Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit

Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 7. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. In the day of trial in the wilderness where your fathers tested me, tried me, and saw my works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart and have not known my ways. So I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Now fix your eyes on the verse 7 again. It says, therefore as the Holy Spirit said. Now for those of us who read the scripture sometimes we won't pay attention to that. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna flip to Psalm, Psalm 95 and verse 4. He is our God, we are the people of his pasture, the sheep of his hand. Today if you hear his voice, and pretty much it quotes that verse that writer of Hebrews writes. What does this mean? The Holy Spirit is a person. He has feelings, he has a personality. Jesus referred to him as a person. He does the works of a person, speaks, convicts, guides, inspires, prays. He takes the place of a person, Jesus, on this earth. But I want you to notice the other part about the Holy Spirit. Not only he is a person that you cannot see with your eyes, just like a wind you cannot see, but it's real. But unlike wind, the Holy Spirit is a person, the wind is a force. But the Holy Spirit is a divine person, meaning he is God. In the Old Testament we just read in Psalms it says, the Lord said. So you would read that and you would say, God said that, the Lord said that. In the New Testament for the Lord it uses the Holy Spirit. Paul or the author of Hebrews, we think it might be Paul, instead of saying, for God said, he says, as the Holy Spirit says. Meaning the Holy Spirit is not just a person, he is a divine person. He is God. In fact, what I want to bring to your attention today, is a story of Israel that this is referring to. The wilderness. When they tried me, when they tested me, saw my works, my works, whose works? In this verse, the Holy Spirit's. Saw my works, tested me, tried me, in the wilderness. We know what it's referring to, it's referring to the famous story. Israel getting out of Egypt, getting delivered from Egypt, going through 40 years of trials, testings, and hardships, driving God crazy, getting on his last nerve, and then God disciplining them, by not letting them enter into the promised land. Alright? Did you know who they drove crazy in the wilderness? In this verse, it says the Holy Spirit. In fact, let's go to Isaiah chapter 63 verse 10. But they rebelled, speaking of Israel in the wilderness, and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he churned himself against them, as an enemy, and fought against them. In light of that, this week I re-read the account of Israel coming out of Egypt. Because I always, when I read it, I saw this as Father God being driven crazy. They just did things to really grieve him, despise him. But the New Testament gives us an insight. It wasn't just the Father, but the Holy Spirit was grieved, rebelled against. And because of that, God says, you grieved my spirit, and God's like, you're not going to have a friendship with me, you're going to be my enemy, meaning there's no intimacy there. And God, the Bible says, he fought against them. Now, the Holy Spirit can be grieved. The Holy Spirit, his heart can be hurt. He is a divine person, but he is still a person. His number one goal for us, as Christians, one of his goals is to take us from deliverance to our destiny. He's involved in our deliverance. The Bible says, whom the Son sets free is free indeed. But the Bible also says, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Jesus drove out demons through the finger of God, through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is involved in our deliverance. Then he takes us through the season of development. Somebody say development. Somebody put that in the chat, development. So deliverance, development, and then there is destiny. Somebody say destiny. So when we get delivered by the Lord, the Holy Spirit takes on a task of developing. Somebody say developing. He's developing us, and this is the season of wilderness. This is the season of hardship. This is the season, what we like to call it, in between. Meaning you got out of this, you haven't got into that. That's the development season. And the Holy Spirit is intensely, intentionally, closely involved with each one of us in that season to develop us, so he can take us into his rest, into his destiny, into his purpose, and into his calling. Israel goes through this season, and the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 7, chapter 3 verse 7, it says that as the Holy Spirit says, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial, in the wilderness. The period of development is a hard period. Somebody say hard period. This is not a happy period. Hard period. Turn to your neighbor and say not a happy time. This is not a time when you're most happy. This is a time when you are least happy, and you're most likely extremely miserable. And the Holy Spirit is there with you. Why does he allow for seasons where we don't find happiness? Because development cannot happen as long as you're always happy based on your happenings. The Holy Spirit cannot develop you if you always get what you want, how you want it, when you want it, and how you like it. He takes us through the season of development, and this development is a hard season. It's not a happy season. And what happens in this season, a lot of times, as we go through hard times, we develop hard hearts. Put this into your notes. Do not develop a hard heart when you go through a hard time. Hard times should not last, but the hardness we develop could last. