Have you been feeling down lately? Anxious? Is your prayer life where it needs to be? God has a solution: utilizing the Holy Spirit!
The Spirit is the river of living water that flows within each Christian, according to John 7:38-39. In John 4, Jesus promises the woman at the well water that will allow you to never go thirsty. He was speaking of the Spirit and the Godly pleasure which it will bring, which will never run out!
I’ll say it again: the river of eternal life is the Holy Spirit! We have the water of life that enables us to never go thirsty! We just need to drink! Pray in the Spirit and bring all our cares and concerns to the Spirit! Never going thirsty does not mean you don't want more goodness from the Spirit. We seek out more and more of Him and grow in Him. But it means the Spirit will never run out of pleasure for us. There are many pleasures in the world that "run out" when you depend on them for your daily fix: alcohol, nicotine, prescription and street drugs, pornography, binge eating, etc. You just want more and more! The pleasure is soon lost, and we need more of whatever worldly pleasure we are engaged in to get our "fix," or to feel whole in an imperfect way. When we drink from the river of life within each of us (as described later in the article), we are satisfied in a way that worldly pleasures can never fulfill. It's a deeper satisfaction that is superior to all vice. God is calling His church to throw off the vice of the world and clothe ourselves in the Spirit of God, which fulfills us more completely and deeply than any vice ever invented.
I think I had a misperception in the past that I didn't have to fellowship with the Spirit, and I just should automatically always be satisfied as a Christian. Which is why I thought there was something so wrong with me - I was easily addicted to things and never felt satisfied! But seek, and we will find. Knock, and the door will be opened. I sought happiness in Christ, and I've found it. I've sought the holy pleasures of God, and they are far superior to the pleasures of the world. It's not about being forced to always be seeking and clawing for more, but simply spending time in fellowship with Him - prayer, worship, and the Word. When we spend time with Him, He will "fill us up" at our request. Lately, I have regularly asked the Holy Spirit, "Holy Spirit fill me," and He fills me with joy and pleasure every time! We all have access to this! Praise be to God!
God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious dwell in a parched land. Psalm 68:6 ESV
The rebellious do not have the Holy Spirit! And the followers of God, in rebellion, do not *feel* the Spirit’s work within them, they do not understand that the addictive things which give them pleasure in this life (alcohol, drugs, etc.) are far inferior to the pleasure of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit can be accessed anytime, by simply praying to God to reveal Himself to you. I did not come up with this idea on my own, as I learned it from the sermons of Mike Bickle (founder of IHOP). But I have tried these prayers about Jesus’ descriptions in Revelation 1 (ex: Jesus, your eyes are like blazing fire – reveal your eyes to me). Sometimes I get nothing, but most of the time I feel and understand a profound insight into the nature of the aspects of Jesus Christ. I’ve learned things about Jesus that you can only understand if He teaches you personally through the Spirit that each one of us has.
Don’t get me wrong, I am still a spiritual novice at this. I haven’t always done it regularly, and I only started doing it a few months ago. But it is good to do it more and more, to develop that habit. Another way to pray for insight from the Spirit is fellowshipping with the Spirit directly. The Spirit is a facet of God, and we can pray to this third of the trinity just like we pray to Jesus and the Father. The Spirit will always point you to Jesus, so if you feel it is weird to pray to the Spirit, remember: the Spirit is in Jesus, and nothing is in Jesus that is imperfect or that will let you go astray. I got this concept entirely from Mike Bickle’s teachings, and I find him to be very trustworthy and very Spirit-led. To give you an example of how to abide in the rest of God and fellowship with the Holy Spirit, the remainder of this article will just be Mr. Bickle’s teaching on the issue. Enjoy!
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FROM MIKEBICKLE.COM:
I use a five-letter acronym, T-R-U-S-T, to help me focus. I try to pray through this on a daily basis.
You do not limit your talking to the Holy Spirit to these five, but they are just a good jumpstart; it is a good place to start you off. I do not by any means limit myself to this, but often when I start my prayer time, it is like Smith Wigglesworth said—he was a famous healing evangelist in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s—he would say, “I begin in the flesh, and I end in the Spirit.” What he meant by “I begin in the flesh,” is that I begin without feeling anything, without a sense of inspiration.
I just start talking to the Lord, and over a little bit of time I feel inspired, though not every time. So I begin without inspiration, and then a few moments later, not every time but sometimes, I feel inspired. I begin in the flesh and end in the Spirit. I have heard that quote from Smith Wigglesworth many times over the years.
