The Supernatural The Holy Spirit working in our lives

Joyce. There’s some sort of need or interest in people about the supernatural. So, I would love for us to talk today about the supernatural. Uh huh. Is that something that you had an interest in at any point in your life? Well, I think that I was hungry for the supernatural. I don’t know that we always know what it is that we’re hungry for. And supernatural doesn’t mean weird spooky. You’re not talking about fortune tellers and things like that. God does things that are beyond the natural, what I call it is super dash natural. Well, let me ask you about that though, because yes, that that’s who God is. But sometimes that interest takes people to that other side of what you’re talking about. Well, yeah, I was because I was hungry for the supernatural for to see some of the things that we see, jesus did in the new testament. You know, the healings though, casting out of demons. The the things that that paul talked about speaking in tongues, the just the miracles that they saw and you know, you hear all kinds of things well, that went away with the early church and you know, it’s amazing the things that we believe without even checking them out for ourselves. But because I was hungry and I wasn’t getting what I needed from the church, the enemy stepped in and tried to bring some deception into my life. I was working with a girl that was very much into astrology, not astronomy, the study of the stars, but charting her life by the stars. And I know there lot of people, a lot of people are that do that, but it’s against the word of God, there’s nowhere in the bible that it tells us to plan our future based on the stars. I mean, God wants us to come to him for advice, not not the stars and but I mean she just lived her whole life by that. I mean she didn’t even get a haircut unless the stars lined up. And so she wanted to do my astrology chart, which I didn’t even know what that meant. But I was starting to get interested when thankfully God interrupted the enemy’s plan and he touched my life and this was back in the 70s, there was a a great outpouring of revival type. Outpouring of the Holy Spirit all across the earth, not just one denomination, but it couldn’t be denied because it was everywhere and people were being touched by God, filled with the spirit baptized in the Holy Spirit. However, you want to put it different people talk about it in different ways. I always, my my thought is is that when you’re born again, you receive the Holy Spirit, you can’t, you know, you’re baptized into the body of christ by the Holy Spirit. You can’t receive jesus and not receive the Holy Spirit because They’re all 11 God three persons and which is supernatural and it’s yeah, yeah, you can’t figure that one out. And so um supernatural, I think just basically means it’s things beyond what a natural person could do and we were just we were so hungry for those things and God touched my life for that you want to say he filled me or baptized me, but I think that we receive the Holy Spirit or were baptized in the spirit when we’re born again, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re filled with something and the way that I like to say it is you can have the Holy Spirit, but does he have you? And so I’d like to read this scripture, God brought this to my mind this morning and I had them printed out for me Romans 12 1 in the amplified. I appeal to you therefore brethren and I beg of you in view of all the mercies of God to make a decisive dedication of your bodies. Now, that’s something I have to do. Have to make a decision that I’m going to dedicate everything about me to God, not just 45 minutes or an hour on Sunday morning or not just praying a desperate prayer when I need help but that I’m going to live for Jesus and for his glory. And so I just have to get bold enough to say to our viewers, are you doing that is jesus a sideline in your life or is he the main line in your life paul said for me to live is christ to die is gain and in him I live and move and have my being and so I wonder sometimes in the church world today if people are being taught strong enough messages about dedication and surrendering your life to God and living for him and using your will to choose his will and not just always trying to get God to do what you want, but I love the amplified because it breaks it down. It says presenting all your members and faculties. So what is that? My mind, my mouth, my thoughts, my attitude, my finances, my talents, whatever any area of my life that I’m holding back from God is one that the Holy Spirit can’t fill. And so um I was just actually reading a book and I am in the middle of reading a book by Billy Graham and I’m I’m actually reading several books right now, not all at the same time, but I have several books on the Holy Spirit. I just, I I feel like we need a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit and I want to stay as full of the spirit as I can and and from my anointing on my life to be as strong as it possibly can be. And so I think that to study in the area that you want help in is very wise. But Billy Graham said that you know he believes that you’re baptized by the spirit when you’re born again into the body of christ but that there are fillings and many fillings because the bible says to stay filled with the Holy Spirit. And there were many times even after the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell on 120 that waited in the upper room when they would be filled with the Holy Spirit. You know, back in the old testament, the Holy Spirit would come on people for certain tasks or jobs that God gave them to do. But he didn’t live in them. My gosh, we’ve got it so much better because jesus said you’re gonna be better when I go away because if I don’t, then the Holy Spirit can’t come. And he has been with you, but he will be in you. So the Holy Spirit, which is already supernatural. How do you think about that lives in us? And how do you, how do you even, how do you work that out in your head? You know? But God’s spirit dwells in us. And we are our greatest goal should be to be led and guided by the Holy Spirit. God’s not calling us to run our own lives. Yes. We have free choice. He doesn’t want a bunch of robots that have no choice but to do