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 3, verse 7, he says, do not harden your heart. It's dealing with the season of your life where things are hard, not happy, not easy. You just came out of the Egypt, you experienced deliverance, salvation, maybe healing, and now you're stuck in between. You thought this will go from that to hallelujah, it's going to be just all of God's promises. You got married, such a happy day, and the first two years are development. And you're like, how can I get rid of this spouse? Where do they, is there a return policy on this? You conceived, you were so happy, the pictures of the announcement of your pregnancy were amazing, but now the development of that baby, now the hardships, the difficult things, and this is the time where we can, if we're not careful, develop hard hearts, where a heart loses baby skin and becomes callous, hard, and we become extremely sensitive on the outside, and extremely cold on the inside. The Holy Spirit connects our deliverance to our destiny through a process called what? Development. I'm going to say that again, the Holy Spirit connects our deliverance to our destiny through a process called what? And that's what we're going to talk about today, how sensitivity to the Holy Spirit during development can speed the process, and how we can walk through that process. The first thing that I want to highlight in this process, number one, we have to choose to surrender to the Holy Spirit instead of surrendering to our circumstances. Surrender to the Holy Spirit when times get hard, and they do. When life throws its worst, and it does. When dreams seem to be broken, when your heart seems to be broken, what do you do? One option is to surrender to your surroundings, to become a captive of what's happening to you. The other option, in spite of the challenges, you go and you surrender to the Holy Spirit. You can have a doctor's report that says you have cancer in your body. One option is surrender to this cancer. The other option is surrender to God in the midst of this cancer. The Bible says in 1st Peter chapter 5 verse 6, humble yourself under the mighty hand of what? God. It doesn't say humble yourself under the mighty hand of your problem. Many Christians have allowed their issue to become their identity, their problem to become their who they are. Why? Because the problem is big, God is bigger. You can choose to say, I can't change this, this is big, this is hard, this is hurtful, this is painful, this is confusing, but I choose to surrender to somebody bigger, greater, mightier. My God is not my cancer, my God is not my poverty, my God is not my rejection, my God is not my past, my God is Jehovah. I will humble myself, I will not surrender to my problem, I don't surrender to my sickness, I don't surrender to my symptoms, I surrender to God. What if you will die from that sickness? I'll die in faith. What if nothing would change? My faith won't change either. It rests in God and my God is bigger than my problem, my God is bigger than my sickness, my God is bigger than my issue, my God is bigger than my dilemma. So what are you gonna do is what Israel did not do in the promised land. What they did is they surrendered to cucumbers, onions and garlic. What they surrendered to was to a part of their past they forgot it was bad. They constantly yielded and they worshipped at the altar of their circumstances. Some of you have an idol and your idol is your circumstances, because that idol steals your joy every time it shows up. That problem steals your joy. Now it can steal your happiness. Happiness is based on what's happening. Joy is based on what God has done and who he is. Don't worship at the altar of your problem. This doesn't mean you can't weep, it doesn't mean you can't hurt, it doesn't mean you can't process your pain. It just simply means that when you're done with all of that, you rise up and you say, I humble myself under the hand of my God, under the hand of the Holy Spirit. Can somebody say amen? Practically how do we do that? We remember what God has done instead of what he's not doing. Secondly, we remember that he is with us, not focus on those who are not with us. And number three, we remember his future promise, past faithfulness, presence of God that's present with us. And thirdly, his future promises. When you surrender to your circumstances, this is what happens, you develop amnesia about what God did. Everything God has done in the past, blank. Almost God has no credibility with you anymore, because he has to start from zero. Everything he's done on the cross doesn't matter. Everything he's done, how he saved you doesn't matter. Every prayer he ever answered doesn't matter. All that matters is I have this sickness. All that matters is that I got fired. All that matters is my heart got broken. All that matters is that this sickness is developing. That's all that matters. What God did doesn't matter. I miss cucumbers. I miss onions, they said. I miss those, I miss those, that garlic from Egypt. But you forgot about how God delivered you through ten plagues. You forgot about the Red Sea. And so to surrender to the Holy Spirit, that means I wake up my memory to his previous faithfulness. Some of us need to be delivered from spiritual amnesia. Because the faith for the present a lot of times is hidden in the past. When you can find faith for the present, you look back to what God did before. When we have a hard time right now, maybe for example, if we were to have hard time with finances for the next building, we remember how God supplied the needs for this building. God gives us his previous faithfulness to fuel our faith when it seems like he's no longer with us. And then we rely on his presence now. Did you know that you have a greater reason not to be afraid? And that reason is not that everything will be okay. It's that you're not alone. God always gives assurance behind a command, don't be afraid. And that assurance is surprising. He says, I am with you. In other words, God says my presence is enough. Not only my past faithfulness, my presence, don't be afraid. Going through the valley, don't be afraid. Going through a bankruptcy, don't be afraid. Going through a heartbreak, don't be afraid. Going through a loss, going through a difficult season, not knowing what's happening in your life, God says don't be afraid. Why? Because you're surrendering to me. I'm with you. And then he promises us future blessings. He will see us through. You know what faith is? Expecting God will show up in your future. You know what fear is? Expecting the devil will. Faith is this, waking up every day, knowing he's with me. And knowing this, my tomorrow will have an appearance of my God. I don't know how. I don't know when. And I don't know how that will look like. But he will show up. That's faith. Fear says, I don't know if he will or if he won't, but I have a feeling