 It is friendship with the Holy Spirit that makes the difference. We've seen it all. We've had wonderful preaching, wonderful teaching. We've seen demons cast out. We've seen the sick healed. We've seen people speak in tongues. We've seen the spiritual gifts at work. But there's something about friends of the Holy Spirit and the way they minister that just stands out. There's a real peace about them. There's a real power about them. There's a real authority about them. Now, what is that? That's because they're carriers of the glory. And you are a carrier of the glory too. At the early age of seven, I was very aware of the supernatural realm. And I don't say this often, but I'll say it to you. I saw visions of hell. I, with my own physical eyes, saw demonic spirits. Now, I say all this to really set the pace of what I'm going to say here, because it was out of demonic torment that Jesus rescued me. And I remember it being about seven years old and just having my mind harassed by demonic spirits. It wasn't possession, oppression, or necessarily a curse. It was demonic torment. I would hear demonic voices. I would see demonic faces. In fact, there were times when I'd wake up in the middle of the night, turn around and see certain spirits standing in the middle of my room with my physical eyes. And this went on for a couple of years, and it wasn't until I was 11 years old that I finally gave my heart to Jesus. So you have to imagine, from seven to 11, I had this weight on me, this heaviness on me, this, this sense of this great struggle around me in the atmosphere. I was aware of the spiritual realm, and I was dealing with depression, and I was dealing with anxiety. And I remember feeling that heaviness on me everywhere that I went, and I would lie in my bed, people of God, I say this before you and the Lord, I would lie in my bed as a nine-year-old, as a 10-year-old, as an eight-year-old sweating, just thinking about those tormenting thoughts that were coming against me. I remember crying as a little boy, just wanting to be rid of this, and I didn't tell my parents hardly anything that was happening. They would have prayed with me, I'm sure. And so it was at the age of 11. I was attending a Bible conference with my family. Now, if you're a pastor's kid, then you know that a Bible conference is pretty much the family's vacation for the year. And so we went to this Bible conference. It was a week-long, Monday through Friday conference. And I remember skipping the services because, as I was standing in the worship service, these demonic beings would become agitated, and I did not want to be in the service. So I would go back to the room, and I remember lying on the bed, just staring at the ceiling, waiting for service to end, and I would be lying there sweat coming down as the torment would intensify over me. And finally, I said, I've had enough. I can't deal with this anymore. I need Jesus. Now, growing up as a pastor's kid, I had memorized Scripture. I had learned the Bible. I knew Jesus historically, philosophically, socially. I did not know him personally. And so in order to experience the real thing, I had to put my pride aside and admit that what I had all along was counterfeit. And that truly was the challenge for me. And so I remember my family comes back from the service. I tell my dad, I said, Dad, I need to give my heart to Jesus. I need to get saved. So my dad dismissed the rest of the family. They just kind of went on a walk and he sat across from me. There was two beds in that room, and he sat across from me on the other bed. I joined hands with him, bowed my head, and he began to lead me in a prayer. Now, in the Scripture, we don't see the sinner's prayer, but you do see sinners who pray. And so we're praying. And as we're praying, I remember I began to cry. I was crying so intensely that my mouth was shaking, tears were streaming down my face. I couldn't even say the words because I was so overcome with emotion. I was trembling. I was crying. I could feel the heat of my tears on my face. I'm praying with my father. And I'm inviting Jesus to be my savior. I'm surrendering my life to him. And I'm telling you this right now. I sensed Jesus walk into that room. And when Jesus walked in, every demonic spirit walked right out. I believe they ran out. And the power of God filled that room. And I remember sensing almost like these pulses coming from the center of my body, pulses of euphoria and joy and peace and love. I met Jesus, the Son of the Living God, and that torment, that heaviness was broken off of me the instant I gave my heart to him. And so I was saved, gloriously born again, redeemed, saved by Jesus himself. Wow. Now, I began to seek the Lord at the age of 11. I immediately wanted to know more about Jesus, this Jesus who set me free. I had heard about him. I heard so much about him. And now I was like, wow, I heard about you. And now I get to meet you, Jesus. And so I remember digging into the scripture. I would pray four to eight hours a day. I would read 20, 30, sometimes 40, 50 chapters of the Bible a day. And this continued for two years. And even though I knew the Lord, even though I was seeking his face, even though I was reading the Word, I sensed as though I was running on empty. Now, this isn't to say that salvation isn't enough. On the contrary, salvation is everything. I mean, when he saves you, he redeems you, he justifies you, he empowers you, he breaks in all those things. But I knew not necessarily that something was missing. That's how I would have worded it back then. Back then I would have said something is missing. Now the way I understand it is that I wasn't quite yet fully surrendered in all areas of my life. And to this day, probably I'm still not. I surrender daily. We all die daily and little by little we decrease so the Lord can increase. So I began to read books and commentaries. And I had the highlighters and I was just digging in. I would listen to the Word and I would consume the Word. Every sermon, every preacher, every singer, every