"My Best Friend Wants to be Your Best Friend..."

The Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. They
are separated by function, but always work in unison to bring things to
fruition in the Church today. All three are of equal importance and deserve equal
attention. All three are God.
We know a lot about God, and we know a lot about Jesus, but I am more
and more amazed at how much I don’t know about the Holy Spirit. But I’m
learning more and more about my best Friend as the days go by (even Mexicans can
learn quickly when properly motivated). C’mon, lighten up. I’m kidding.
The first thing I have grasped is that God the Holy Spirit is very eager
to make you His best friend too, so that He may be able to fulfill His
assignment and assist you with your “calling” on Earth. He is famished for the
affection and attention of God’s children.
I can tell you personally that He wants to carry your picture in His
wallet. I gave Him one of my pictures but He sent it back and requested a more
recent photo...one that actually looks like me. Don’t laugh, you do it, too.
Mostly unknowingly, we have treated the Holy Spirit like a stepchild
because we have not been taught otherwise.
The Church of Jesus Christ today is for the most part ignorant and
unaware of the Holy Spirit’s function and importance. Other than the usual lip
service and generalizations about the third member of the Trinity, I have
found that few really understand who the Holy Spirit truly is and that a
superficial relationship with Him will hinder us from receiving from God. (“My
people perish for lack of knowledge” -- Hosea 4:6)
But Jesus made no bones about it. He taught His disciples explicitly
that they should and would know the Holy Spirit who lived with them, and would
soon live in them.

I will talk about some of this in just a minute. First let me get a
couple of other things straight by addressing a couple of misconceptions
concerning other common Christian beliefs. It’s just stuff that bugs me and I
have to unload. I hope that’s okay.
Myth #1--“God is an old man who has whiskers, a long beard, and gray hair
because He’s been around for a long time.”
That’s hogwash. It takes time to grow long hair and whiskers and more
time for them to become gray or white. The problem with this assertion is that
in Heaven there is no time. God is the great “I AM”, not “I was” or
“I’m going to be.”
My heavenly Father is forever young, and we shall be also when this
“earth suit” that we currently live in becomes resurrected. But for now, I’ll
take any kind of hair I can get, even if it’s pink or green (that means that
I’ll be sure to get invited to appear on TBN).
I know. I know. All of this is trivial, but thanks for stickin’ with me
until I can get to the “meaty” stuff.
Myth #2--“In the last days (today), God will once again pour out His Holy
Spirit upon all flesh like He did at Pentecost, and sons and daughters will
prophesy, see visions, dream dreams, etc.”
Wrong. In Acts 2:17 in the KJV, it says, “And it shall come to pass in
the last days, saith God, I will pour out OF my Spirit upon all flesh, and
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy..(etc).”
Peter was quoting the Prophet Joel, but added OF because the Holy Spirit
had just fallen upon mankind and lived within them...and lives within us
today. This is crucial to understand. God will not do Pentecost all over
again, but will activate the kingdom of God which is in the Holy Spirit who now
resides in us.
According to author Gary Carroll, “The last days will supply a great
outpouring from the kingdom of God within the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). This
great outpouring of riches will be most prominent in those who know the Holy
Spirit personally. Those who do not know Him will be entering this time
with no experience of learning and understanding His ways.”
In short, we already have the Holy Spirit within us...but does the Holy
Spirit have us?

God is a God of Order
“My heavenly Father is a God of order, and everything He does is orderly
according to fixed laws of operation.” (John W. Lawrence)
I have always pursued the methodology of the Kingdom because I know that
God works by principles, axioms and processes (this also applies in the
natural world on this planet). It is not the hodge-podge approach to God that
too much of the body of Christ operates in today. Plus, the kingdom of God
also functions by protocol (form and procedure).
Listen, Jesus knew how the system of the kingdom of God operates, and
that’s why He was always successful during His three-and-a-half year ministry
on Earth. Please forgive my pedestrian language, but Christ knew which
buttons to push to get the kingdom of God to go into operation. That’s what I
want because Jesus plainly stated that we would all do the things that He
did...and even greater things through the Holy Spirit. (John 14:12).

