Welcome once again to the Quality Christian Living
podcast. I am your host, David Friend. Our series
on the Holy Spirit seems to be gaining momentum.
People are enjoying it and encouraging me to
continue to stay on this topic. So we're going
to stay there for as long as the Holy Spirit
leads us. You know, the purpose of the Holy Spirit
is to help believers and help non -believers
become believers. Now, what are some of the ministries
of the Holy Spirit? We talk about that and how
can the Holy Spirit minister to us and and the
fact is he that he also helps us to do God's
will he's got a great assignment an incredible
job you imagine having his job having to do what
he needs to do is to keep Christians on track
with God's will so today we're going to talk
about the Holy Spirit and our will so let's just
pray and ask for God's direction Heavenly Father
we love you we need you we desire your help I
ask the Holy Spirit now to come in and direct
this podcast it's a very important one Lord as
you well know that the Holy Spirit is always
dealing with the will of man. So I pray that
you would help us to understand your will and
your direction in all that we do. I pray you
would bless those who are listening in today,
that you would touch them and help them to understand
that God's will is always best and that the Holy
Spirit is there to help us, each and every one
of us, to know God's will and to do his will
and then reap the rewards of doing that will.
So Father, we ask your blessing now, your anointing.
Holy Spirit, do what only you can do, I pray,
in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, as I've mentioned
in previous podcasts, the Holy Spirit prays for
us. He prays for us to do God's will. He prays
exactly what we need and He's our intercessor.
He is our connector with God the Father. The
Holy Spirit has a purpose to help believers and
to draw non -believers to Jesus. You know, that's
really His primary focus is to minister to us
and help us because Jesus said when He left this
earth, He says, I'm going to be leaving I have
to go and it's better that I go because then
the Holy Spirit will come and He will comfort
you and He'll be with you and He'll direct you.
The Holy Spirit tries to direct us to do God's
will. I use the word tries because, you know,
our will can overshadow the will of the Holy
Spirit. And that means that we do what we want,
when we want to do it and how we want to do it
and why we want to do it and to whom ever we
want to do it to. And that's not following God's
will. And so the Holy Spirit can only attempt
and try to direct us to do God's will. and that
is his job, that's his assignment. And we then
need to understand that our will has to be secondary
to God's will, always in every situation. The
Holy Spirit wants us to be delighted in doing
God's will. I'm going to talk about that a little
bit more in a moment, but think about that. Be
delighted. Not, oh, God, I know your will, and
oh, I don't know how that's going to happen,
and oh, I don't think I can do that. And we do
make all those statements when we know what God's
will is. In my own life, I've had times when
I was in ministry, and I wanted to get out of
ministry. And I knew it was God's will that I
stayed in ministry, but I went ahead and stepped
out of it anyways. And I struggled. I mean, I
had a very difficult couple of years until I
jumped back into doing the will that God had
placed for me in my life. And so we need to be
directed and we need to be delighted. We need
to receive it and take it into our heart and
our mind, our soul, and make sure that our spirit
is in total agreement with God's spirit. And
so therefore, we need to be delighted I'll talk
more about that in just a second. Now, the Holy
Spirit does that. He wants us to be delighted
because our will may be at odds with God's will.
Matter of fact, many times it is. Even Jesus
had a brief moment of wanting to do his will.
