 What does it mean to live your life with the fire of the Holy Spirit? Today on Spirit Church I want to talk to you about gaining and keeping a passion and love for God. Stephen Moctezuma is here with me as usual. He's gonna lead you in some worship and we're gonna get into this lesson and I believe that you can live a Christian life where you never know burnout, where you never know apathy, and where you never lose that passionate love for Jesus. When I first became a believer I experienced many wonderful things with the Holy Spirit but there were also some areas where I needed to grow. One of those areas I needed to grow in was my understanding of my salvation and my understanding of my relationship with God as it pertained to my actions. Many people believe in a works-based salvation and many people believe in a liberal grace, a sloppy grace as some would call it. And so I want to talk to you today about the two extremes of living your Christianity and the one place you can find a balance in all things and a Christianity that never knows burnout, apathy, that is always filled with a passionate, fiery love for Christ. And when you walk with this fire of the Holy Spirit, when you walk in this newness on a daily basis, you'll never know what it is to sense powerlessness. You'll never know what it is to backslide. I don't believe that backsliding is a phase that Christians must find. We talk about the backsliding phase as if it's something every believer must experience at one point in his or her walk with Christ. But this is not the case. In fact, when God calls us to follow him, he calls us to a wholehearted commitment to follow him with all that we are from that moment until the moment we go home to be with him. And I want to get into the scripture in a moment, but first I want to talk to you about the two extremes. There are two extremes called liberalism and legalism. Now liberalism is something that we see portrayed in the lives of those who believe in things like inclusion, where they don't believe there is any actual eternal consequence for sin that everyone ultimately ends up in heaven. These people believe that you can live however you want to live in that no matter how you live, there will be no consequences again in eternity. And this is not the case. In fact, if someone is truly a spirit-filled believer, they're going to walk in holiness. They're going to walk in righteousness. Grace is not an excuse. Grace is not a license, as the cliche says, to sin. Grace is the power of God coming upon a life that gives that individual the power to gracefully resist the lure and seduction of sin. And so I'm not one who sides with those who believe in liberal Christianity. On the other extreme, we find those who also don't understand how salvation comes about. And this is that group who believes in what I call legalism. It is a works-based mentality. Now I do believe that as a believer, I am to portray and exemplify the fruit of the Holy Spirit, but I also am not a slave to works-based Christianity. My performance did not save me and my performance cannot keep me saved. When I talk about the righteousness of God, when I talk about the holiness that's empowered by the Holy Spirit, I'm not talking about working for salvation. Salvation is not produced by good works, but good works are produced by genuine salvation. That's a distinction that many people have trouble making. And in fact, whenever I say that, people accuse me of being someone who's a works-based believer, but that's not the case at all. So in my early Christianity, I found this oscillation between two extremes, liberalism and legalism. In liberalism, I had no power. In legalism, I had no peace. And so I would go back and forth between the two, and I would find seasons of my life where I would lean toward a works-based Christianity, and then other seasons of my life where I would lean toward this liberalism. And I said, Lord, I don't ever want to come to a place where I'm so comfortable with where I am that I lose complete fear and reverence of you. And I also don't want to be in a place where I'm bound by fear, where I'm living out a life that is tormented and lacks peace and clarity. I want to find that place where my passion, where my love can be genuine. And this is what the key is. It is not found in legalism. It is not found in liberalism. The answer the truth rests in love. You see, legalism is motivated by fear. Liberalism is motivated by apathy. But love is motivated by selflessness. Legalism brings about works based on slavery. Liberalism brings about unholiness based on apathy. But love brings about production and kingdom expansion by love and service. That love reciprocates. When I give my love to God, he gives it right back to me. And the scripture says in Romans chapter five verse five that the love of God is shed abroad through our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works in us to produce, to create, to cultivate, to fan into flame a love for God. You don't have to know burnout. You don't have to know apathy. You don't have to lose your passion for Christ. You don't have to backslide. You may be in a season right now where the circumstances of this life are beginning to press against you. Where the pressures and responsibilities of all that you have to do put you to the task of overthinking that causes fear. You may be in a season right now where you've been serving the Lord and working in ministry and trying for so long to see results that everything within you feels like quitting. In fact, there's something in your mind that tells you that nothing will ever happen, that you'll never receive the breakthrough. I'm here to tell you today that you don't have to live in that apathy. You don't have to lose that passion. Here's the key and the key scripture here today. Luke chapter 10 beginning at verse number 38. The scripture says this and this is a wonderful story here. Luke chapter 10 verse 38. As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Her sister Mary sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he taught. But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tower