Once again, I want to welcome you to the Quality
Christian Living podcast. I am your host David
Friend. We're continuing our series of studies
on the Holy Spirit. Today's topic is how to experience
the Holy Spirit. We've got a lot to cover today,
so let's just move in right with it. We will
show the steps that we must take in order to
experience the Holy Spirit and to learn how to
receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and learn
how to receive everything that the Holy Spirit
has for us. We're going to expect to receive
a greater portion of a Holy Spirit -led life,
so there's so much to cover, but let's pray first.
Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank
you for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Thank you
for who you are. I pray you would bless now this
podcast, and I invite the Holy Spirit now to
take control, to move in, and guide and direct
everything that's said today. And for those who
are listening in, for those who have a desire
to have a greater experience with the Holy Spirit
or to understand how the Holy Spirit wants to
operate in their lives, I pray that you would
open their hearts and open their minds, that
they would receive the fullness of your love
the fullness of your blessings, the fullness
of your promises. And I just pray, Lord, that
you would send the Holy Spirit now to fall down
upon all of us and guide us and direct us, because
it's such an important part of a Christian's
life. I pray that you would bless us now. And
I'll be careful now, always, to give you praise
and glory for what's about to take place. For
ask these things now, in Jesus' name I pray.
Amen. Well, to understand the purpose of this
podcast, let me start with reading from John
chapter 16 and verses 12 through 15 in the New
Living Translation. Jesus is speaking here. He
says these words in verse 12. There is so much
more I want to tell you, but you can't bear it
now. He was telling them, you can't handle everything
that I've got to tell you. In verse 13, it says,
when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide
you into all truth. He will not speak on his
own, but will tell you what he has heard. He
will tell you about the future. Verse 14. He
will bring me glory by telling you whatever he
receives from me. Verse 15. Now the reason I
read that scripture is because we're talking
about how to experience the Holy Spirit, how
to be able to walk and live and experience every
day the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit
in our life and that's such an important part
of it because Jesus was making this promise and
he's telling us that when the Spirit comes he's
going to guide us into all truth. You see the
Bible tells us that when we receive Jesus as
our Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit comes to
dwell in us. Now there is something about the
Holy Spirit we call the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
There are things we talk about about the Holy
Spirit called the fruit of the Spirit and the
gifts of the Spirit and the nine power gifts
of the Spirit. I've covered all of these in prior
podcasts. Matter of fact, I did a whole series
of teaching on the gifts of the Spirit and the
power gifts of the Holy Spirit, so you can go
back and refer to those if you'd like to in prior
podcasts. But I would like to focus kind of a
general statement today about how to experience
the Holy Spirit and we need to continue to have
that experience in our life. Some people say
that well that ended when the Apostles were around
and when the disciples were there and it kind
of came and then it went and it just hasn't happened
since. Well that's just not true because the
Word of God is the same yesterday, today and
forever and the operation of the Holy Spirit
is the same today as it was back then. It's whether
we yield to Him and we allow Him to take over
and take charge of our lives. You know we read
about more of the experience experiences of the
Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. I'm going to
read a couple of sections that I think will be
helpful to you in Acts chapter 1 and verse number
4. And I think we'll also read verse 5. I think
they are so important together. Once again, this
is the book of Acts chapter 1 verse 4 and 5 in
the New Living Translation. Once he was eating
with them, he commanded them. This is either
saying Jesus sent them to do this. Do not leave
Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift
he promised as I told you. before John baptized
with water but in just a few days you will be
baptized with the Holy Spirit now what's so interesting
about that is that these people were already
followers of the Lord Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit
had come to dwell and live inside of them their
bodies became the temple of the Holy Spirit just
like ours do and so it's important we understand
that because then he says in a few days he says
you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit so
that means there's another step there's another
experience that we can have and I'll cover that
in just a little bit but first let's look at
another scripture here in Acts chapter 2 and
verses 1 through 4 in the New Living Translation
listen very carefully to this we're laying the
foundation the groundwork for what we're talking
about today on the day of Pentecost all the believers
were meeting together in one place suddenly there
was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a
mighty windstorm and it filled the house where
they were sitting then what looked like flames
our tongues of fire appeared and settled on each
one of them and everyone Present was filled.