the devil will show up, ruin everything. Like he did it the last time. Like he did it at that time. He did it with that relationship. He did it with that job. He did it with that person. He did it with my health condition. Yeah, it got better and then it got worse. And I'm expecting the devil to show up in the future. And it's almost like you're walking with anticipation, expecting the devil to make a move. Faith says, God will show up in my future. He's with me now. And he will show up in my future. How do I walk in sensitivity to the Holy Spirit? In my heart, in between difficult trial wilderness. And that is this, I surrender to him by remembering his previous faithfulness. Remembering he is with me right now. And remembering the promises he gave me for my future. Number two, the way we walk in sensitivity to the Holy Spirit is during trial, we don't test the Lord, nor do we try the Lord. We trust the Lord. In Hebrews it says, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me. When you're testing something, you're challenging it. You're expecting it to prove to you, it's trustworthy. When people test cars, they test them to find a verification. They're not sure, can this car endure this and that. When we're testing a student, we just want to be sure we are challenging that thing. God tells us to test him in the area of tithing. In every other area, God told us to trust him. Trying God, and I understand maybe some of you are here today, and you're brand new to faith. And the way you came to faith is you said, I tried everything Jesus, I'm going to try you. Jesus is not a sample on a Costco haul, where you try things. You can taste the Lord and see that he is good, but Jesus is not on trial. You don't try him for 30 days and then get him back. I understand there's a quote that says, try Jesus, and if you don't like him, the devil will take you back. But that's not biblical quote. Sounds cool, but it's not biblical. Jesus doesn't want a trial with you. He wants trust. Why does he deserve that trust? He has past faithfulness. He has a record you can check. He has a really intense resume. You can trust him. Now in the wilderness, a lot of us don't have a lot of faith. And this, this clarified something for me. I've read this first in the book of Genesis, excuse me, Generations. It's not in the Bible though. Generations by Pastor Howe and Leah from, I think it's from Singapore. And they mentioned this, they said this in the book, that faith is active, trust is passive. Faith is saying, God, I got you. Trust is God, you got me. In the wilderness, you most likely not going to have faith. You're going to feel like you don't have energy, strength to lay hold of God. You don't have the tenacity to push through the crowd and lay hold of the hem of his garment. You might not have that thing of circling around Jericho. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to name it, claim it. Yeah, come on devil, get out of this. Hallelujah. You might do the first day, second day, you can't do that for 40 years. You wear out, you lose it. And then what people do is this, the devil comes and says, listen, you don't have faith. What do you do when you hit the season in your life where you feel like you don't have faith? There's something you can do. You can rely on trust when your faith is not there. Meaning when that boisterous, pushing, advancing, yeah, I believe everything is going to be all right. I confess God's word. When that is gone and you literally cannot even muster that, what do you do in that season is you lean on quiet, confident, restful assurance that when I didn't get him, he got me. And that's called trust. And Proverbs says this, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your understanding. You know what trust is in the hard times when you just, people will say, are you still believing? I'm trusting. And I've went through a few seasons in my life. I do not want to compare them with yours because that's not fair. Where honestly, I felt guilty for not having active, loud faith. I felt like I displeased the Lord until I started to read a lot in the Bible and I saw how he invites me. Sometimes when I don't have this active, boisterous, loud, name it, push it, break it faith. And all I can do is trust. It pleases the Holy Spirit. And some of you here today, I'm here to give you permission. Trust in the Lord. If you don't have enough courage, strength to push through, you may say, miracle won't happen. Trust me. Trust him. Don't trust me. Trust him. It will happen. Trust in the Lord and lean not on your understanding. Can somebody say amen? So sometimes you have faith and sometimes you have trust. Number three, the Holy Spirit develops us in this difficult season when we replace complaining with communion with him. When we replace grumbling with gratitude. When we replace whining with worship. Jesus went through the wilderness and Israel went through the wilderness. Israel went through the wilderness. Times were difficult for them and what they did is they whined and complained. They caused their wilderness to be extended from 14 days, someone said, to about 40 years. Jesus went through his wilderness in 40 days instead of 40 years. But I want you to notice the difference between both of them. Jesus, he spoke God's word. Israel spoke their feelings. Israel always quoted what they felt and what they were going through. Now there's nothing wrong with expressing and processing stuff. There's a difference in processing and becoming negative, naysayer, and complaining chronically. Complaining tolerated is faith contaminated. You can contaminate your faith by letting your mouth always say what your emotions feel. You don't have to give words to emotions, they'll fade out. The moment you give emotions fuel and what is the fuel? Verbalize them. I don't feel good. Things are really bad. I'm sick. I'm always sick. Things never work out for me. My life sucks. I don't even know why I do that. Keep on saying that and you will dig a grave. The devil doesn't even have to do anything. You pretty much dug yourself in the grave and then you can of course blame God for putting you in the grave. In fact, your mouth was the shovel. The power of life and death is in our tongue and it's hard to do, control our tongue, submit it to the Holy Spirit when we go