12. The Holy Spirit: our Father's gift

THE HOLY SPIRIT: OUR FATHER’S GIFT
By: Stevie Mitchell

I love prizes. I love getting them and I love giving them. For me, the best part of giving is in finding the perfect prize—that prize that will tell someone how much they are loved and how special they are.

The prize says, “I know you. I know what makes you tick. I know what you need, and I know what will make you smile.” It is so much fun to give a gift just for the sake of giving. My gift has to say, “I love you! I believe in you! You are fearfully and wonderfully made! You are a masterpiece!

Growing up, my daddy encouraged and reinforced my gift giving. I grew up in the 60’s & 70’s in a small town in Vermont where my dad owned the local drugstore. The store was also the Hallmark store, specialty shoppe, and Christian bookstore­—which made gift giving easy.

My dad also had a passion for giving gifts and modeled this for me. It was common for my dad to open the cash register, hand me money and say without a customer knowing, “While I fill this prescription, go next door to the grocery store and get the family groceries.” Or, he would call me to the back of the store and say, “Mr. ‘So & So’ hasn’t thought about buying his wife a birthday present. Go pick out a gift, and wrap it up for him to take home to his wife.” He trained me to watch and listen to know what would really bless people.

I can only imagine what was going through the mind and heart of Jesus that day as he shared with the disciples—the guys that he had been with him day and night with for the past three years. He knew what made the disciples smile. He knew the ultimate gift He would give them. A gift 🎁that would release them into their destiny. A gift that would give them power.

Even more than what would make them smile, Jesus knew what made His Daddy smile. He knew how much his Father loved to give gifts. He knew that Abba had the perfect gift 🎁and it would soon be time 🙏to give them the promised gift that would change everything.
acts 1:4   wait for the gifts

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
 Matthew 7:11 ESV

Although it would be difficult, it would be a sacrifice ♨that would cost Jesus much. His heart was full of excitement because he also loved to give gifts. His Daddy had taught him well. The cost­—Jesus would have to suffer, die, rise again, and return to the Father so that the ultimate prize🎁 could be given—the Holy Spirit.

The Father knew what we needed! He knew what would make our hearts smile.

Having gifts that differ🎯 according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith;
Romans 12:6 ESV

1 cor.12:1-11  wonderful gifts
What is the Holy Spirit saying to me?

🙏🙏🙏

Pray for the Holy Spirit ⛅reveal God’s gifts to your life.

Ask the Holy Spirit to empower💡 you to be a gift-giver😇 to others.

Pray that the power 🔥of God’s Spirit will anoint your gifts and talents for ⛅His greater glory.

11. The agenda of The Spirit

THE AGENDA OF THE SPIRIT
By: Samuel Rodriguez

We live in a world where people are bound—bound by sin, pornography, sexual immorality, addiction, alcoholism, depression, loneliness, dismay, anxiety, fear, confusion, the past, failure, and defeat. Do you know why so much bondage exists?

Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke?
Isaiah 58:6 MEV


The enemy understands that the most dangerous human on the planet is not the one with riches, guns, armies, or fame. The most powerful human on the planet is a person set free by the blood of the Lamb. Why?

If it is displeasing to you to serve the Lord , then choose today whom you will serve, if it should be the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites’ land where you are now living. Yet as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord .”
Joshua 24:15 MEV

Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a shield, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have reviled.
1 Samuel 17:45 MEV

Because it was a free man who approached Pharaoh in Egypt and said, “Let my people go.” It was a free man who stepped into the Promised Land and declared “As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.” It was a free man who stared down a giant called Goliath and said, “You come against me with a sword, a spear and a javelin, but I come against you in the Name of the Lord God Almighty.”

It was free young people who refused to bow and subsequently exhibited freedom even in the midst of a fiery furnace. It was a free man who prayed down fire from heaven and then shouted “Get ready, here comes the rain!”

Although they had been held behind the prison bars of human laws, spiritually free disciples replied to their captors, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19–20).

The Spirit of Pentecost not only looses the chains of injustice and sets the oppressed free; He breaks the yokes of anxiety, fear, and defeat, empowering God’s people to proclaim the message of freedom to others.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to me?

ACTIVATION

Pray for God’s people to cry out to the Holy Spirit in the midst of their bondage. Pray for eyes to be opened and hearts to be healed as believers learn how to walk in freedom

Appropriate freedom for yourself in any areas you are struggling. Declare your freedom by the blood of the Lamb and the power of the Holy Spirit.

10 🍇🍎Fruitful living🍎🍇🍎🍇

FRUITFUL CHRISTIAN LIVING
By: George O. Wood

When I was a little boy living in northwest China, we didn’t get fresh fruit and vegetables. I loved oranges, though. Somehow, we had gotten an orange and I saved the seeds to plant an orange tree so I could have oranges on a regular basis. I put some dirt in a little clay pot, put the seeds in it, and then put it by the stove. It was bitterly cold, and I knew I had to keep it warm. I really expected that within a few months, I’d have a tree growing out of my potted plant with oranges falling off of it. I’d watch it every day and nothing would happen. I watered it faithfully, but nothing ever grew.

gal 5:22
gal 6:9
I think as Pentecostals we often want things to happen instantly, but the fruit of the Spirit tends to be more developmental. The development of fruit in all of the disciples was a growth process. It did not happen immediately. Peter did not become the rock overnight; it happened over time.

I see the fruit of the Spirit as sequential in development, much like the locks on a canal. A canal operates to move ships into a closed space called a lock. One body of water is lower than the next body of water they’re moving to. Gradually, by the ship going uphill or downhill, it moves through a sequence of locks. Each of the locks the ship moves through fills up with water and floats the ship higher. Slowly, it moves into the next lock and goes on. I think developing the fruit of the Spirit is like that.

Beginning with love, we progress until we’ve moved all the way through and come at last to that hardest of all to develop—the fruit of self-control.

But as it is written, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
1 Corinthians 2:9 MEV

The fruit of the Spirit tells us God is far more concerned with who we are than what we’re doing. If you’re looking for God’s will for your life, don’t look first of all at where God wants you to go, or even what God wants you to do. Look first of all at what God wants you to be. Probably ninety-nine percent of knowing the will of God is being the person God wants you to be. Because if you are that person, you can go anywhere and do anything and you’ll be guided by God and in His will.

But refuse profane and foolish myths. Instead, exercise in the ways of godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable in all things, holding promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
1 Timothy 4:7‭-‬8 MEV

What is the Holy Spirit saying to me?

ACTIVATION

Pray for the fruit of the Spirit to grow in you. Feed your soul with God’s Word and let the Holy Spirit bring His rain to the good soil of your heart.

Think about the fruit that is easily seen in you; think about the fruit that is not yet visible in your life.

Ask God to cause every fruit of the Spirit to grow out of your spiritual walk with Him.