Here it said everyone present was filled with
the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages
as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability. So
here we're seeing another experience with the
Holy Spirit that the Holy Spirit now is moving
into them and causing them to experience a greater
relationship with the Holy Spirit. And then as
we read along in Acts chapter 2, let's go down
to verse 17. Peter is preaching to the crowd
and here's what Peter said. It's found in Acts
chapter 2. Now there's a lot more scriptures
to read about and I would encourage you to read
the book of Acts chapter 1 and chapter 2. They're
so important to understand the very beginning
of the of the Holy Spirit or the baptism of the
Holy Spirit. We see this in operation in the
scriptures that I just read you and also the
gifts of the Spirit are in operation. This is
experiencing the Holy Spirit. This is the type
of things I want to talk about that we can have
in our life operating in our lives today. Now
there are many ways we can experience the Holy
Spirit. That means know that he's alive and well
in us and helping us and guiding us and directing
us. He is interested in every area of our life.
Now it doesn't matter what you Take to the Lord,
if it's important to you, it's important to God.
It doesn't matter how simple you might think
it is. Once again, if it's something that's in
your mind you were thinking about, something
you need to talk about, we need to take it to
the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit to help us and
guide us and direct us. Because I believe, like
I said before, he is, the Holy Spirit is interested
in every area of our life, whether it be finances,
whether it be health, whether it be marriage,
whether it be careers, whether it be going to
school, whether it be dating, whether it be raising
children, whatever it may be. might be the Holy
Spirit is interested in every single area of
our life and He wants us to experience Him to
handle all these issues and all these various
levels of experiences that we'll have in our
life. The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, our Advocate.
That means He's got our back, He's got us covered.
He does not want us to try to handle things on
our own or our way. It's so important we understand
that, that God has a way that's greater and bigger
than ours. Isaiah 55 says that, that His thoughts
are higher than And God has released the power
of the Holy Spirit here on earth in order to
help us with all of his ways and his thoughts
and his ideas and the way he wants us to go.
The Holy Spirit wants us to seek him. He wants
us to pursue him. Some people say, well, how
do you pursue the Holy Spirit? Well, I'll give
you a list of things to do shortly. But bottom
line, we just need to submit ourselves to the
Lord, go to church and start worshiping. Once
you go through the doors, we enter into his core.
with Thanksgiving and praise. We need to give
praise to the Lord. Today I'm finding that a
lot of people come to church late because they're
missing out on the worship time. That's a very
important time to prepare us to get ready for
what the Word of God is going to be preached
in our church. So if worship is songs or being
sung and we're worshiping together as a church
in unity, we need to be a part of that because
that is so crucial to experience the power of
the Holy Spirit in our lives. He wants us to
pursue Him. We pursue Him through attendance
at church, through reading the Word of God, through
prayer, through giving worship and praise, and
in worship services. Our attitude must be filled
with an anticipation and expectation of greater
things. You know, when we go to church, we should
go with anticipation. We should go expecting
God to do something special. You know, every
single time my wife and I get in the car to drive
to church, as we back out of the driveway, we're
praying. Now I have my eyes open, because I'm
not going to run into someone, but we're praying,
and we're saying, Heavenly Father, I pray that
you would... bless and protect us as we go to
church today. I pray that you would anoint the
service, that you would anoint the worship time,
that you would anoint the message to come forth,
and I pray the Holy Spirit would even now start
working in the place, in the church, and that
you would move in a very special way and anoint
everything that's said, and that the Holy Spirit
would draw people into a relationship with Jesus,
and that people would come to know Jesus Christ
as their Lord and Savior. You know, after we
prayed that, in various times it's shorter, sometimes
it's longer, but we basically pray that general
prayer before we go to church because we're anticipating
and expecting something special to happen because
we know when we get there, the Holy Spirit is
already there when two or more are gathered there.