worshiper, I was just so hungry to know everything that God had for me. And that hunger is still with me today. That's why I continue to be taught by the Holy Spirit. And then one day, I'm flipping through the channels. And I come across this Christian television program. I tune in and I hear this heavenly music, this choir singing. And as the choir is singing, the camera is panning across the crowd, slowly changing from one camera angle to the next. People are worshiping. It was as if they were raptured in this glorious ecstasy. And they're just so caught up in the presence of Jesus. People with tears streaming down their faces, some trembling, some just lost in the song and their adoration of Jesus. Forgive me for saying so. It was almost hypnotic. And I felt in my spirit something pooling me, like a magnetism, something drawing me to that. And I didn't quite understand it then, but I knew I had to have it. And so then suddenly, the worship ends. Now, I had watched various other Christian programs before and this was typically the moment where they would now cut to the preaching. And the preacher would start and the lesson would start, the sermon would start, something like that, or Bible teaching. But this was different. Suddenly they cut to something I hadn't seen on television before. And there's a man bringing a woman up with her wheelchair. And this man is announcing, pastor, this woman came tonight. She was in a wheelchair. I don't remember how long she was in a wheelchair. I don't remember what was wrong with her. All I know is she was in a wheelchair and then she began to run across the platform. All the place erupted in praise for God. Wow. The place went wild, cheering and jumping and shouting and celebrating. This woman in tears jumping up and down, running across the platform. And I saw as the preacher approached them, it almost looked like a weight came on the people. He just walked up to them and the power of God comes on them. They fell out under the power of the Holy Ghost. And I just knew that I knew that I knew that there was something there. So I went and I bought a book by this preacher and this book was on friendship with the Holy Spirit. This is the verse in the book that I read that gave me what I'll call Holy Jealousy. 2 Corinthians 13, 14. This verse will change your life. 2 Corinthians 13, 14. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. What does that mean? The fellowship of the Holy Spirit? Fellowship is communion. Fellowship is friendship. Fellowship is me talking to you. You talking to me. Fellowship is like when I go have lunch with Reuben or when I'm in the car on a trip with Tim and Steve or when I'm sitting with my wife on a date night. That's fellowship. We're communing. We're talking. We're getting to know one another. We're enjoying each other's company. That's fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Now when I read that I was shaken because before I had imagined the Holy Spirit as some like mist or cloud that hovered about the air whenever the power of God was moving. Or I thought that perhaps he was a force or just an influence or a sensation or an idea about God. But no, I came to understand that the Holy Spirit is a person. Hear me now. The Holy Spirit is a person. I know some of you have heard that before, but do you realize that for many? That's a light bulb going off right now. They go, what the Holy Spirit is a person? He's not just power. He's not a sensation alone, though he does bring sensation with him sometimes. He's not an experience alone, though you can have experiences with the Holy Spirit. He's not just emotional movement, though he will at times move your emotions. The Holy Spirit is a person and the scripture says that you can fellowship with him. You can commune with him. You can have a friendship with the Holy Spirit. And I promise you this. The Holy Spirit wants a friendship with you more than you want a friendship with him. The Holy Spirit is more committed to you than you are committed to him. He wants that. And I began to seek this fellowship with the Holy Spirit and my seeking of this friendship culminated into one evening. I became so hungry for that presence. Now, I've often said that desperation is a great initiator, a terrible sustainer. Desperation implies that I'm missing something. So desperation has its place. I think of people like Hannah in the scripture. Desperation can serve a purpose, but desperation must never be a lifestyle because if I'm continually desperate, it means I'm continually lacking. So at this point, though, I was completely lacking in my walk with the Holy Spirit. I did not know about this friendship with him and I wanted that. So I purposed in my heart. I said, okay, I am going to have a friendship with the Holy Spirit. So I shut my door to my bedroom. I turned on my light. I opened my Bible. I began to play some Christian music. I turned on the fan because it got a little hot in the room and I want it to be comfortable. And I told the Lord, I said, Lord, I am not leaving this room until you touch me, until I have some encounter with you. I'm not going to eat. I'm not going to sleep. I am going to pray and seek your face until something happens. I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know what I expected. I didn't know what the encounter would be like. All I knew was that I wanted to know the Holy Spirit. So I worked myself up. Man, I'm ready. I start praying and pressing in and doing all those things that we were taught to do. One hour goes by. Do you know what happened? Absolutely nothing. If you've been there, type amen in the comment section right now. You've been in those moments where you purpose in your heart to seek God. You feel like, man, 45 minutes must have passed already. And then you look at the clock and only 10 minutes have gone by. That happened several times in that hour. And so I'm praying. I'm pressing in. I'm doing everything I know to do. That first hour goes by and absolutely nothing happens. I was a little frustrated, but I