You remember back in the Garden of Gethsemane
where Jesus did not want God's will for the crucifixion,
but he quickly changed and said this in Luke
chapter 22 verse 22 in the New International
Version. Here's what Jesus said, Father, if you
are willing, take this cup. Now, another translation
says, Father, if you are willing, take this cup
of suffering away from me. That's the cup he's
talking about, and that suffering is the crucifixion
that's coming up and the humiliation and God
deserting Jesus here on earth. So, in Luke 22,
42 in the NIV, when Jesus said, Father, if you
are willing, take this cup from me, he says,
yet, but here's a big word, the biggest word
that we can have many times in our life, yet,
not my will, yours be done and it must be done
so it's important that we understand that yet
that yet is our will wanting to fight God's will
and that's a battle that takes place in most
of our lives just about every day there's something
that we are thinking about that God gets us off
and tells us that's not right don't think that
way go in a different direction that's following
God's will just those little thoughts that we
have in our mind when all of a sudden we get
upset with someone someone says something to
us that we don't appreciate and we want to say
something back well it's God's will that We don't
get even with people or judge people or get angry
with people. We just simply should move forward
and pray for that person who has given us a difficult
time. See, the key word in that scripture in
Luke 22 is yet. We need to say, however, our
yet, not my will be done, but your will be done
in every single area of our life. And I'm not
saying that's easy. I'm not saying that's easy
at all. It can become very difficult, especially
when someone that you care for, that you love,
hurts you. They do something against you. And
our natural response is, in our own flesh, is
to want to get even, or want to say something
back, or want to make a quick statement. But
I've discovered over the years of being a follower
of Jesus Christ, and especially as a pastor for
over 20 years, that I've got to understand that
people don't always say what they mean. People
don't say things that really is a good description
of who they are. They might say that in anger,
or in frustration, or wherever it might be. And
they're outside of God's will, and we just to
pray for them and love on them and care for them
and help them get them back in. You know getting
into an argument with someone is really most
the time just kind of a waste of time. We just
simply when someone disagrees with us we need
to pray for them. Bible says pray for those who
persecute you, who come up against you, who charge
many things against you. That's just a powerful
statement that we need to learn in order to do
that we've got to submit to the Holy Spirit,
yield to Him and ask Him to know exactly what
we should do and what God's will is in each situation
that we have. Now, I love to use the word delight
when thinking about doing God's will. I mentioned
this earlier just a little bit, but let's go
a little bit more into this. I think it's so
important to understand that word delight. We
must delight ourselves in God's will. Delight
ourselves in what He wants us to do. Delight
ourselves in His goal for us. Delight ourselves
in what the Holy Spirit tells us to do. the unctioning,
if you will, the moving of the Holy Spirit, that
still quiet voice inside of us that tells us
what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and
be delighted in that, and be happy to do it,
even though it may be something we don't quite
understand. Now in Psalm, chapter 40, verse 8,
in the New American Standard Version, the psalmist
said this, I delight to do your will, oh my God.
Now that's simply as direct as you possibly can
be. I delight to do your will. And that's where
we need to get in order to understand how to
be led by the Holy Spirit to know God's will
in our life and to run from our will or our thoughts.
Now that doesn't mean that we don't have good
ideas and good thoughts, but anything I believe
that's good, any good thought or idea or plan
that comes into our mind, we need to give God
credit for that. We need to thank the Holy Spirit
for that. I don't like to take credit for anything
anymore. If I preach a sermon and someone says,
oh, that was a great message. I don't want to
say, yeah, well, I put 20 hours in putting it
together, worked hard on it. No, that's not giving
God the glory. But when someone says, that was
a great message or I enjoyed that podcast, I've
got to immediately tell them the Holy Spirit
is doing something wonderful and I thank Him
for giving me what He gave me. for this particular
podcast or that particular message that I may
have spoken. Here's another wonderful scripture
found in the book of Psalms in Psalm 37 verse
4 in the New Living Translation. Take delight
in the Lord and he will give you your heart's
desires. Well, look at that. What a wonderful
scripture that is. Take delight in him. Once
again, that word delight jumps into us. The sad
thing is that we sometimes want to delight in
ourselves or delight in our desires and not delight
ourselves in the Lord. Let me make that a little
clearer. Psalm 37 -4 says this. take delight
in the Lord and he will give you your heart's
desires. He is not saying take delight in our
desires, but many times, I know we're human and
we have fleshly thoughts and ideas, many times
we delight in our thoughts. We delight in what
we want to do. We delight in that new car. We
delight in that new house. We delight in maybe
having new friendships. We need to delight ourselves
in the Lord and then he will give us our heart's
desire. We can't delight in our desires. We've
got to delight ourselves. in God and following
his will in our life. To delight in God, really,
and to delight in his will is having trust in
God. We need to trust the Lord with all of our
heart. We need to not lean on our own understanding.
We need to acknowledge him in all ways and he
will direct our path. That's Proverb 3 .5, one
of my absolute favorites and I know that's a
very important scripture for all of us to truly
understand to do God's will and not our will.