God says He's there when we lift Him up. And
when we get there and join that, then we're part
of the move of God that's taking place in our
church. We need to delight in Him in the Holy
Spirit and He will give us the desires of our
heart. We delight not in our desires, we delight
in Him and then He'll give us the desires of
heart and the desires of our heart will be God's
will according to what he desires for us. If
you have not received the baptism of the Holy
Spirit with the evidence of your heavenly prayer
language, I want you to receive it today and
at the end I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna have
a prayer for those people who've never received
the infilling of the Holy Spirit, the baptism
of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking
in another language in your heavenly language
and it's your prayer language. You're you're
praying the divine will of God when you pray
like that and that's what was taking place in
the upper room when people started praying in
the Spirit and praising in the Spirit. And it's
a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing. It's
alive and well today. Now, this is one of the
many experiences that we can have in the Holy
Spirit. Experiencing the Holy Spirit is the way
of life that God wants us to have. We can experience
the works of the Spirit, the voice of the Spirit,
the love of the Spirit, the hope of the Spirit,
the comfort of the Spirit. And those are all
things that we need and desire in our walk with
God. We need to experience the power of the Holy
Spirit in our life. Experiencing the Holy Spirit
is the spiritual gifts of the fruit of the Spirit.
And once again, I will digress a little bit on
prior podcasts. I've talked extensively about
the gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit,
the nine power gifts, and all that is listened.
If you want to listen to my podcast, I'll talk
about that at the end on how to go back and listen
to my podcast because this is the 400 I'm sorry,
the 343rd podcast. So obviously we've done a
lot of podcasts over several years and there's
a very long series dealing with the Holy Spirit
and the gifts of the Spirit. Now I have prayed
with many individuals to receive the baptism
of the Holy Spirit. Now before I pray for you,
I would like to kind of discuss how we prepare
ourselves to receive. It's the same way when
someone comes up front in church and I had someone
the other day come up to me and say I want to
be baptized with the Holy Spirit. I want that
in my prayer language. And I first talked to
them and I said some of these things to them
to prepare them to be sure that they were ready,
prepared to receive. They're not coming up saying,
well, I hope this happens or maybe it'll happen
or possibly it might happen. No, they're coming
forward to have someone agree with them in prayer
so that the baptism of the Holy Spirit will come
into their life and they'll have this beautiful,
powerful prayer language that is just between
them and God. And that when you pray in that
wonderful language, you'll be praying the divine
will of God. I know I said that before, but it's
so important to understand that. You're not praying
your will, and we're praying the divine will
of God. Now following, here's a list of things
that we can do or should do in order to prepare
ourselves to be able to receive this wonderful
gift. We want to read in the book of Acts chapters
one and two, how it happened in the early church
on the day of Pentecost, and what Jesus has promised
before he left. that in a few days the Holy Spirit
will come and he will baptize you. Well, then
all the, and it happened and we need to understand
that. So we need to read chapters one and chapter
two in the book of Acts to build our faith and
get ourselves prepared to receive. Number two,
we need to understand the Holy Spirit lives in
us. The word of God tells us that the Holy Spirit
lives and abides in us and we've got to believe
that and accept that. I know there's some days
I don't feel too much like the Holy Spirit's
living in me because I get a little wrapped up
in the flesh or get a little upset. or a little
bit anxious about something, but then the Holy
Spirit tells me I'm not to be anxious about anything.
I'm not supposed to get upset about anything.
I'm supposed to be at peace, and I can only be
that way through Him. And so we need to understand
that the Holy Spirit lives in us, and when I
focus on the Holy Spirit, all the other stuff
goes away. Anxiety leaves, any concerns about
things may happen or may not happen, health issues,
whatever they might be, they're removed because
the Holy Spirit comes to comfort. You see, our
bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. are
scriptural, and I don't have time in a 30 -minute
podcast to tell you all of these things, but
I'm going to give you an outline of what we all
need to do. The third thing that we need to do
is to pray to our Heavenly Father to fill us
with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And because
that shows that we have a desire for that, we
want it, we need it, we desire it. Number four,
it says we need to spend time with our pastor
or our spiritual mentor about how to receive.
this beautiful gift. Now obviously this depends
if our individual friends or our pastor believes
that the Holy Spirit is still baptizing today.