Well, this five-letter acronym, T-R-U-S-T, helps me to focus. I try to pray it on a daily basis, try to pray it a couple of times. I can pray it in five minutes, a minute for each one. You do not have to wait for two hours, but you may get focused on one of the letters and you do not have to finish the list. The Holy Spirit just loves talking to you. He does not care if you finish the list; He does not care if you get off the subject. He really likes you, and He has a lot to say to you, but He will not force you to talk to Him.
T: Thank You
The first thing is to turn our attention inward to recognize the Spirit’s presence and simply thank Him for His indwelling presence. I say, “Thank You, Spirit, for Your presence in my spirit.” Occasionally add affectionate phrases like, “I love You, Holy Spirit, and I enjoy Your presence.”
First I start with “Thank you.” I turn my attention inwardly—we are going to do this in a moment for our short ministry time—I turn my attention inwards, and I recognize, acknowledge, His presence. Again—I mean it’s an inadequate picture, but it is the best way for me to describe it—I picture that glorious, diamond-like radiance of God, like the burning bush of Moses, dwelling in my belly, in my human spirit. I do not mean in my physical part, but am talking about in my human spirit. I turn my attention inward, and when I first begin to do this it was a little awkward. I could not really connect with it, but I found if you stay with it the sense of connectedness, the sense of feeling the inspiration, will grow. It will grow if you stay with it, because the Holy Spirit wants to help you do this.
I have talked to the Holy Spirit a number of times. I would say, “Holy Spirit, teach me how to fellowship with the Holy Spirit, really.”He would say, “Oh, I am really good at that! I can tell you a lot about how to do that.”I say, “I want to know how to fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Would You show me? Would You take me by the hand and lead me?”
Anyway, back to Paragraph, T., thank you. So I will just turn my attention—and I do not get in a big hurry—“Thank You, thank You that You are there.” Again, in the imperfect way, I am just gazing into that Shekinah Glory, and just intermittently, just every now and then, I will just say a phrase, “I love Your leadership.” “I love Your presence.” “I enjoy You, thank You, God the Holy Spirit.” “You are in me. Wow, thank You!” I know He likes it because just in my human senses when I do that, not every time, but sometimes, I feel His presence. I think, “Oh, what is that?”
I am just imagining He is saying, “I like you talking this way. I like it when you talk to Me this way.”
I encourage you to do this. I love just to lock into the first T, the “Thank You.” Just stay there for a while; pray in the Spirit a little bit; just be kind of quiet; again do not kick into rapid fire, but just kind of linger there. Stay there a minute or two, stay there three or four minutes, or maybe stay there five or ten minutes. Sometimes you will stay there for long periods of time. I do not want to put out some big number and then that is the new “gold standard” to reach if you are really deep. Forget all that! Just start. Start little, and some seasons you will sustain it more, and then other seasons you kind of lose your grip on this. Then you recommit, go back and sign up again. At least that has been my experience.
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R: Release revelation of Your glory
Paul prayed that the Father of glory release the spirit of revelation to His people (Eph. 1:17). Moses prayed, “Please, show me Your glory” (Ex. 33:18). Ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to see the realm of God’s glory, that you may encounter more of His glory and heart.
R, I ask Him to release the revelation of His glory, that whole realm of His glory. The Holy Spirit is our escort into the realm of the glory of God. I want to see the heavenly, supernatural realm. I mean only God the Spirit can bring you into that realm in a right and a godly way. I know there is the demonic counterfeit, but I am talking about in a holy, biblical, wholesome way. So I ask Him, “Let me see Your glory. Let me encounter Your glory.” I mean there are so many ways that believers have encountered the glory of God in direct, supernatural encounters. I say, “I do not care how, I just want more of those. I want little ones, big ones, dramatic ones, and subtle ones. I want more of the realm of Your glory. Father of glory, let me have revelation of You, and encounter You. Open my eyes in dreams and visions and dramatic encounters. I will trust Your leadership. If I do not have them very often”—which I do not—“then I trust Your leadership, but I want them.”
U: Use me
Paul exhorted us to seek diligently to be used in the gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:31; 14:1). The Spirit promised to release His gifts through every believer (Acts 2:17-21; 1 Cor. 12:7). Thank the Holy Spirit for His gifts and ask Him to release them to you in a greater measure. Ask Him to give impressions to you to bless people, that you may be a vessel of His presence to glorify Jesus.
U, use me. The Bible tells us that we are to seek diligently the gifts of the Holy Spirit. People have said, “We are suppose to seek His face and not His hand.” That is not true. We are to seek His face and His hand, and we are to seek His face first. The statement, “Seek His face, not His hand” is not a biblical statement at all. We seek His face first, but we also seek His hand diligently.