The Apostle Paul wrote an amazing scripture dealing
with seeking God's will. Really a very powerful
scripture. When I first read it, you might think,
well, that doesn't really apply to this podcast,
but think about it. The podcast is dealing with
the Holy Spirit and our will, knowing that the
Holy Spirit is helping us with our will to make
it become God's will. And the transition, Paul
talks about that and he doesn't use exact words
but listen to what he says in in Philippians
chapter 3 verse 7 and 8 in the new international
version I'm gonna read it a little bit slower
because I want you to savor it as I'm reading
it to you but whatever were gains to me. That's
what he's saying. Anything that was good in my
life, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
What he's saying is, anything that I did before
coming to know Christ wasn't all that important.
He says in verse 8, what is more, I consider
everything a loss because of the surpassing worth
of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake
I have lost all things. That basically he's saying
anything that I want to do, desire to do, my
will, if it was contrary to God's will. I consider
them garbage that I may gain Christ." So here
he's saying that if things are not God's will,
then it's garbage. It literally is something
that we should not allow to happen in our life.
Now that's strong, but it's really wonderful.
So I would encourage you maybe to go back and
listen to this portion of the podcast again.
Read that scripture again, because Paul is basically
giving us an understanding of the difference
between knowing his will and knowing God's will.
Before he came to know Jesus Christ as Lord and
Savior, everything he did was his will, and it
didn't turn out very well for him. And after
he came to know Jesus Christ, so he says everything
that was done before this, it really wasn't worth
anything. He even likes to use the word, well
the translation uses the word garbage, and the
bottom line of it is that it was worthless. Everything
that he did before following the divine will
of God was worthless. Now that doesn't mean that
we didn't do something good in our life, that
we didn't have times in our life where things
were decent and peaceful, but if we truly want
to have the surpassing worth of Knowledge that
Paul talks about it the amazing unlimited power
of God in our life and the anointing of the Holy
Spirit in our life We've got to shun our will
and receive God's will and we find that will
through the leading and guidance in the direction
of the Holy Spirit I believe all that Paul was
talking about there was that God's will is what
Paul wanted He didn't want his own will in his
life from that day forward now in order to know
and do God's will we must deny self obviously
Self is an enemy of God flesh is an enemy of
God in order to know God's will we must Submit
ourselves and surrender ourselves and surrender
our will to the Holy Spirit in 1st Peter chapter
1 verses 14 through 16 I'm gonna read this out
of the Bible in a new living translation. Let's
listen to these words very carefully So you must
live as God's obedient children Don't slip back
into your old ways of living to satisfy your
own desires. You didn't know any better than
But you must be holy in everything you do, just
as God who chose you is holy. For the scripture
says this in verse 16, you must be holy because
I am holy. So what God is telling us through
his word, what the Holy Spirit is giving Peter
to write, is give us instructions about don't
go back and slip back into our old ways of living
to satisfy the desires of our flesh. That is
not God's will for our life. Peter delighted
in God's will. Once he understood the difference
between his will and God's will. He delighted
in it. Peter desired God's will and he wanted
the Holy Spirit to direct him. See, all believers
are called to live a godly life and to follow
God's will, but there's a battle. It goes on
constantly. It is impossible to know God's will
without following the Holy Spirit's direction
in our life. Let me repeat that. That is so important
for each and every one of us. It is absolutely
impossible to know God's will without following
the Holy Spirit's direction. Now, how does the
Holy Spirit talk to us? That's still a quiet
voice I've talked about many, many times. The
Bible talks about it. That's still a quiet voice
that tells us the direction we're on isn't correct,
or we're making the wrong decision or saying
the wrong words, and that the Holy Spirit is
speaking to our spirit and telling us how to
take the right steps and go in the right direction.