But it didn't say in the Word of God that he'll
only baptize until after Jesus, until shortly
after Jesus leaves and then it'll all stop. No,
he said that this will be a gift that we will
have, that Christians will have, and it's the
gift that he still has for all of us. So you've
got to find counsel and time with a pastor or
a spiritual mentor who understands the baptism
of the Holy Spirit they've received it themselves.
and they certainly understand it's alive and
well today. Here's a fifth thing I believe that
we should do to prepare ourselves to receive
anything from God to not only the baptism of
the Holy Spirit, but to experience the Holy Spirit
in just about any way. Begin all prayers with
praise and worship. I mentioned earlier that
when we go to church, the first thing we should
do is have praise and worship and submit our
prayers to God. And we need to do that before
we ask the Holy Spirit to help us in any area
of our life. Number five, begin our quest. for
experiencing more of the Holy Spirit with praise
and with worship. Number six, be still and wait
on the Holy Spirit. Now, the Bible says to be
still and know that I am God. Well, it applies
to the Holy Spirit because God the Holy Spirit
here lives on earth in us, in our bodies. God
the Father not only lives here in us, but he's
also in the heavenlies and Jesus is with him
and we don't have three gods. We have one God
in three parts, God the Father, God the Son and
God the Holy Spirit make up one. God but we need
to be still and wait on the Holy Spirit. Don't
get anxiety and get anxious. I've had people
I've prayed with in the past. I've had them up
front maybe or maybe in a in a classroom somewhere
and praying with them and they just want it right
now this very very second and some do receive
immediately and others it takes them a while.
Some people it takes sometimes days or weeks
or even months for people to receive but we've
got to have patience and wait upon the Lord and
be still and wait upon the Holy Spirit to baptize
us. If we do that, it renders us available to
God. We're surrendered. It's important that when
we're seeking the Holy Spirit that we reduce
our words that we speak in our primary language
like English or Spanish or whatever French or
whatever it is that you speak. I have to speak
of talk about the various languages around the
world because we've been blessed to have over
140 countries countries around the world have
downloaded these podcasts and so whatever your
language is you got to be able to stop speaking
in that direction and surrender to the language
that the whole Spirit will bring. Into you and
look what they did in the upper room They were
all together gathered in one one accord in one
purpose in unity and they were seeking the Holy
Spirit they were seeking the gifts that Jesus
said that he was going to send because they knew
they'd heard about the Holy Spirit coming and
they had the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of them
because they were born -again believers But now
they had another gift that was coming and they
were ready They were prepared and it didn't say
that they were all talking to each other in their
own dialects or languages It said they all all
of a sudden the power of God came and they were
baptized with various languages and it's just
beautiful. It's just beautiful. Verse, not verse,
but number seven I've written down here for ways
to be prepared to receive the baptism of the
Holy Spirit or any way to prepare ourselves to
experience more of the Holy Spirit in our life.
When the Holy Spirit works in our life, the following
things enter into our life. Think of this, peace,
love. Now if you're struggling with peace or
love, you need to stop. get that into your life.
We need to bring peace into our life before we
can receive and experience more of the Holy Spirit.
We've got to have love in our life. We can have
hatred and anger towards other people and expect
the Holy Spirit to come in and work in us and
operate on us and help us to experience more
of Him. But when He is surrendered to, then He
brings with Him peace. He brings love. He brings
hope. He brings joy. And He brings an expectation,
an expectation that something great is about
to happen. He brings the comfort of knowing that
we can be set free. He brings safety. He brings
protection. The Holy Spirit is a refuge. He's
our strength. He's our energy. He has wisdom
for us. He has knowledge for us on how to act
and how to react. He helps us to live closer
to God. I know a long list of things that he
can do, but quite frankly it's only a part. It's
not a complete list of all the things that the
Holy Spirit can do. I know when I've been diagnosed
with illnesses and incurable cancers and things
and I'm by myself in the hospital or here at
home or something and my wife is busy and I may
be taking a rest or a nap or something or just
lying down. If I just rest in the Lord, he brings
these things to me. He brings love. He brings
joy. He brings hope. He brings expectation. He
sets me free from the diagnosis from the doctor
and he brings safety and comfort and strength
and all those things he brings to me. That is
experiencing the Holy Spirit. and I want all
of us to experience the Holy Spirit in a greater
way than we have been and than we are experiencing
because there's always more that we can experience
and be blessed with. There's so many promises
of God that we haven't received yet in our life
and yet the Bible has thousands of promises that
God wants to give to his people and the Holy
Spirit brings those to us. Now to experience
all the Holy Spirit has available to us we must
allow him to have access to our heart and to
our mind. We've got to clear our thought life
out. We've got to stop thinking about past problems
or challenges or things that we struggle with
in sin or whatever it might be and dismiss those
things and don't think on those things and move
into the realm of cleansing our hearts and mind.
