Good morning,
This morning instead of my normal “Purity” Encouragment, I have decided to launch the next lesson of the Celebrate Freedom Discipleship Course. As I stated previously: “I developed the Celebrate Freedom Discipleship Course in 2020 as part of my master’s thesis in Christian Counseling to “fill in the gaps” of the Christian Twelve Step/
Celebrate Recovery – Teaching Curriculums by introducing concepts of Christian Discipleship that I found important in my walk of faith and in my recovery over alcohol,
drugs, sex addiction, and food addiction.”
We hope it encourages you to
follow Jesus and to overcome any hurts, habits, and hang-ups that still persist
in your lives.
God Bless You All,
M.T. Clark
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Listen to the podcast:Celebrate Freedom Discipleship Course -Lesson 4 – The Holy Spirit – Podcast
Or Watch it on YouTube:
Celebrate Freedom Discipleship Course
– Lesson 4: The Holy Spirit
Discipleship Principle 4: We are to live our lives being led by the Holy Spirit, not the
flesh, so we actively seek to know Him and follow His guidance to glorify God
and Jesus Christ by living a Christian life.
We
have come to a point in our recovery journeys where we have decided to ask God
to remove all our defects of character. We have asked God for His help. Jesus
told His disciples that God the Father would send a Helper in the person of the
Holy Spirit, The Holy Spirit has been given to all believers, but many
Christians aren’t asking for His help or seeking His presence or guidance. This
lesson has been made to help Christians in recovery to know how to experience
the Holy Spirit’s presence and receive His help.
In John 14:26 Jesus said “….the Holy Spirit, ….will teach you all things, and bring to
your remembrance all things that I said to you.
God
does not expect us to live our new life by our own power and that is why He has
provided every Christian with a Helper: The Holy Spirit.
So
WHERE IS HE? The moment we placed our faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit came
to live in us.
1 Corinthians 6:19 tells us “ that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who
is in you, whom you have from God…
The Holy Spirit is NOT just an impersonal force. Scripture
shows us that He has the attributes of a person and acts like a person. He
is a spirit, of course, so that makes Him immaterial and invisible, but He is
real and interacts with believers to help us to follow God’s ways and to experience
freedom and victory in our recovery.
Walk in the Spirit
In Galatians 5:16-25 (NKJV), Paul tells us to
16 … Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of
the flesh. For the flesh
lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are
contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish.
Those of us in recovery have often lived in the
paradox of doing what we wish but with disastrous results or are in bondage to
the things we no longer wish to do.
We have tried on our own to change but failed. To have freedom and victory over the world,
the flesh, and the devil, we have to receive Holy Spirit power, and to do that
we have to choose to live a Spiritual life. We have to “walk in the
Spirit”. To do that we have to know what the works of the flesh and the fruit
of the Spirit are, and we not only have to ask God for help, but we need to
seek to find His help by doing our part in our relationship with God.
When scripture commands us to Walk in the Spirit, it
contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit, to describe what
we need to forsake and what we need to embrace.
Works
of the Flesh
19
Now the works of the flesh are evident,
which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry,
sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish
ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness,
revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you
in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom
of God.
Fruit of the Spirit
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness,
self-control. Against such there is no law.
24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with
its passions and desires.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
The positive and negative emotions or attitudes
stated within the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit show that
Walking in the Spirit is more than obeying rules with our actions only, but
points to a change in our hearts that transforms our entire demeanor. We need to
not only change the things we do but we need to change the way we think and
feel about the things listed in the works of the flesh. When we forsake the works of the flesh, we
receive the fruit of the Spirit.
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Our lives are supposed to be an interactive
relationship with God where we are accompanied and guided by the Holy Spirit
but if we live “in the flesh” instead of in the Spirit, we won’t know that the
Holy Spirit is with us or receive His power to help us.
The world
and the enemy would tell you that casual sex (fornication), drug use (sorcery),
anger (wrath), and drunkenness are okay as long as no one gets hurt. But,
Jesus said in John 8:12 “He who follows Me shall not walk in
darkness, but have the light of life.”