The Holy Spirit can speak to us through the Word
of God, through a sermon, through a friend speaking
to us about something, but the Holy Spirit has
many ways that He can instruct us in God's will
and keep us focused on God's will and desiring
His will in our life. We can live a holy life
if we walk in the Spirit. That doesn't mean that
we are super righteous people. No, there's none
righteous. No, not one. And the only righteousness
that we would ever have is the righteousness
of Christ that lives and dwells inside of each
and every one of us. We can live, though, a good
life, a holy life, a godly life, a righteous
life, if we walk in the Spirit. Following the
Spirit is the only way to know God's will. I
think I've said that a couple times now, but
that's so important that the only way to know
God's will is to follow the Holy Spirit. It is
only possible to live a holy life life if we
do not try to be holy. You see, our efforts many
times are pretty weak, pretty pitiful. Our ways
are below what God's ways are. The Bible tells
us that God's ways are greater than ours, his
thoughts are greater than ours, so we want to
have his thoughts, and we want to know his ways,
and we want to know his plans. But we've got
to try and stop trying to be holy. We can't do
that because that's self. trying to become spiritual,
and that doesn't work. And so therefore we give
up, we surrender, we deny ourself. Trying is
our flesh, and our flesh is an enemy of God.
So therefore, stop trying and start believing.
Start trusting by faith, claiming God's word,
claiming the promises of God, and ask the Holy
Spirit to guide and direct us in each and everything
we do in our life. Now following. are a few scriptures
I believe that should help followers of God's
will. Those who really want God's will, who delight
in God's will, they have a desire, they want
to do everything God wants them to do. And I
was talking to somebody the other day, we were
chatting about knowing God's will and not knowing
God's will, and this person said, you know, all
I really want in life, for the rest of my life,
is to follow God's will, to do what he wants
me to do. He said, because when I follow God's
will, then I'm at peace and I have a joyful life.
But when I get back into my own will, and start
doing what I want to do and don't listen to the
Holy Spirit, then I become miserable, become
sad, I became frustrated, even get discouraged
and even depressed. And he said, but when I get
out of that and I walk in the power and presence
of the Holy Spirit and have a desire to delight
myself in God's will, regardless of what it is,
if I keep my delight on Him, He'll give me the
desires of my heart. It was a really wonderful
conversation that I had and the timing was very
appropriate for this week. on this particular
series on in this podcast so let me just give
you a couple scriptures I think that'll help
us to follow God's will in Matthew chapter 6
verse 33 it's one of the oldest scriptures I
remember in the very early part of becoming a
Christian somebody taught on this one in Matthew
6 33 I'm reading it out of the New International
Version but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness
and all these things will be given to you as
well you see Jesus wants us to understand that's
what we have to do first is seek God's will and
then He'll bless us. The scripture that I just
read is found in the book of Matthew chapter
6, like I mentioned, and Jesus is giving instructions
on teaching about money and possessions and what
we need and how he's there to take care of us.
He says in verse 31, so don't worry about these
things, the things being how you dress and your
finances and all that good stuff. Don't worry
about them, saying what we eat and what will
we drink and what will we wear. He says, these
things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers,
but your heavenly father already knows all your
needs. And then he said the powerful words I
read earlier in... Matthew chapter 6 verse 33
Jesus said this seek the kingdom of God above
all else there you go that's key above all else
and live righteously and he will give you everything
that you need now that is one of the most powerful
scriptures that will probably ever try to live
up to and that is to seek first God in all things
seek ye first the kingdom of God and when we
do that then whatever we need God's going to
supply it according to his riches not ours or
not the riches of some relative, but the riches
that God has for each and every one of us. And
I'm not talking just finances, I'm talking about
the richness of knowing His will and living the
life He wants us to live. things that Jesus is
talking about here are material things, possessions
and food and shelter and clothes and it's even
following God's will. He says in all things we're
to seek God first and seek his kingdom first.
All right, let's move on. Another scripture I
think that helps us with understanding how to
get out of our will and follow the will of the
Holy Spirit is found in Psalm 37 -4 in the New
International Version. Listen to this, take delight
in the Lord and he will give you desires of your
heart. Now I threw that in a second time. because
I think that is a big issue with a lot of people
and struggling to know God's will. They want
to delight in what they think they should delight
in rather than delighting in the Lord and then
trusting God that then he will give us the desires
that we have. All right, I'll move on. Psalm
37 .5 in New International Version. Commit your
way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will do
this. Okay, that was remember 37 .4 said, take
delight in the Lord and he'll give you the desires
of your heart. Then 37 verse five says, commit,
follow up, you gotta commit. That means absolute
commitment, total sold out to God. Commit your
way, whatever you do, whatever we think, whichever
direction we wanna go. Commit your way, your
job, your marriage, your finances, your parenting,
the things that are in your life. We've gotta
commit them and commit our ways to the Lord.