what he wants. But he wants us to surrender our will and to do what we know we should do, not be saying, well, I know I shouldn’t do this. But and how many times do we say that? Well, I know I shouldn’t do this. But I know I shouldn’t probably see this movie, but I know I shouldn’t eat this, but I know I should exercise, but you know, and the Holy Spirit. Yeah, I know I should apologize, but well, if you’re following the Holy Spirit, then you’re not going to do what you want to do because you’ve already dedicated all these parts of yourself to him. And that’s when life can really, really, really get good. And it goes on to say be devoted and consecrated and live a life that’s well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable rational intelligence service and spiritual worship. So he’s saying it’s not unreasonable for me to ask you to dedicate every single part of yourself and your life to me. Now, Gee, we could stop right there and just have a 10 part series because how many people right now, I mean, is your entertainment devoted to God? Are your friendships devoted to God? Uh is your conversation devoted to God? Are you know, are your thoughts devoted to God? How quick do we obey God when we know he’s asking us to do something? Or do we need 25 confirmations? And, you know, other things? And paul talks about the gifts of the spirit. There are supernatural gifts of the spirit that are available to us. And the bible even tells us to covet them and cover it is a strong word that almost means like, like to lust after. I mean he wants us to really want the supernatural endowments of power, which is what it is, who wouldn’t want that. You know, I want to be filled with the spirit because that enables me to do what I do with these. My goodness. I couldn’t imagine trying to do what we’re doing. And I know people probably don’t understand this, but when we get in here to do stuff like this, I don’t know ahead of time. I mean I know what we’re going to talk about, but I don’t have a plan. I don’t have a message put together. I’m trusting God to supernaturally bring out of me the right answers and to bring out of me what people that are watching need Well, I don’t know who’s watching, but God does and he can answer questions for them that I wouldn’t even know how to answer. So we need to be filled and and refilled. I always say the world can suck everything out of you in one day. So I think even to pray every morning, God fill me with your spirit, fill me. I wanna be full completely full of the Holy Spirit. So maybe there are people watching that have never asked God to fill them with the spirit. And I suggest that you start there and then ask God to give you and to use you in the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. And there’s many gifts. Teaching is a gift organization is a gift business is a gift giving is a gift. There’s a lot of different kinds of gifts. But paul talks about what I would call some of these more supernatural gifts. And he says to each one, so that means everyone is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. So there for the good and the Prophet of all. They’re not to show out or to say, look what I can do, but but they’re for the good of all. And I don’t think the gifts of the spirit are given just so somebody can show out in a church service. I think that you know, obviously the gifts can function in a church service, but I think that they’re more for our everyday ordinary life. So this natural life becomes a super natural life to one is given through the spirit. The utterance of wisdom are a word of wisdom to another, a word of knowledge by the same spirit. It’s one spirit, but he functions in different ways. So let’s talk about a word of knowledge. I believe that I have that function in my life all the time. And I’m sure you’ve experienced this. I can’t I’ve misplaced something. I don’t know where it’s at and I’m frantically trying to find it in the house while I’ve learned now to stop and say Holy Spirit, would you show me where that’s at and I can’t even tell you how many times I’ll get like a picture in my mind of where that thing is and go and it’s right. There are are word of wisdom, knowing what you should do in a situation when there’s no real natural, you don’t have any natural information, but you just know what God wants you to do. And so that knowing is a supernatural gift from God. And that’s most of the time how God speaks to us through just knowing to another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing. Well, what, what is this gift of faith? We all have faith to every man is given a measure of faith. The bible says, so what then is the gift of faith? Well, that’s to have faith beyond reason. Faith that you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to have supernatural supernatural faith. I never really got it until a friend of mine one time we’re talking about the ministry and uh, I mean, this thing that God has done through us. It’s totally impossible in the natural. I mean, I don’t even know how to tell people how impossible it is. You know, I had no training to do this no schooling to do this. I’ve never taken one class in public speaking. I didn’t even do that good in english when I was in school. And yet I’m speaking to people all over the world through television and all these other different things every day. and we didn’t have a lot of training and leadership or Our management and yet we have almost 500 people working for us and several different foreign offices and it’s God, see when you open yourself up to God, he can flow through you and enable you to do things that you couldn’t ordinarily do. And of course, the amount of money that we need to run the ministry is just, it’s beyond my thinking. I don’t I don’t even really get into it because it would scare me silly and a friend of mine who is also a minister said to me one day, don’t you realize that God has given you a gift of faith for this ministry? Because I looked back and I think how did I have the courage to step out and even think that I could do this third, there would have been no reason at all for me to think that I could do something like this. I mean back when I started not that many women even taught the word or preached and it wasn’t very popular and I had to pay the price