So the Holy Spirit will have access to our heart
and to our minds. We need to submit our conscience
to Him. Everything that we think about we need
to surrender to Him. We must get ready to receive
from him. You must never question whether he
will show up or not. We can't be in the middle
of surrendering and praising and worshiping and
wondering, well, God, are you hearing this? If
we do that, we've lost the whole purpose of trying
to enter into his presence. God says, if you
draw near to me, then I'll draw near to you.
His word tells us that. And so therefore, we
know what the word of God says. So therefore,
we don't have to question whether the Holy Spirit
will show up or not or whether he's listening.
I've had people tell me, you know, I pray. and
I pray and I don't know if God's listening. Well,
God is always listening. He's able to do that
because he's everywhere. He has all knowledge.
He's everywhere at all times of the day. He can
handle the seven and a half or eight billion
people on this planet if they all wanted to seek
him at once. All of them, all of us here on earth,
he can sort it all out. There's not a computer
that man has even begun to think about preparing
that could ever do anything like that, but God
is able to sort them all out and through the
spirit of God, who dwells in us, we're able to
communicate with God. Now, if you're not a Christian,
if you've not given your life to Christ, then
you have not received the Holy Spirit in you.
That's the first step in understanding what it
is to experience the Holy Spirit. So let me just
take a moment for those of you who maybe are
not sure if you're right with God or not, just
to pray this prayer. Heavenly Father, I need
a Savior. I need you in my life. I need the Holy
Spirit. I surrender to you. I'm sorry for the
sins that I've committed. I ask you to forgive
me and cleanse me of these sins. And I promise
to serve you. I give my life to you. I give my
heart to you. And I want everything that you
have for me. So I receive you now in Jesus' name.
I know that was kind of quick, but that can be
how simple it can be is to clear your mind of
sin and things that are bothering you. And then
take that first step to receive Jesus Christ.
Because when you do, the Holy Spirit comes to
live and dwell in you. And then we, you, can
receive. the experience of the Holy Spirit I'm
talking about. Let me ask for those who are Christians
and though the new Christians, maybe he just
prayed that, are we ready to receive him? Are
we saying to ourselves, okay I'm ready, I'm willing?
Are we willing to surrender our thoughts, our
mind to him and allow him to come in and fill
us? Are we ready to totally surrender to His
will? It's one thing to say that, it's another
thing to actually do it. You know, we can talk
about it, but we've got to learn how to do that
in order to receive the fullness of God's blessings.
Are we ready to receive the infilling of the
Holy Spirit? So now is the time to receive everything
that He desires for us. Not only the baptism
of the Holy Spirit, but to also receive all the
blessings of God. Are we ready to possess the
baptism of the Holy Spirit? If we are, we must
allow the Holy Spirit to take possession of our
life to come into us right now. So I want to
lead you in prayer for those who have never received
this wonderful, wonderful gift from God, and
that is the infilling of the Holy Spirit, the
baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence
of praying in your heavenly prayer language.