Trust in him, all right? And he will do this.
He will give us the desires of our heart. As
a matter of fact, our desires will become the
desires that God places in our heart. I can remember
as a young man, I always wanted to have fancy
cars and when I first got married, I had a little
problem with buying a car and I'd like it for
a year and then I'd sell it and get another car
and drive it for a year and get another car.
And that's really foolish. Financially, I've
talked about it in my books on finance, that
you should never buy a new car every year and
replace it because you take a beating financially
on it. It's best to buy a three -year -old car
every three years and you'll wind up doing much
better as far as far better than throwing away
a lot of money and I had a real problem with
that because I was seeking the desires of my
heart according to my will according to how I
want to do it then I became a Christian some
five years later and all of a sudden cars were
nice and all that stuff I thought still thought
they were fun but they became far less important
in my life and all of a sudden I started making
better decisions on automobiles I would buy old
cars used cars and wear them out until they literally
about tires about ready to fall off of them and
then get rid of that one and get another one
and I was able to then with those funds I wasn't
spending or wasn't losing I was able to do have
a nicer home for our family to live in able to
give more finances to the Lord able to start
tithing all those things changed because the
desires of my heart changed and it was because
the Holy Spirit taught me to delight myself in
him and he'll even change my desires so that's
a little bonus something that I thought I would
throw in there because some people struggle understanding
the difference between God's will and our desires.
All right, let's move on again here. This is
Romans number 8 verse 6 in the New Living Translation.
So letting your sinful nature control your mind
leads to death. That means spiritual death. But
letting the Spirit control your mind leads to
life and power. So therefore, once again, we
go back to the Holy Spirit. He's the one that
has to lead us. He's the one that has to direct
us. He's the one that has to guide our thoughts,
our plans, and he will help us to follow God's
will for us in our life. The Holy Spirit brings
a Greater life. Life. That life brings peace
and joy and trust in God. It's so important that
we take this teaching and understand that all
that we've done in our life, it's not all garbage.
You just don't throw everything away. Paul, when
he meant garbage, he was saying things that I
was doing on my own didn't turn out very well.
But it's important for us to understand that
we can do nice things and good things, but we
can go better than that as a Christian. As a
follower of Jesus Christ, we can do great things.
Jesus said when he left, he says, greater things
will you do than I've done. And the only reason
he said that to them was because they were followers
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if they were all
ungodly people and doing their will and their
desires, he would tell them, you're going to
fail. You're not going to prosper. But he knew
because they were followers of the Lord Jesus
Christ, they would surrender their lives to him
and seek God's will and not their will. And that's
my prayer for each and every one of us today.
So let's start closing this podcast out by giving
you a prayer and just believing that God will
help each and every one of us to follow the will
of the Holy Spirit, which is God's will. Heavenly
Father, thank you, Lord. Once again, for another
podcast where you've guided our thoughts, directed
us, helped us with the scriptures to explain
what they mean in relationship to this topic,
I pray blessing on all those who are listening
in, who are struggling with understanding God's
will or knowing God's will. Father, I pray that
you would comfort them, Lord, that they would
not beat themselves up from the mistakes that
they've made in the past because you've forgiven
them those. All of us, each and every one of
us who have made mistakes when we repent of our
sins and ask Jesus Christ to become our Lord
and Savior and turn from those Ways and turn
our lives to God and receive him as our Lord
and Savior, then he forgives us and gives us
a new life, a new path, a new plan, and a new
purpose in our life. So I pray blessing upon
each and every person listening here today that
the will of God through the Holy Spirit would
reign supreme in all of our lives. Help each
one of us, Father, to do your will, to seek your
will, to delight ourselves in your will. Thank
you for that, Father. Thank you for guiding us
through this podcast, and I'll be careful to
give you praise and glory for it. In Jesus' name
I pray, Amen. Well, I hope this has been interesting
to you. I hope it's been a blessing to you. I
thoroughly enjoy this entire series on the Holy
Spirit. It's just been wonderful. I can tell
that people are loving it because the number
of people listening in is increasing consistently.
