I've Got The Power!

I pray you all had a great Easter celebrating our resurrected Savior! I attended a college/young adult ministry Sunday night and it was beyond powerful. I loved that instead of going "big" because it was Easter, they scaled it all back. No fancy lights. No loud, rocking band. Just the worship leader and his keyboard. They explained God had put it on their hearts that there is nothing we can do in our flesh that could outdo what Jesus did for us and they wanted their focus on Sunday to be only on Him. The message preached that night is what I want to share with you now.

Throughout much of the church the power of the Holy Spirit is denied. This is a topic that can become controversial, even within the church body. However, according to scripture, the power of the Holy Spirit CANNOT be denied. The primary reason the devil is winning the war in society is because too many believers never reach their full potential in the spirit realm. Jesus did not die for a weak, powerless church. Jesus left in order to send the power of the Holy Spirit to us! How dare we not accept all that Jesus died to give us! Yes, He sacrificed Himself in order to redeem us from our sins, but He also died in order to send the power He had to each of us.

"These things I have spoken to you, while abiding with you. "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you." John 14:26

Have you ever had someone speak a word to you and wonder how they could have known exactly what to say? That's the Holy Spirit operating in their lives!
""for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say." Luke 12:12

Maybe you have heard people praying in tongues and found it weird and disagree that it's biblical. Many denominations preach against it! However...
"And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;"  Romans 8:26 and ""And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance."  Acts 2:4

There are numerous more scriptures I could use here to illustrate the biblical references to the Holy Spirit. The verses in Matthew 12:32 give us a warning to having any argument against the Spirit:

"And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come."

Ouch! That sounds pretty serious to me! If the power of the Holy Spirit is not something you have ever experienced, I challenge you to seek out this power! As Pastor Tyson said Sunday night, do people know you are a Christian simply by all the things you don't do? You don't go to that place, watch that show on television, listen to that music, or drink alcohol? Or are you known as a Christian because of the POWER of God in your life? When you have the Holy Spirit inside of you, others will see it! You will walk past a stranger and recognize a need that only the Holy Spirit can discern to you. There is nothing weird about God's word. Don't go another day living in LESS than all Jesus died to give you!