through a difficult time. Why? Because feelings are like boisterous waves and they overwhelm us. They overwhelm all of us and the way to subside those feelings, the Bible says, we can speak to our soul. Many of us live in our soul. David would speak to his soul and he says, soul why are you disquieted and sad? And he says, what's up? What's happening? Why are you all so rowdy today? David is speaking to his soul. Many of us live in our soul. Our soul is the one that does the speaking. Yeah, my life is not good. I don't like to say personally I'm sick. I like to say that I'm healthy fighting sickness. I don't like to say I'm a sinner. No, I am a righteous person fighting sin. I don't like to say I'm weak. I like to say that I'm strong in God fighting weakness. I'm not a person that is lustful. I'm a person that is pure fighting lust. I'm not a person that's poor. I'm blessed fighting poverty. I'm not rejected person. I'm accepted and I am dealing with rejection. Why? My identity is not in those things and through my confessional this is not name it, claim it, blab it, grab it, confess it stuff. I'm just talking about us using our mouth to align with God's truth instead of always putting it under the subject of what is happening in our emotions. The Holy Spirit cannot develop us if our mouth always reflects what's happening in our soul. Because our mouth can redirect our soul. We can be like David and says come on soul, come on emotions, praise the Lord for yet I will praise him. So you're gonna have to get on board or do whatever you need to do but I'm gonna be praising God. You don't feel like praising God, I'm gonna be praising God. I'm not gonna be complaining and whining, I'm gonna be praising God. How is that to the Holy Spirit? See you have to understand is complaining to the devil what worship is to God. God sits on your worship, seeks your worship, uses your worship. The moment you develop chronic complaining. Now once, twice different story but chronic but it becomes you. It's kind of like your friends already know yeah she's negative. Don't get around her. Why? She's always like that, naysaying, always seeing everything negative, always not enough, not good, always bad. Guess what begins to happen after that? It's a matter of time. The precious Holy Spirit's presence, manifest presence lifts. He doesn't leave you. He's always with you. His presence lifts. When his presence lifts, you don't feel peace here. When his presence lifts, you don't have clarity here. And when his presence lifts, you don't sense his guidance anymore. He didn't leave you. His precious sweetness did. And then guess what begins to happen? It opens a door for snakes. Israel was bitten by snakes. Any time we develop chronic complaining, when we go through a difficult time, instead of choosing to worship God, not only we grieve the precious Holy Spirit, we actually put an open side and it's an open season for the enemy to start biting. And how did that feel? At first it starts with complaining and then venom gets in. Venom is bitterness. Venom is resentment. Venom is stronghold inside. I, God, why? Always, it's always been. And it goes through your body and then you rationalize this. And there is enough circumstance because once the venom gets in, all the circumstances align like planets. You begin to see, yes, that person and that, and everyone is like that. And your worldview shifts. When in reality, you're just sick. Everything feels sick, but in reality, venom got in and you spiritually begin to die. And instead of being developed, you decay. I decay. So what the Holy Spirit wants to do in this difficult time, it's not easy, but with his help, it's possible. He wants to help us change what goes out of our mouth. He wants to build our spirit so we speak to our soul. When you wake up and your soul doesn't want to wake up from the right foot, you speak to yourself. David strengthened himself. The Bible says, we speak in tongues to build ourselves up. That means we speak to our emotions and we say, listen, I know it's been a rough day. Yeah, I get it. A month. You're saying it's a year. Oh, okay. It's been a year. Or you're saying it's been a rough decade. All right, decade. Regardless, God is good. You're still breathing. You're still alive. He's with you. He will never leave you. He loves you. He died on the cross for you. The Holy Spirit is here. All is going to be well with you soul. So soul, let me put you to sleep. Let me put you to sleep and that you are not going to speak. I'm going to speak to you. I'm going to speak God's word. That's how Holy Spirit develops us in difficult times. If you think that you just become a positive, faith-driven a person because that's your personality, we're all human. Our inclination is negativity, pessimism, fear. Our inclination is criticizing, doubting, questioning. God, prove yourself. That is our inclination, all of our inclination. Even those of us who grew up in healthy homes, our natural inclination is defeat, decay. But with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can develop gratitude. We can develop gratefulness. We can develop praising him and not looking for every wrong thing to convince ourselves we are always in the wrong, but looking for the goodness, counting the blessings of God one by one to fill our cup of gratitude every day. Grass will be greener. The skies will be bluer. People will be nicer. Why? Because your heart is being worked on by the Holy Spirit. Can somebody say amen? So to develop this intimacy with the Holy Spirit, to develop this sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, we must, unlike Israel, not complain. We can extend our wilderness by complaining. We can shorten it by trusting God. Whatever you're going through, you can make it worse by running your mouth not properly. You know you can't catch a fish with its mouth closed? I wonder how much as husbands trouble we would avoid if we would just zip that lip. And process everything in that head of ours. And went to the Lord. Wives, how many things would have been better in your marriage if everything that comes into your head wouldn't come out of your mouth? Some things need to have a border patrol. Need to build a wall. Nope. These things cannot pass through. Why? Where's your papers? Is this in line with God's promise? Nope. Then