And you've inspired me, Lord, to help me to put
a book together dealing with understanding our
relationship and listening to the Holy Spirit.
So something very special has taken place. So
I pray that you would continue to bless it. Our
next podcast that we're going to move into is
simply entitled More of the Holy Spirit. Now
some people might say, well haven't we already
covered it all? No, not by a long shot. We could
do podcasts on the Holy Spirit for the next 50
years of my life and I can tell you that we would
never be able to complete. all that the Holy
Spirit has for each and every one of us. Now
I'm not saying we're going to be doing this for
the next 10 years, but I do want you to understand
that I want to be led by the Holy Spirit as to
know how long we continue and when we should
move on to a different topic. Quality Christian
Living is a podcast designed to help Christians
live a quality life, quality Christian life.
If you'd like to know more about Quality Christian
Living, you can go to my webpage at davidcfriendauthor
.com. And when you go to my webpage and pull
it up, the front page right there will have a
link. that says. podcasts and it tells you just
click that link and you'll open up to some 350
today I think is the 350 first podcast in about
four and a half years and so the Lord has blessed
it every week we bring a new message and sometimes
two or three messages in a week but it's important
that we understand that the Holy Spirit needs
to guide us and direct us in every area of our
life and so that's what quality Christian living
is about when you click that link on you'll look
at the be able to see the podcast and then choose
what areas you'd like to have maybe a little
bit of with, areas on finance, areas on veterans
and how they deal with life because I've served
in the military. There's podcast series on there
on the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit,
the power gifts of the Holy Spirit, walking in
the Spirit. There's series on having faith and
understanding what miracles are and how to have
faith for miracles. Just a plethora of topics.
I hope that'll be a blessing to you. In addition
to that, if you'd like to subscribe to my podcast,
you can do that by going to cpnshows .com or
wherever you listen to your podcast. So I just
want to ask you a little favor if I can right
now. If you've enjoyed this I want to thank you
for listening and if you've enjoyed this podcast
I'd like you to take a moment to rate and review
the podcast. It really helps us reach out to
more people. You can leave a review on Apple
Podcasts, Amazon Music, Charisma Podcast Network
or just give us a star rating on Spotify. Now
however you choose to support us we certainly
appreciate it and thank the Lord for that. Well
I pray that you'll continue to stay with us as
we continue this series on the Holy Spirit but
before we close I just want to give you a blessing
and just say another little prayer for you. Heavenly
Father I pray Lord that you would bless those
who are listening in that you would keep them
and that your face would shine upon them and
that you would be gracious to them Father and
that you would give them peace and Father I pray
that you would prosper them in all things and
that they would be in good health and that their
soul would prosper I believe for that for them
and I pray for those who are seeking more of
the Holy Spirit that they would Tune in next
week for that podcast to help each and every
one of us desire more and delight ourselves in
knowing more about the Holy Spirit and operating
our life being led by the Spirit of the Living
God. I thank you for it now and I'll give you
praise for it. Bless those who are listening
and those who prayed that prayer in the middle
towards the end where I told them to give their
life to Jesus Christ. If they repented their
sins and invited Jesus into their life, I pray
they'd find a good church, Lord. Get the word
of God out and read it and find a church that
will preach the gospel message. and let the new
pastor there know that they just became followers
of Jesus Christ and they want to know how to
serve him in a greater way. Bless and keep them,
I pray now, in Jesus' name. Well, once again,
I hope that you enjoyed this podcast. I pray
that God would richly bless you. I pray that
you would receive a great anointing from the
Holy Spirit to move stronger and closer to the
walk of God that you desire. I pray that you
would delight yourself in the Lord and then he
would give you the desires of your heart. Bless
and keep everyone, I pray. Thank you once again
for listening to Quality Christian Living. I
am your host, David Friend. Thank you for being
a part of this podcast. May God richly bless
you.