for a lot of the decisions that I made, like being asked to leave my church and losing friends and different things like that. So sometimes when it’s so easy for you to believe something and it seems so hard for somebody else, maybe instead of getting a prideful spirit thinking, well I don’t know why, you know, you need to realize that maybe you’re functioning under a gift of faith and instead of judging other people need to pray for them and to another. The working of miracles to another. Prophecy and prophecy is not normally in the new testament for telling the future. So much as it is encouragement and encouraging words for people or you might get a sensing of what somebody’s going to do in their future. But I always caution people to be careful about saying God told me to tell you. I think that’s an area where people can, can get hurt and that’s where all of this comes into balance. Yeah. And that’s one of the reasons why people are afraid of the supernatural because they’ve seen excesses. I heard one man say one time back in the revival in the seventies, he said, well, I’d rather have a little wildfire than no fire at all. And and we need it, we need a balance. We need a move of the spirit in our churches, a supernatural move of the spirit. But we also need the steadiness, the stable nous of the word of God. And here again, this is where you get in trouble. You either don’t have the spirit and everything is dry or you have the spirit and ignore the word and then it just gets out of balance and out of hand and so balance is so important. Um the ability to distinguish between good and evil spirits, the discerning of spirits. If you’re functioning with that gift, you’ll know if somebody is evil or if they’re good or if they have an evil intent or if it’s somebody you need to be careful of because they’re dangerous. And how many times even like in hiring people have I looked at an application, I mean I don’t do this anymore, but in the beginning and the person looks perfect on paper and yet I just don’t feel write about them. And you know, like most people you think, well that’s that’s got to just be me. Maybe there’s something about this person, I just don’t like, you know, because they’ve got all the qualifications, they’ve got the experience they are and on and on. But invariably if I’ve done that, then eventually that person ended up causing trouble and I should have listened to the leadership of the holy spirit and then there’s tongues and interpretation of tongues. And it’s interesting that that one gift, although it’s the last one on the list and that doesn’t mean that it’s the least worthwhile. But the church has fought over that more than any of the other gifts and we just need understanding and we need teaching and I believe that we all really need and want the supernatural and the best thing I can tell you is to study, first of all, read what the word of God says about it, you know, people just like, oh man you know those people that speak in tongues. They’re weird and I’m not you know stay away from them. And yet the apostle paul said I wish that you all spoke in tongues and he said I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you do not everybody receives the same gifts and we acknowledge that but don’t be afraid of the gifts of the spirit and so I don’t want to leave you like I kind of feel like with the amount of time we have that I just kind of opened up this big thing but here’s the thing I want people to start praying that God will teach them and lead them in this area that God will use you and the gifts of the spirit and give those gifts to you. So your natural life can become super natural and when you get sick don’t just run first for the medicine prey pray that God will heal you and he may do it supernaturally or he may do it through medicine. I believe that all healing comes from God. And so today you’ve got to be careful even by what kind of medicine you take our are. You know what kind of medical advice that you seek because not everything is good. So even in that we need discernment we need those words of wisdom and words of knowledge and the way these things begin to function in our life is through making them a matter of prayer and through desiring them instead of just ignoring them. And we do have a couple of resources available if people want to call and that’s what they are. I wrote a book quite a while ago on intimacy with God and I talked about all the Fruit of the Spirit in there and also talk about the gifts of the Spirit. And then we’ve got a little book about being baptized in the Holy Spirit and begin to pray that God will fill you with his spirit. Don’t be satisfied to just try to make it on your own but ask for and receive that fullness of the Holy Spirit. But just remember in order for God to fill something, it’s got to be empty. Get yourself out of the way. So we have to be empty of self in order for God to do the feeling. So so the supernatural, it seems like it’s something that people either crave and run to or are very afraid of and we we need to seek God’s word and seek his face in all of this. That balance is something that we can only find in christ. We we can’t do it on our own. It’s that emptying ourselves out so that he can fill us up and don’t be in a big hurry and be careful when you start praying for supernatural things. The devil would love to Oh yeah, show you a few tricks, show you a few tricks and so you’ve got to make you know pray that the holy spirit will will really guide you and let you know what is what is right and what isn’t. But I just believe if you’re really hungry for more of God and you start telling him that and you start praying to learn in these areas and look up all the script, read the Book of Acts. I mean what happened to the Book of Acts? I mean, do we really think that we don’t need as much power as they needed? I mean, our world is in a mess today. I mean a huge mess and we need all the supernatural divine help that we can possibly get. Because nobody, the problems we have today are not going to be fixed by the government. They’re only going to be fixed by God and us turning to God and making right decisions and doing, you know, the things that we need to do. Boy, that’s so true. Thank you. Let’s all be hungry for more of God and less of ourselves