we're not. I mean, okay, we can send one, but we'll have to watch over every step of the way. Because I don't know where you're gonna get. Some of us allow a lot of terrorist words come out. And we're like, man, why is my life destroyed? Because we're destroying with our mouth what we're building with our hands. Going to college to build our degree. Going, taking classes to build our family. And all we have to do is open the mouth. And then three bombs come out. Destroy literally in 30 minutes what we're building for three years. But your mouth, my mouth, has a very powerful effect. Interestingly, when the Holy Spirit baptizes you, what is the first thing he affects? Your mouth. Why? So that you speak in tongues more. And less nonsense. I know the world thinks when we speak in tongues we speak nonsense. No, it's when they speak how they speak. It's nonsense. God wants you to speak in tongues more to build your spirit. Why? So that you don't live a life of complaining and grumbling. Because Holy Spirit is with you. His past faithfulness is with you. And he promises future faithfulness. Can somebody say amen? This whole message was just a preparation for what I'm about to share. Which is the last thing. This made me shout yesterday, cry and weep. Develop sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. When you cannot, when your sight fails, wake up your hearing. Interesting, when you go through a difficult time, do you remember that in a difficult time your sight, my sight, fails? Meaning it seems like what I see is bad. What I see is not good. What I see is not good. So what do we, what do you do when you're walking through a season of your life and what you see is dark, is bad? In Hebrews chapter 3 it says, therefore the Holy Spirit, and I, this hit me yesterday, it says the Holy Spirit says, it doesn't say Holy Spirit shows. Meaning he knows in the hard time your sight is failing you. So he's leading you not through your sight, he's leading you through your ear, speaking to you. So you got to be sensitive to him when your sight is not there. Give me the example. Blind Bartimaeus, born blind most likely, cannot see. Actually he does see, dark. Everything is always dark, the world is dark. And the Bible says about blind Bartimaeus, as though he cannot see in verse 47, and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth. So I can't see good, I don't see colors, all I see is dark. I've seen dark yesterday, I've seen dark today before, all I remember is seeing dark. God why did you make me do that? See that's what Bartimaeus could have done, is complain and whine. But he was sitting on the road and while his sight was dark, his antenna was open. The Bible says, and he heard Jesus. Jesus! He doesn't say why did you let this happen? He says, have mercy on me. And because he activated his hearing, Jesus opened his seeing. If you are in a place today where you're not seeing where you should go, you're not seeing changes in your life, you're not seeing transformation, and that all you've been seeing is bad, dark, confusion, hardship, wilderness, no water, no food. The Holy Spirit speaks when you don't see. Why? Because if you hear when you don't see good, that hearing will activate your seeing. And the Bible says this about Bartimaeus in verse 52, and immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus. Now I know where to go. Why? Because my sight changed. Many of us say God changed my sight, but God says open your sensitivity. The Holy Spirit says don't harden your heart in the day of the wilderness. When you don't see anything good, when you don't know where to go, train your ears to listen and listen and listen and listen to him. Your sight fails in the wilderness, in the hard time, but that's where the hearing is open. Jesus says in Mark chapter 4 verse 24, he says take heed how you hear. Why? Because we reach seasons in our life, we don't know where to go, we don't know what step to take, which school to go to, should we move, should we continue with this business? There's no verse in the Bible specifically tailored to our situation. We're confused, we cry out God what what should I do? And when you cannot see, open your ears, because the Holy Spirit speaks. He speaks. I love this about Paul. It says in book of Acts chapter 9 about Paul, God comes to Ananias and he said this, and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias. So Paul goes blind and he starts seeing something else, blind. And God comes to Ananias and says Paul is blind, he actually already saw something while blind, because something else got open, spiritual ears got open, and I start to see something else now in the realm of the Spirit, in the realm that's not visible, because the Bible says what is seen is temporal, what is not seen is eternal. How did Paul see when he was blind? The Bible says this about Paul, behold he is praying. You can be in the same situation for 10 years and never see a breakthrough. The devil will lie to you and say that's how your life is always going to be, until one day the Holy Spirit speaks. Everything changes. So what do you do when you don't see? Open your ears, because you can change what you see if you learn to hear what he says. When he speaks it will change what you see. What Jesus said to blind Bartimaeus changed what he saw and then it changed his direction. When Jesus will speak through the Holy Spirit it will change your visible circumstances and it will change the direction of your life. So what do we do? We remain sensitive to the Holy Spirit when our sight, when our circumstances, when what we are around failed, failing, and not changing, because the Holy Spirit's voice, the Holy Spirit's presence holds the key. Bartimaeus says, be open he says. His eyes opened and now his seeing changed. But where did that come through? The hearing. A lot of times we focus on what we don't have, but God will always use what you do have to unlock what you don't have. People say well you know in Paschal the Airbnb got closed down. I don't know what I'm going to do. God's always going to use what you have in your house. God will always use what you have in your gifts. He's not going to use what you don't have. He will use what you do have to get you what you need. A woman whose sons were about to be sold into slavery came to the