God’s word tells us to forsake the works of the flesh
and indicates that the enemy can torment those who don’t. To be free, we need
to “agree” with God and choose to show it with action. More than “just saying
no” we need to say “yes” to God and show the Lord e are following Him and to
experience freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17 (NLT2) 17
For the Lord is the Spirit, and
wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
The reality of His presence
can be discerned as we walk with Him by hearing His “still quiet voice” in our
hearts or our minds. But we have to be
wise to not be deceived by “other spirits” that seek to influence us.
1
John 4:1 (NKJV) 1 Beloved,
do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God…
We
learned about how the enemy tries to deceive, tempt us to sin, and accuse and
condemn us when we fall. The enemy is associated with lies and sin – if that’s how
we choose to live that’s who will be there!
Likewise,
if we want to “hear” The Holy Spirit and experience the Fruit of the Spirit we
have to be where He is at. The Holy
Spirit would not lead us into confusion or sin. So where would we find the Holy
Spirit’s presence and hear His “voice”?
How the Holy Spirit Communicates
To
hear His “voice” to follow Him, we need to understand the ways He communicates
with us. If we want to hear from God we have to seek Him by drawing near to
Him with Spiritual practices that He is known to bless.
Communion – Presence & Truth –
Quieting, Meditation, & Appreciation
One
of the ways that the Holy Spirit communicates with us is by giving us a sense
of His presence. God is everywhere but
when He communes with us, we experience peace.
Genesis
2:7 And the LORD
God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life, and man became a living being.
We
can find a moment of peace when we calm down and focus on our breath, which is God’s
first gift to mankind. When we focus on the calm stillness that is available in
every moment, anywhere in God’s creation, particularly in natural settings or
quiet places, we draw closer to God.
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John 8:31-32 (NKJV) 31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him,
“If you abide in My word, you are My disciples
indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free.”
Meditation
– Knowing the truth about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and reflecting on it gives
the Christian a decided advantage in experiencing God’s presence and peace and
gives them the strength to overcome and be set free.
Acts
1:8 (NKJV) 8 But
you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall
be witnesses to Me …. to the end of the earth.”
The
personal, joyful, or peaceful presence that is experienced in these practices
by Christians is the presence of the Holy Spirit and the sensations of love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control that are experienced through these practices are the cultivation
of the fruit of the Spirit. The Holy
Spirit communes with us when we seek Him, and He helps us grow.
Romans 8:26-27 (NLT) 26 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. 27
And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is
saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.
Prayer – The Holy Spirit is
the one who helps us with our weaknesses when we pray! IF we need to find “the
way of escape”, resist temptation, or receive strength, we need to pray because–
the Holy Spirit pleads for us!
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2 Peter 1:21 (NKJV) 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but
holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
Reading
the Bible – The Holy Spirit is said to be the author of the Holy Scriptures
for He moved the Bible’s authors to speak what was later written. When we are
reading Scripture and a particular verse speaks to us or seems to take on a
meaning or significance that it never held before, the Holy Spirit reveals this
to us. He is communing with us as we read the word.
==================================================================Psalm 22:3 But You are holy,
Enthroned in the praises of Israel.
Praise
– Worship – Sincerely singing praises to the Lord or worshipping Him at
church is another opportunity to commune with the Holy Spirit. While we are praising the Lord in song with
our hearts, we open the door to communing with the Holy Spirit.
John 4:24 24 God is Spirit, and those who
worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
As
we sing the Holy Spirit will “speak” to us by filling us with joy!
Intuition
Luke
12:12 For the Holy Spirit
will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
This
verse speaks of the Holy Spirit teaching us and helping us to speak at the right
moment. As we walk in the Spirit, we will be moved to say and do things that
will be consistent with God’s word to serve and bless others.
The
Holy Spirit will not lead us to do anything against the word of God but will
guide us to glorify the Lord. Spontaneously sharing the gospel, praying for
others, being generous, or performing acts of kindness are all examples of what
the Holy Spirit may move you to do through your intuition.