Paul said to diligently seek the gifts of the Holy Spirit and desire them. One of the most diligent ways is by asking. I ask the Holy Spirit, “Give me impressions. Give me impressions, subtle impressions.” That is the foundational way the gifts of the Holy Spirit operate, not the only way, but the day-in, day-out, core, foundational way.
He will give you an impression. You will be talking to your friend, and you will just have, not even necessarily a whole sentence, but a phrase or an impression, a picture. You will say it to them. You do not even have to say, “God showed me…” As a matter of fact I encourage people not to say “God…” but just say it to them, “You know I am going to pray that the Lord is going to have a breakthrough in this area of your life…”
They reply, “Hey, that is the very area I am praying for.”
I mean you do not have to say, “God showed me this is the area.” Just tell them, “I am going to pray for that area.”
They may say, “How did you know? That is the very area…” It’s okay if then you say that God showed you, but you do not have to say that.
If you say, “God showed me” too many times, people quit listening to you. You can do it supernaturally natural. You can ask for impressions and phrases and just put them into the conversation. Say, “Hey, I want to pray this over you.” You can say that this is something that you believe the Lord is going to emphasize in their life or He is going to show them more of.
They may say, “Wow,” not always, as sometimes it will not mean anything to them, and other times it will mean something to them later. You flow in the gifts by starting off saying those phrases and then more happens if you stay with it. That is why I encourage people in ministry time just to come up and try it, not just in friendship groups or home groups or just in social events, but anytime ask the Holy Spirit for impressions.
I say, “Holy Spirit, use me. Let me see what you see, feel what You feel.” For the leadership meeting I am going to go to in a few minutes, right before I go I will pray, “Just give me a phrase, give me a feeling, give me a picture.” I do not have to verbalize to everyone exactly what I saw, but I operate on it. I will say something related to it.
Again I will say something like, “I think the Lord wants us to highlight this.” Or often I will just pray it over people, or I will inject an idea into the conversation.
Sometimes people say, “Well, that is the Lord,” and other times they say, “That was really dumb,” and sometimes it was dumb. I want to keep growing in it; I want to keep doing it. I ask the Holy Spirit, “Use me. I want those impressions.”
S: Strengthen me
The Spirit will strengthen our inner man by touching our minds and emotions with the might of His presence. We can draw on His strength by thanking Him for the reality of His power that is already in our born-again spirit. Because the Spirit lives in us, the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, and so on—is in our spirit now. We can experience more of the power of this fruit by thanking Him that it is already in us.
16…to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man. (Eph. 3:16) 22The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control. (Gal. 5:22-23)
S, strengthen me. In our last session we talked about ten prayers using the acronym FELLOWSHIP, in session four of our Part Two series on Growing in Prayer. I gave ten prayers related to the acronym FELLOWSHIP. So when I get to “S” here, and I ask the Holy Spirit to strengthen me, I might go into a few of those ten prayers related to the acronym FELLOWSHIP or maybe I will just say, “Holy Spirit, strengthen me with might.”
Galatians 5:22-23 is not just about doing, but also asking for the strength that is in our spirit to inspire our emotions and our mind. That is what we are asking. We are asking Him to strengthen our inner man; we are asking for the power that is already in our spirit to impact our emotions and our thinking. In Galatians 5:22-23, Paul says that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, etc. These are nine different results of the Holy Spirit.
Beloved, all of those nine virtues are already dwelling in your spirit from the day that you were born again, the fullness of them. The power to love and the power for peace are already fully in your spirit man. The problem is you want that power to touch your mind and emotions. It is not enough that it is in my spirit; I want it in my mind and emotions. One way we do this is we thank the Holy Spirit for the strength that is in us. I do not mean it is the strength that is in my mind and emotions; it is the strength that is in my spirit. I say, “Holy Spirit, thank You for strength, thank You for love, thank You for peace.”
You will be in a disturbing situation where your mind is troubled and your emotions are starting to get in a storm. Just retreat inwardly. Say, “Thank You for peace.” Just by thanking Him for the peace, the strength that is already in your spirit will affect your soul, your mind, and emotions.
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T: Teach me
The Spirit is the Teacher who leads us into God’s will and ways so that we are able to live in partnership with God. We ask the Spirit to teach us about God’s Word, will, and ways by giving us wisdom and creative ideas for every area of our life, including how to steward our money, excel in a career, manage our time, prosper in relationships (in our family, church, workplace, etc.), function in ministry, and walk in purity and health (physically and emotionally). He will guide us in ways that help us walk in holiness, have health in our bodies, and so on.