prophet and says my sons are about to go into slavery. We're in debt. The prophet didn't say oh yeah let me make a miracle out of nothing. He says what do you have in your house? Jesus didn't feed the multitude until he said what do you guys have? They said we don't have enough. God will not use what you don't have. He'll use what you do have. But I'm blind. I don't have anything. I'm a beggar. I'm begging for money. Do you have ears? Open them because if you hear Jesus you'll cry out and Jesus will give you what you really need. Don't walk around looking for what you don't have. Ask God use what I do have Lord and right now I'm going to ask you use your ears to listen to the Holy Spirit. Use your prayer time to be sensitive to his spirit. Allow his spirit to guide you. Allow his spirit to develop you. Allow his spirit to train your mouth, your heart and your attitude different times. Allow him to fashion you and develop you because if you look at the destiny that God is taking you there will be a development period that God has to take each and every one of us through. God decides when that period starts. He decides when that period ends and God decides what he does in that period. All we have to do is stay on the operating table and allow him to work his work in us through his spirit in Jesus name. Amen. God used what I have. He doesn't use what I don't have. I'm not a singer and I'm not a musician but he uses what he has given me to unlock the destiny that he has for me. He uses what he has given you to unlock the destiny that you have and instead of saying Lord why is this happening to me you can waste your time doing that or you don't really need an explanation. We need a miracle. Blind Bartimaeus did not need God to explain why he was born blind. It won't change anything. Explanation can wait but we need to have a breakthrough and to have a breakthrough we gotta choose to trust in him and we gotta choose to be sensitive to his voice. When our sight what we see is failing. It's not there. We want to change what we see. We gotta improve what we hear. His voice, sensitivity to his presence and let him guide us. Economy right now is crazy. Prices of gas inflation is just insane. Everything is changing around us so fast. As Christians what do we do when you don't know where to go? When you don't know what to do? Listen. Listen to the Holy Spirit. Listen to the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the direction will come through your ears and it will change what you see and how you live. Listen to his voice. It could be a prompting. It could be a guidance. It could be honestly sometimes common sense. He will just speak. He will just guide and you will go in and you'll say it's scary. I don't know what I'm doing but I know what I'm hearing and I have to act on that. Test to see you know whether it's the Lord or not and then as you begin to act more on that your family begins to change. As you begin to act on that your life begins to change. You will begin to see a shift in your life in Jesus name. Holy Spirit we welcome you right now. Holy Spirit we want to be sensitive to your voice. Holy Spirit all of us have areas in our life that are dark. All of us have areas in our heart. Holy Spirit all of us have areas in our life where we are tired of fighting and we are tired of believing and we don't know when that will ever change and sometimes it's easier to grumble and complain and whine and to shift everything on you Lord and today we choose to surrender to you right now. We choose to surrender to your promise. We choose to surrender to your presence. We choose to surrender to your power. Lord we choose to trust in you when we cannot trace you. We choose to yield to you right now and just lean on you when we don't have the capacity to be boisterous in our resolve and in our push for faith and Lord we choose today to use our mouth to glorify you, to bring thanks, to do everything without grumbling and complaining but in everything to give thanks to you God. Not because everything is all right but because you are on our side and you are with us and Lord today we choose to open our ears when our eyes seem to be dark. We choose to hear your spirit when Goliaths and Giants and the promised land seem so difficult and so painful and so impossible and so enormous that it overwhelms us. We close our eyes and we hear in the spirit like Paul did, like Bartimaeus did. He heard and then his eyes were open. Guide us Holy Spirit. Lead us Holy Spirit. We're hungry for you. We need you. For those of you who are saying you know what I'm going through that season right now. I feel lost. I feel confused. I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. I'm in that fork and and this is for me. I want to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. You gave me something to do now. I want to pay attention to the Holy Spirit. Just raise your hand. Every eye closed. Every head bow. Just raise your hand if you're saying this is me. I need the Holy Spirit to guide me. Just raise your hand. I'm going to pray with you right now. Holy Spirit I ask you for that person right now and those online as well in the name of Jesus. I pray for those God right now that are in that development in between stage. They came out of one season. They haven't entered into another and the season that they are in seems a season of heartache, headache and heartbreak. It's hardship upon hardship and it seems like it's just getting worse and worse and all they see is dark. I ask you Holy Spirit may you comfort them with your presence right now and may you bring assurance of your word. Holy Spirit I ask you that you will begin to guide them with your eyes. Guide them with your voice. Strengthen their resolve. I ask you that your peace will come and joy that's unspeakable that in an uncertainty they will be certain of your love and your grace and your power in Jesus name. I rebuke every depression. I rebuke every spirit of heaviness. I rebuke every spirit of death premature death. Every spirit of abnormal grief. Every spirit of fear that paints an imaginary picture that will never happen. I rebuke that right now in the name of Jesus Christ. Worst things take in place imagination. I rebuke that right now and I speak God's word into your situation. I speak God's word into your soul