Conscience
2 Corinthians 7:9-10 9 Now I rejoice,
not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you
were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in
nothing. 10 For godly sorrow
produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but
the sorrow of the world produces death.
When
the Holy Spirit comes to live in us, the first thing we may notice is an
increased sensitivity to sin in our conscience. As we walk in the Spirit, sinful, selfish,
or worldly things are less appealing.
1
John 4:6 (NKJV) 6 We
are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us.
By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
We
are also transformed by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit to become
sensitive in our conscience to the dark spiritual forces that are present on
the earth. Sometimes we encounter people that we can sense are spiritually
afflicted or have an overwhelming spirit of anti-Christ. The Holy Spirit helps
us to discern the spirits.
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Filled with the Spirit – Ephesians 5:18 (NKJV) 18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which
is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,
Ephesians
5:18 commands us to be filled with the Spirit.
Our faith life is continuous, but we can sometimes feel like we need to
be filled with the Spirit. In his book, Spirit-Controlled
Temperament, Tim LaHaye lists the following steps to be filled with the Spirit.
1.
Self-examination
2.
Confession
of all known sin.
3.
Submit
yourself completely to God.
4.
Ask
to be Filled with the Holy Spirit
5.
Believe
you are Filled with the Holy Spirit! And thank Him for His filling!
This
practice requires faith because it is a spiritual infilling it does not
necessarily come with obvious feelings or signs. However, asking for the Filling of the Spirit
may result in wisdom, joy, strength, energy, motivation, and a desire to praise
and serve the Lord. When we seek the Lord, He is there for us. So ask for the
Holy Spirit’s filling!
Often
those who do not believe in a personal God that interacts with us have great difficulty
walking in the Spirit. Their lack of belief in the possibility of the Holy
Spirit’s interaction filling, or communication will tend to make them
self-reliant.
Not
seeking the Holy Spirit’s presence or guidance confesses a lack of trust.
Walking in the Spirit is trusting that God will help and guide us when we try
to live His way.
To
be clear we are not chasing ecstatic feelings of pleasure, we are seeking to be
conformed to the image of Christ by following the Holy Spirit’s guidance and
directions for our life. We confirm any “leadings” of the Spirit with the word
of God and the will of God for our lives before we follow them. We are not to
be led into confusion but into a deeper relationship with, and obedience to,
the Lord.
Wrap Up
The Holy Spirit is the third person of
the Godhead and He was sent to believers to benefit from His presence and His
guidance. Christians through the history of the church have testified of the
reality of His person and His interaction to empower and to encourage their
life of faith.
The Holy Spirit calls us to follow the
word of God and to be witnesses of Jesus Christ by glorifying Him. He is not
calling us to chase ecstatic experiences that lead to confusion and sin. When
seeking Him, we must be discerning.
The Holy Spirit speaks to us through
communion, intuition, and our conscience. If we “listen” to the Spirit, He will
lead us continually to seek His presence, Read the Bible, meditate on its
truth, pray, praise, and worship the Lord and perform the will of God for our
lives, demonstrating a spiritual life of “walking in the Spirit”.
The power, presence, and guidance of the
Holy Spirit are found through a deep relationship with Him, through His
filling. and are necessary for continuous victorious Christian living. In recovery, the Holy Spirit’s indwelling
power can help us to overcome any hurt, habit, or hang-up and transform our
lives.
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Review and Examine.
1.
Have you ever felt
the Lord leading you into or through your recovery?
2.
Have you ever had a
sense of God’s presence in still quiet places or when you calmed down and
focused on you breath?
3.
Have you ever
meditated or read God’s word and received a sudden understanding you didn’t
have before?
4.
Have you ever
experienced great joy in praise or worship?
5.
How does the Holy
Spirit “speak” to us?
6.
In what ways can
the Holy Spirit commune with us?
7.
How do we discern
whether a “spiritual leading” or “spiritual experience” we have is the Holy
Spirit or an evil spirit?
8.
How can Christians
be “filled with the Spirit”? When would
you seek His infilling? What could you receive by being filled?
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