man to step in the way of God. And so what was in Pentecost, as the developments of religion and religious thinking took hold. In a matter of 100 years and two to three generations, the manifestations of the Holy Spirit had all but departed from the church.

Religion is based in the mind of man. There is nothing religious about God. There are thousands of religions in the world. They are all false. Every one of them. But there is only one truth. And this truth is found through God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. It is a family, it is not a religion. He is our Father. We are his children. This is a family. This is not a religion. Christianity is not a religion it is a family!

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from home every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being. Eph 3:14-16

Religion is antichrist. Religion is like a dull two-sided knife that can cut through nothing. Religion is meaningless. Religion is deadly. Religion is lifeless. Religion is the way of man. Religion has nothing to do with God.

A primary strategy of the devil is this, to cause man to override the direction of God through independence; to reject God’s will for man to be dependent. Independence is born from pride. Independence births conclusions independent of God.

We are called to take on the yoke of Jesus Christ upon our minds. A yoke includes a bit in our mouths and reins of control that are to be given over into the hands of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is supposed to lead us. We are not supposed to lead ourselves. But in most of today’s church, leadership has misunderstood what it is to rightly lead the church. Leaders have taken control of their meetings away from the Holy Spirit. They have taken the reins of control out of the hands of the Holy Spirit into their own hands. This is the beginning of religion.

Fear is the beginning control. Control feeds religion. And religion is the beginning of the end for renewal.

Satan has a primary goal in mind for church leaders. He works to sow fear, division and trouble within the church. When something new happens, and the manifestations of the Holy Spirit occur, all leadership are confronted with a test. This is the design of the Holy Spirit. As leaders, how will we respond when we see someone shaking on the floor as if drunk with alcohol? I ask you, how did Peter respond to this in Acts chapter 2 verse 14-17?

“Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh…”

Those who witnessed the manifestations of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost were given a test. The apostle Peter new the right answer. This was God!

How will we respond when we witness manifestations that we do not understand? Satan will always come with the temptation to fear it. Just as it was in the day of Jesus, when Jesus manifested the Holy Spirit’s power through healing and deliverance, He was accused of being a demonic. He was accused through the minds of the witnesses; these witnesses who were the church leaders of their day. The witnesses were being tested. So will we, every time the Spirit manifests in power!

Satan’s house is a house divided, and so he accuses by blaspheming the Holy Spirit. He accuses through the minds of the witnesses “that’s not God, that’s of the devil.” Whose argument shall we bring when these manifestations occur? And what does the Bible say about the one unforgivable sin, which is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

How many times have I witnessed in revival witnesses who question what they are seeing. That is normal! We must understand, we shall all be tested when the Presence of the Holy Spirit manifests in our meetings. The key is in how we respond!

How shall we respond when we see something that we do not understand? The answer is simple. God is the creator of the universe. Satan and his demons are nothing but grains of sand, nothing but an annoyance to God. God, in an instant, can flick away the devil at any point of his choosing. God is great, but Satan is nothing but a created being who must submit to God. Why then do we give Satan so much credit? What are we afraid of in our meetings? If God is in control by the manifesting Presence of the Holy Spirit in our meetings, then who can stand against Him! What are we in fear about? God prepares a table before us in the midst of our enemies! Of whom shall we fear? Fear is only a strategy of the enemy, It is a temptation. If we choose to fear, sin has entered in to our meetings. If we choose to fear, we have just invited Satan into our rooms. If we choose to fear the result most certainly shall be the end of renewal.

If God is in control of our meetings, what do we have to fear? If there is something manifesting within our meetings that is demonic, if we trust in the Holy Spirit’s Presence, then we know that he shall make it known to those who lead with dependence! We then shall have all the authority required to cast such a thing out. It’s easy.

But there shall be times when we are not sure. In those times, we are not to touch it! Greater is He who is in the room than he who is in the world! If we give God control of our meetings, then God will take care of the demonic. We have no idea what is going on in the unseen realms. And so, right leadership is a state of utter and complete dependency. And it must forever be. For, the very moment we begin to move away from this state of dependency, the moment we begin to take the reins of control away from the hands of the Holy Spirit into our own hands, that is the moment in which the beginning of the end of renewal has begun.

And so fear is the temptation that the enemy sows into the minds of leaders, into the minds of all who witness. We must actively come against this manifestation of Satan through humility and dependence upon the Holy Spirit. This is how we maintain renewal in our meetings.

For, the Holy Spirit will not share leadership with anyone, nor should He. Father God is Lord over all. Jesus is the Son of the Father. Jesus does nothing but what the Father tells him to do, and nothing but what the Father tells him to say. The Holy Spirit does nothing but what Jesus tells Him to do or to say. And so the Holy Spirit is perfectly submitted to Jesus, and Jesus is perfectly submitted to the Father. Right order in church is this; that the leadership of the church must be perfectly submitted to the Holy Spirit in trust, faith and obedience. This must be clearly understood. For the very moment that a church leadership chooses to step out of humble submission to the Holy Spirit, this is when the mind of man interferes with the mind of Christ. This is why the enemy comes against church leadership with everything he has to sow fear and control, the primary purpose of which is this, to put the fire of the manifesting Presence of God out!

Once again it comes down to this. God never violates the free will of man. We have a choice. Our life is full of choices. Anytime we choose from a state of independence, we shut out God’s influence in our lives. Whenever we choose from a state of dependence, there is made a way for God to work in our lives.

Renewal is all about dependence. Renewal is all about a hungry people who are starving for the food that God has prepared for us from His bounty! Renewal is all about a thirsty people who long for the waters of the Holy Spirit, and who are thirsty for the New Wine that only God can supply. God is calling us to be transparent about our need, to come together, to be a family, and to seek His Face without fear.

Then comes the Holy Spirit. He pours himself out upon us. Joy fills the room. Godly sorrow fills the repentant heart. The sick are made well. Devils are cast out. Inner wounds and hurts are healed. The Body of Christ is equipped with a anointing. People are utterly changed! And the Kingdom progresses on earth as it is in Heaven!

Conclusion

Renewal is a corporate event. God designed it this way so that when we come together we may all partake of His glorious Presence together. We come together in unity so that we may together receive His Presence, and all that comes with it. We come together so that we may partake in what Jesus died for us to have and then go out and reap a harvest of souls in power! This is what renewal is all about. Like in a bowl, we all come together, He falls in power and hits everyone all at once. What a wonder it is when this joy fills the room and people are utterly changed forever! This is what Jesus died that we might have in full!