as a minister of God. God's word is living and powerful sharper than any two-edged sword. God's word bringing comfort. God's word bringing light where there is darkness. God's word like a hammer breaking the strongholds and convictions of doubt fear and negativity. God's word like oil healing the brokenness in your heart. God's word like seed going deep into the soil of your heart and strengthening your resolve in Jesus name. I want all of us right now to take next few minutes and to pray in the Holy Spirit for a few reasons because a lot of us complain a lot and I want us right now just pray in the Holy Spirit. Our mouth was given to to speak wholesome words. If you're filled with the Holy Spirit with evidence of tongues I want you just even as you're seated just pray in the Holy Ghost right now. Close your eyes and just pray in tongues. Say Lord purify my mouth. Lord cleanse my mouth. Lord I want my mouth to be pure. I want my mouth not to have garbage. I want my mouth not to have negativity constantly flowing. I don't want my mouth to have chronic chronic complaining and whining. I want my mouth to be full of purity full of wholesome right now in the name of Jesus Christ. Come on just take next 60 seconds and just pray in the Holy Ghost. Just pray in the Holy Ghost. You can pray louder you can pray quieter however you want. There's freedom in this house. If you're on live stream do the same thing right in front of your television on your couch just pray in the Holy Ghost right now. The best antidote to live a life of complaining whining and negativity is to be filled and strengthened by the Holy Spirit. Thank you Lord. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Holy Spirit. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Holy Spirit. We welcome you. We worship you right now. Just worship the Lord. Worship the Lord. You can rise. You can kneel but just worship him right now. Love in Jesus. We love you Lord. Church you can rise. In your car, in your house, in your living room. Those of you in the second century rise as well. As we continue to worship. If you are in our building today and you would like to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You would like to speak in tongues. You haven't spoken before and you desire. You genuinely you're born again Christian and you desire that. You can come forward to the altar. We want to minister to you in the next few minutes. So only those who are hungry for it in the second century and in this century. You can come forward and we want to minister to you. We want to pray for you. This is a good season. It's a good time to come to church and receive all that God has for us. Amen. And so you can just come forward and we will minister to you right now. In the second century do the same. Just come forward. Our pastoral team is there and they're going to lay hands on you. They're going to pray for you. Let's believe the Lord's going to touch you today powerfully and that you will leave this place filled with the Holy Spirit. You will leave this place speaking in tongues. You will leave this place filled with the fire of God in Jesus name. So in the first and in the second century just come forward to the altar and I'm going to give you just one instruction in a moment and then we're going to have our team lay hands on people and we're going to pray for you. So if there's anybody else that's come forward we would love to minister to you today. All the Christians have the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit wants to fill all of us and the Bible says be filled with the Holy Spirit. Every time the Holy Spirit came upon people in the book of Acts there was evidence. They spoke in other languages. They prophesied. They experienced God's power. So for those of you that are here right now in the front I want you to look at me for just a second. And those of you watching us online as well. Our pastors in just a moment we're going to come and pray with you. The Bible says those who believe in Jesus out of their belly will flow the rivers of water. So the the Holy Spirit is like that well. It's like those rivers of water. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is what we call it. It's not somewhere there in heaven. It's in your spirit now. It's in the river. Think of like a water connected to your house. It's already there when you open the faucet the water comes out. So when people speak in tongues we don't receive the Holy Spirit by speaking in tongues. We receive him by salvation. We release the Holy Spirit when we speak in tongues. We release that river when we speak in tongues okay. Because some people say that when you speak in tongues you get the Holy Spirit. That's that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches we receive the Holy Spirit when we receive Jesus. But when we speak in tongues it's like that river. It's kind of like when you have water connected to your house. You open the faucet you didn't get the water to your house by opening the faucet no the water was already there but now the water is coming out of that okay and so we're gonna pray for you right now we there is few hindrances to that one is overthinking is what people will think of me because speaking in tongues is one of the biggest insults to our pride because it's something we kind of can't control and these syllables come out we're like man I'm not sure how I feel about that and everything so you got to kind of let that go we don't turn off our brain but we just yield to the Holy Spirit and whatever syllables come out we don't filter them and say no I don't like those ones let me Holy Spirit get different ones you just you just you just let it flow you just let it flow so this you just release those rivers syllables from your spirit and let him just flow amen it could be one syllable it could be many whatever it happens it could be a song and it takes a childlike faith to do that and so biggest thing we have to do is relax and when you get super stressed like man it just hinders that so we just rest in the Lord you are loved by God amen those of you in the second century and in the first century I'm gonna lead in the very simple prayer right now and then we're gonna come and lay hands on you and pray for you and then the church we will all together pray in the Holy Spirit and