26“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit…He will teach you all things.” (Jn. 14:26)
T, teach me. The Holy Spirit is the teacher who leads us into God’s ways, God’s Word, and God’s will, all of those things. The Holy Spirit came to teach us. Again I love to say this: He knows everything about everything. He has created ideas for you, for every area of your life. He can teach you how to steward your money better. He can teach you how to excel in your career and how to manage your time. Ask Him how. Say, “Holy Spirit, I want wisdom in my relationships”—whether in the home, in the office, the school just all of your relationships, the hard ones, the easy ones, the new ones, the old ones—He knows about all of your relationships.
Say, “Teach me, tell me how to walk in purity. Tell me how to walk in health.” He knows about your diet. He knows about your exercise. He knows about your sleeping patterns. You know people say that their sleep is all messed up. Ask the Holy Spirit. I mean I am all for searching out what science and natural facts are, but ask the Holy Spirit. Say, “Give me a phrase, give me a key about why I cannot sleep, and why I do not have energy. Speak to me.”
Again, there are physical and natural laws that are good to know and follow. I mean they are very important to know and participate with, not just good to do. The Holy Spirit often will give you a phrase. He may not give it to you right away, but He will. Sometimes it is through the lips of somebody else, sometimes it is through a book you are reading, and there it is. You say, “Thank You, Holy Spirit.”
Amen, let’s stand. We are going to talk to the Holy Spirit for a just a few moments, just for two or three minutes here. I like looking out there because a bunch of you are smiling right now. No, actually smiles. There you go, good, good. “Holy Spirit, we are going to do it,” that is how I interpret that smile. Some of you might be smiling as in “We are finally done” but anyway…just kidding! No, I can see some of you have that anticipation, “I want to do this. I want to do this.”
Let’s just close our eyes for a moment. I mean, you don’t have to close your eyes to do this, but I find it sometimes good just to get rid of the distractions. But that is not good when you are driving; keep the eyes open when you do this. When I drive home, I keep my eyes open when I do this.
Okay now, just focus your mind inwardly; you are talking to God the Holy Spirit, that burning bush that Moses saw, dwelling in your spirit, right in your belly King James says. Again that is not perfect language, but just lock in there. There is radiant, glorious being.
So we are going to do T, start with the first T. “Thank You, Holy Spirit.” Just kind of whisper it. Do not say a lot of words at once, just, “Thank You, Holy Spirit, You are there…I love Your leadership…I love Your presence.” Some of you just want to go like, yeah. Go ahead, you can do that. When I kick into that, I mean go into that mode, that “Ohh,” even just those short little sighs, sometimes it is just the Holy Spirit connecting with you as Paul talked about in Romans 8. “Thank You, Holy Spirit, You are here.”
There is R, the revelation of His glory. “Escort me into the experiences of glory of God. Holy Spirit, lead me, lead me, lead me into all truth,” That is the T at the end of TRUST. Right now I am talking about wanting encounters with the angelic realm, the glory of God, the throne realm. “I want to see the angels ascend and descend as Jesus said.” Again I am talking way too much. If I were talking to the Holy Spirit, I would speak way less than that, way less than that. “I want to experience Your glory. Usher me in.”
The next one in TRUST is U: use me. “Holy Spirit, give me impressions. Let me see visions. Let me be a blessing to speak those phrases that unlock the power of God in people’s lives. Use me in the gifts. Lord, You said that the sons and daughters will all see visions; give me those short, mental visions or those open visions, either one. Let me operate in the gifts of the Spirit.” Again, I would speak way less if I were talking to the Lord. I would pause in between each one of those phrases.
Now we are at the fourth letter, S: strengthen me. “Thank You for strength in my spirit. Thank You. Strengthen my inner man. Cause my mind and emotions to be inspired by Your strength. Strengthen me.” Again at this time I might go into a few of the acronym phrases for FELLOWSHIP, a few of those. “Unite my heart to fear Your name. Strengthen my inner man.”
Every few moments you might just say, “I love You, Holy Spirit. I love Your leadership. I want to feel Your presence.” Just those words of affirmation. Every now and then you pray in the spirit a little bit and just be quiet for a moment, you know, thirty or forty seconds or longer. Those little sighs that you feel like, “Oh,” those groans that are just very subtle. Many times they are subtle; sometimes they are far more overt.
Then T: teach me. “O teach me about the Word! Show me the Word. Teach me about Your ways for my body, for my schedule, my time, my money. Teach me.” Again that is too many phrases in one sentence when you are talking to Him. “Teach me, Holy Spirit.” Amen and amen, and just do that over, thousands and thousands of times over the next years.
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