I pray, Father, that you would open up their
hearts, and Lord, that we would stop speaking
our own languages and surrender to you, and let
the words that come forth be Holy Spirit -led
words. We desire you, and we can say praise you,
and we thank you, and we glorify you, but we
need surrender our will our thoughts what's what
we're thinking and we're are being concerned
about what it's going to sound like and just
simply start praying in the Holy Spirit you can
just start saying the words Jesus and Jesus and
Jesus I need you I desire the gift that you promised
that we could have so I receive now that gift
so receive it now and begin to speak it can't
hear you I can't tell what's happening but I
do know that the power of the Holy Spirit is
going through this podcast right now and reaching
people's lives and touching them and helping
them so they'd be able to receive that gift that
God restored and has planned for them. And I
ask for this now in Jesus' name. Amen. My goodness,
time went fast on this podcast. Just so much
to cover. And we'll continue talking about the
Holy Spirit in upcoming podcasts. We're going
to be talking, continuing to talk in this area
of relationship with the Holy Spirit and experience
the Holy Spirit and what it means to have that
kind of a relationship and to how to have greater
prayers and prayer life, I should say, led by
the Holy Spirit. I'm really kind of tossed in
the next podcast to whether I'm going to talk
about the Holy Spirit in prayer, or the Holy
Spirit in the gifts, or the Holy Spirit in relationship,
but I'll just sort that out before I get to the
next podcast. But we'll continue in this vein,
and I believe God has something really powerful
lined up as we continue this study, this series
on the Holy Spirit. Well, I do thank you for
tuning in. I've got more to say. I hope you don't
check out right now. but I want you to listen
to these last few words that I have to say. If
you'd like to know more about Quality Christian
Living, that's the name of our podcast, and Quality
Christian Living was designed so that we could
help Christians understand what it was to live
a quality Christian life, not just get by, but
to live a wonderful life, an abundant life. Jesus
said he wants us to have life and have it more
abundantly. You can read that in John chapter
10 and verse 10. So I have a podcast, that's
what we call this podcast, this particular series
in the podcast of quality Christian living is
on the Holy Spirit. And if you'd like to know
more about our podcast, you can go to my webpage
at davidcfriendauthor .com. And when you get
there, the very front page has a link to the
podcast. Now earlier, I mentioned that I did
a series on the Holy Spirit, a series on the
gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit,
and all you have to do is go back and scroll
through those podcasts and you will see about
20 or more messages dealing with the gifts of
the Spirit. And I would love you to go back and
listen to those and tell your friends about that.
In addition to that, we have a series of messages
on having faith for miracles, what it is to have
greater faith, what it means to be able to receive
God's plan and purpose for our life. Just a plethora
of topics. I even talk about finances and how
to be out of debt because of my background as
a banker for many years. So I hope that you would
do that and scroll down the list of podcasts
and let other people know that they're available
if they're needing help in certain areas of their
life. If you'd like to subscribe to my podcast,
you can do that. that by going to cpnshows .com
or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Before
I close this podcast, I felt the Holy Spirit
leading me to go look at the titles of the topics
that he's given me for future podcasts. We're
going to have a podcast on the Holy Spirit -led
prayers, the Holy Spirit defeats anxiety, fear
and oppression, the anointing of the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Spirit blesses us and on and on and
on are topics that the Lord has given me to bring
in this series of podcasts. So I thank the Lord
for that. Well, I want to thank you for listening
and I hope you've been blessed by it. As a matter
of fact, if you enjoyed this podcast, please
take a moment and rate and review the podcast.
It really helps us to reach out to more people.
You can leave a review on Apple podcasts, on
Amazon Music and Charisma Podcast Network, any
one of them, or give us a star rating on Spotify.
However you choose to support us, we certainly
appreciate that. So once again, I want to thank
you for listening in and I'm looking forward
to the next podcast. coming up, whatever the
Holy Spirit leads us to focus on. So I'd like
to close with a blessing for you. May the Lord
bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon
you. May he be gracious to you. and give you
peace. May you prosper and be in good health,
even as your soul prospers. So until next time,
I pray that God will richly bless you, that you
will experience, that all of us will experience
in a greater way the Holy Spirit in our life.
That we'll learn how to experience the Holy Spirit
each and every day, regardless of what we're
going through, the good, the bad, whatever it
might be, and to God be the glory, and to God
be all the honor and praise. I want to thank
you all for listening into Quality Christian
Living. I have been your host David Friend. I
thank you so much for being a part of this. I
look forward to seeing you next time we discover
another topic on the Holy Spirit. Thank you again.
God bless you.