the things that come out you just release them by faith in Jesus name amen I want you to stretch your hands like this like you're receiving a gift say this out loud with me say Lord Jesus Christ you are the baptizer with the Holy Spirit and with fire I believe you died on the cross to make me into the temple of the Holy Spirit you gave me your spirit Lord but you said if we are thirsty we can come to you and drink and that out of our belly will flow rivers of living water I trust in you Lord that the sounds syllables will come out of my spirit and that you add meaning to them baptize me into your spirit fill me with the Holy Spirit right now amen father fill them with the Holy Ghost right now in the name of Jesus Christ fill them with the Holy Spirit right now in Jesus mighty name if we can invite the team just lay hands on them right now and just pray church pray in the Holy Spirit if you get have the gift of tongues just pray in tongues come on church in the second sanctuary and those of you online you don't pray in tongues on the chat but just pray in the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit will baptize you right now even if you are watching us father fill them with your Holy Spirit right now kolam a seek a broke a total of all shatara but I live in a key that I was under about a little bit in India father fill them with the Holy Ghost right now fill them with the Holy Ghost right now in the name of Jesus Christ Lord fill them with the Holy Ghost right now God from the top of their head to the soles of their feet Oh Oh by your presence spirit this place the sure Oh sure we love you we love you Jesus we praise you Lord come on raise those hands sing the chorus to the Lord that you desire him more than anything in the second sanctuary congregation enter into his presence enter into his courts with thanksgiving with the petition with hunger with craving with yearning for more of him yes change us Holy Spirit make us new holy spirit be you got your experience Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Man, it's so beautiful seeing the Lord touch people. Come on, somebody. Hallelujah. You guys can go back now. God bless you. Hallelujah. I remember that experience when the first time I spoke in tongues, oh man, and I was like believing it for six months. I always so jealous when people get it like right away, first time, just feels so not fair. But it's incredible. I rejoice with every person, amen. Church, I'm going to ask you, bow your head and close your eyes. If you are here today, maybe you're visiting us for the first time, or you've been coming already. Perhaps you came with a spouse or a family member, and just the whole topic on the Holy Spirit was very new for you. He's the one that reveals Jesus. He's the one that convicts us of sin. He's the one that makes Jesus real to us and convicts us that we need to be saved. The Bible says that each and every one of us were born into sin because of Adam's sin, and therefore we don't need to be taught to be bad. It naturally comes to us without even nurturing that part of us. And Jesus came that he can deal with that and give us new life by forgiving us of what we did and giving us new heart so that we don't want to do bad things and give us the Holy Spirit who can enable us to live a new life. If you are here today and you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, if you haven't experienced what we call this new birth, this new life through forgiveness of sin, I would like to give you that opportunity today. This is not about becoming religious. It's about life with Jesus, forgiveness of sins, and new life with Christ. Every head bowed and every eye closed in the first and second sanctuary, if you are in that place where you feel that poking of the Holy Spirit saying, that is you, you need that. You need to repent of your sin. Your eternity is not secure without Jesus. You know you will not spend your time with the Lord if you die because you're not living right and you just don't have relationship with Christ and the Holy Spirit is convicting you. He wants you to be saved today in Jesus. And so if you are that person, just raise your hand high and say, hey, this is me. I want to pray that prayer today. I want the Lord to come into my heart. I want the Lord to come into my heart and save my soul today. And so just raise your hand and I'm going to pray with you. If you are in the second sanctuary, do the same and then we're going to pray together in Jesus name. Thank you. I see your hand. Thank you. I see your hand. Thank you. I see your hand. Thank you. I see your hand. I'm going to ask you to do something bold right now. Even some of the way I saw you kind of raise your hand like shyly just in case. And so, and the reason why we do that is because the Bible says to confess the Lord. Christian faith is private, but it's also public. So if you raised your hand or you didn't, but you knew that this is for you, I'm going to ask you to take a bold step of coming forward right now to the altar and meet me right here. I would love to pray with you. Just come, come and we will pray with you. I see young men over there. I saw another man over there. Second sanctuary, the same. Make your way forward. If you brought a friend or a family member and they want to make the decision, come with them as well. And let's celebrate for the glory of God, in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you. God bless you. In the second sanctuary, I'm waiting for you as well. Amen. Amen. God bless you. God bless you. Amen. So as people come forward, those of you watching us online, you can be a part of this as well. Distance is not a barrier to give your life to Jesus, but right now I'm going to lead you in prayer. I'm going to ask the Lord to come into our heart. We will repent of our sins and place and confess Jesus as our Lord. Amen. And the church will help you to do the same. You can stretch your hands like this if you would like, it's up to you. Say, Lord Jesus Christ, I believe you are the son of God who died on the cross for all my sin, who was buried and rose again for my justification. And you are coming back to rule and reign. I repent of my sin. I believe in you as my Savior and as my Lord. Wash me with your blood. Make me clean and make me holy. Fill me with your spirit.