“I will ask the Father, and
He will give you another
Comforter (Counselor,
Helper, Intercessor,
Advocate, Strengthener, Standby), that He may
remain with you forever. ”
John 14:16-17
“But the Comforter, which
is the Holy Spirit whom
the Father will send in my
name...He shall teach you
all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said to Him.
John 12:25-27

Who is the Holy Spirit?
The reason I know so little about the Holy Spirit is that no one ever
taught me extensively about Him. And that’s because few really know and
understand Him.
I can tell you that as I begin to know Him in depth, He is a spirit who
is extremely powerful but very gentle and kind. Although He does not have a
physical body, He is a Person with deep feelings towards us (see page 23).
He is not a wisp of air and He is not a “Ghost” (the KJV of the Bible has
mistranslated His name). In fact, all the other translations of the Bible
that I know of, correctly refer to the third Person of the Trinity as the
“Holy Spirit.” Even the highly revered Young’s Literal Translation. Uh
Oh,,,............
I always catch a lot of flack when I step on sacred cows, but let me just
say two things concerning this. First of all, “ghost” carries with it a
connotation of spiritual darkness like “poltergeist” or Harry Potter. But
most importantly, I can’t imagine witnessing to some guy named Fred and saying
something like this: “Fred, I want to introduce you to my very best Friend
who led me to Jesus Christ. He wants to meet you too...and He’s a ghost.” I
suspect that dear old Fred would be lifting his eyebrows as he ran down the
street.
Secondly, God is a spirit, too. Why don’t we call Him a “ghost?”
God the Holy Spirit will never leave me nor forsake me. He’s always
there when I need Him. We walk together, we talk together, we laugh together
and we pray together.
The most powerful praying that I’ve ever been a part of is when I “pray
in the Spirit.” He prays through me when I know not how to pray
effectively. The Holy Spirit prays perfect prayers that make things happen! And He’s
readily available because He already lives on this planet...in me.
We have all suffered under the misconception that when we pray, we look
up and expect answers to flow down from Heaven. Fact of the matter is, the
answers will flow out of us from the Kingdom of God that is already inside of
us. But that’s another subject for another time.
The precious Holy Spirit is a “paraclete”...one called along side us
to help. He knows everything about everything, and He is eager to share that
with us so that He can lead us and guide us and show us things to come.
He is a very potent and resourceful friend to have. He was there since
the very beginning with God the Father, and Jesus the Son. He is the original
“Doer of the Word.”
His primary responsibility seems to be that He will teach us everything
He knows about Jesus, and holds our hand as we conform more and more to the
image of Christ when we behold Him.
As part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the one who gets things done.
Under the direction of God, He built the Universe, He built the Earth, He
brought the plagues to Egypt, He parted the Red Sea, He knocked down the
walls of Jerico, He stopped TIME so that Joshua could defeat Israel’s enemies
before dark, He healed diseases and raised the dead, He calmed the
storms...and He also helped Linda to find a lost pair of shoes.
I really like this last one because it gets down to how the Holy Spirit
wants to help us and be totally involved in our lives, even with the little
mickey-mouse stuff. (“Mickey Mouse” in the Spanish language is pronounced
“Miguelito Raton”...for those of you who want to amaze and impress your
Chicano friends and acquaintances.)
The Early Church Knew
The Holy Spirit Well
I believe that the early Church was extremely successful and impactful
because the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was still fresh on the Church of Jesus
Christ. Satan freaked out bigtime as he saw the Spirit of God convert 3,000
people in one day...and then many more soon after. At that rate, the devil’s
kingdom would be eradicated sooner than later. It was panic time!
So Satan had to devise a plan 2,000 years ago where time and “religion”
would begin to play down the importance of the Holy Spirit...and it worked!
Today, too often the Holy Spirit has mostly been relegated to secondary
mention and is of minimal significance in the believer’s life. This was one of
Satan’s most heinous and successful plots in the history of the fallen
world. But that’s about to change!
There are volumes more of what I intended to say about my indescribably
powerful but incredibly beautiful best Friend. We’ll pick it up here next
time...