said, you know what? I'm going to really press in. And so then I began to reach for my emotions. I began to try to guilt God into a response. God, if you're there, Father, are you listening? Lord, do you hear me? God, do you love me? That's what we do often. We try to guilt God into responding to us, not recognizing that He doesn't necessarily respond to emotions He responds to faith. So I'm crying, I'm pleading, I'm working up my emotions. I'm trying everything that I know to do, but it wasn't noise that brought about power. It wasn't emotionalism that stirred God to move. Who among us could persuade God to move anyway? God is going to do as He wills. So I did that for an hour. Nothing happened. And then I began to reach for the aggressive side of prayer, spiritual warfare, if you will. Now in my earlier years of ministry, you know, I taught all of these things on spiritual warfare that now I realize aren't necessarily biblical. So I correct the record now. But man, in my time in prayer, I was rebuking that demon of distraction, though demons do distract. I was imagining demons hovering over different corners of my room, pointing at that corner and rebuking it. I rebuked the spirit of this, the spirit of that. You know, we as Christians, we attach demonic spirits, names to almost any problem that we might have. Oh, I'm stuck in traffic. It's the spirit of bad traffic. No, you just left later than you probably should have. Sometimes we try to spiritualize our lack of discipline and we blame on demons, which should actually be blamed on the flesh. That's a whole different sermon for a different time. So I'm over there rebuking spirits, spirit of this, spirit of that. I rebuke you. I rebuke you. I got aggressive, man. I was pleading the blood. I was applying the oil. I was warring in the heavenlies. An hour of that goes by, nothing happened. Now, it was at about this time that I began to regret my ultimatum. I thought, well, maybe I should at least leave to eat or have a snack. Lord, I'll have a snack. You know, maybe I'll take a nap or something. I'm regretting it, man. This is now a third hour in, nothing's happening. And I'm just saying to myself, why did you make such a promise to God that you wouldn't leave until you had an encounter? So I reached for my intellect, my wisdom that I had been taught, the theology. I began to quote scriptures and pray the word, which is good. But the problem is I was depending upon systems and God doesn't reply to systems. He responds to sincerity. So I'm praying, I'm pleading, I'm applying the intellect, everything I had ever been taught about prayer. It all failed. Four hours went by, absolutely nothing is happening. Emotion failed. Aggression failed. Intellect failed. And so I grew frustrated and I lift my hands. I'm pleading with God. I say, Holy Spirit, I don't know how to pray. Please help me to pray. I don't know how to find Jesus. Help me find Jesus. Now I had come to the point where I had exhausted everything that I had. I emptied myself. I had nothing left to give. I had no more tears to cry. I had no more prayers to pray. I had no more emotions to go off of. I had no strength in my body left to pursue God. I gave up. I was done with myself. But you see, that's when the Holy Ghost shows up every single time. That's when he shows up. When you've come to the end of yourself, that's the beginning of the Holy Spirit. Come on. And so I came to the end of myself. I tried everything I knew to do and it failed me miserably. Oh my goodness, it failed. And so I heard a gentle whisper. You know why I was able to hear that whisper? Because I stopped clamoring in my mind. And sometimes we can be so desperate for an encounter with God that we ourselves become a distraction to ourselves having an encounter with God. So I worked myself up and I'm asking the Holy Spirit, please, please, please teach me to pray. And the still small voice, now that I'm quiet, now that I'm done talking, now that I'm done trying in my own effort, a still small voice speaks to me. You see, people of God, spirit family, there is no man or woman of God on earth, no matter how anointed they are who knows the way into the presence of God. Only the Holy Spirit knows the way into the presence of God. And if you'll surrender, he'll show you the way. He says, turn off the fan. Why? Because it was distracting me. I turned off the fan. Turn off the light. I turned off the light. You wanted me to turn off the light because I was paying attention to all the details in my room. The Holy Spirit said, for now, close the scripture. So for that moment, I closed the scripture. You do need the word and it's not more spiritual the less word there is, but the Holy Spirit uses the word as the foundation. But for that moment, I put the word aside and then the Holy Spirit said, turn off the music. I said, but you can't move without the music. It's not religious I was in my mind. And I turned off the music. I stopped trying my systems and I just surrendered in that moment. I did nothing else but stand there quietly and focus on Jesus. And when I tell you the presence of the Holy Spirit entered my room, I'm telling you it was like my room became a little piece of heaven. The ordinary plain settings of everyday life, my bedroom, had shifted and had become something new. I was standing in the glory of Almighty God. My eyes were closed, my hands were lifted. And I could feel pulses of electricity moving up and down my body. I felt a weight of heavy glory. I felt intense heat hovering around me. My hands were outstretched and I thought, if I move my hand, I might feel my hand brush up against the robe of Jesus. I didn't even want to move. That sense of His presence lasted for just a couple minutes no more. I don't know exactly how long, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. But had I sought that for a hundred years, those few minutes would have been worth every year of seeking. I had come to meet the Holy Spirit. My life was never the same. My life was never the same. And you can meet Him too.