to come and help me. Verse 41, but the Lord said to her, Dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details. There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it and it will not be taken away from her. This is a powerful story. Jesus visits the home of Martha and Martha, the scripture says, is busied with service and trying to make preparations for the Master. Now, I have to be honest with you, if Jesus were to come into physical form into my home, I too would probably be busied with trying to make it the perfect evening. But Martha was so busy, so distracted, so caught up in trying to make everything work out that she missed something that Mary found. Mary and Jesus are fellowshiping and Martha, looking upon them, sees and becomes jealous or at least becomes upset and frustrated that Mary is not helping to do what she feels needs to be done. How judgmental we become when we fall out of that faith, that love for Christ. When you fall out of that love, when you become distracted by the cares of this world and even by the cares of ministry, because I'll say this, the greatest idol in the church world today is none other but ministry. Ministry is the greatest idol in the church world today, not that it is evil unto itself. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that all too often we measure how we're doing in our relationship with Christ by how we're doing in ministry. Ministry is not an indication of how your relationship with God is going. Favor results, yes. Power results, yes, out of a love for God. But ministry itself cannot be the standard by which we measure our relationship and love for Christ. It has to be, it must be, personal obedience, personal holiness, personal righteousness, and personal devotion toward Christ. And so Martha, who misses the point, who becomes so distracted by work that she misses her fellowship with Christ, she begins to become angry at Mary. She begins to judge others. And so Jesus corrects this. He says, you're worried about so many things, but there's only one thing worth being worried about or being concerned about. Or that deserves your focus. He says, Mary has found it and it will not be taken away from her. The scripture talks about this all throughout the Bible. This love for Christ, this love for Jesus. In fact, when asked what the greatest command says, go to Matthew chapter 22 verse 34. But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question. Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses? Jesus replied, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commands. You know, being in ministry, I've had people come up to me and they talk to me as if I'm living out the ideal situation that they themselves want to live. And people who are on the outside looking in, they see the television broadcast. They see me standing on platforms. They see miracles. They see the books and they see the stuff online. And all of that is great and God is using that and I'm thankful for the ministry God has given me. But can I be honest with you? When I'm traveling, most of the time it's by myself. And when I leave that service and I leave the crowd, sometimes it may be a few dozens, sometimes it may be a few thousands, sometimes it may only be a few hundred. Whenever I leave that crowd and I put my notes away for the night and I go back into my hotel room and the applause has died down and all of the camera lights are off and there's no lens pointing at me. There's only one thing that matters and that's the presence of the Holy Spirit. That's my love for Christ. You strip it all the way and what do I have? If not that love for Christ. The Holy Spirit, the scripture says as I told you earlier, sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts. He cultivates that love to greater measures. He fans the flame. The Holy Spirit gives us all that we need to live the Christian life. Jesus said all of these commands hinge upon, hang upon are fulfilled within that first love. If the greatest commandment is to love God with all that we are, then what for the believer is the greatest sin? It's to love them any less and the Holy Spirit takes that love that we receive from Christ and that faith that we receive from Christ and he stirs our passions and he causes us to become so focused on Jesus, so in love with his person that the intensification and the vivifying of the countenance of Christ takes precedence over all that we see or experience. The person of Jesus becomes alive and real and vivid and we begin to fall in love with that image and when we focus on that image, when we pray to that image, when we love that image, when we worship that image, when we adore that image, we become like him. You know you talk about legalism, you talk about liberalism. I don't want to lose my love for Jesus because is what causes it all. Every great ministry, every true ministry is birthed out of a passionate love for Jesus. What do you think it was that drove the martyrs to give their lives and spill their blood for the gospel? What do you think it was that caused the gospel message to spread rapidly from the very place where Christ was crucified? What do you think it was that caused people to boldly stand and proclaim the truth in the face of the threat of persecution and death? It wasn't emotion, it wasn't blessing, it was the person of Jesus. It was the image of Christ and when we fix ourselves upon that love and when we give all that we are for that love it grows within us and the Holy Spirit helps to bring it about. And then all of a sudden holiness is not about being afraid and trembling that we might be punished because God is angry. No, holiness becomes not wanting to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Holiness becomes about our love for him, that we love him so much that we wouldn't want to do anything that would hurt him, that we wouldn't want to do anything that would break his heart. Ministry is not about status or success or self, you know, praise. Ministry becomes about Jesus or spiritual growth becomes about Jesus. I don't read the Bible so that I can get up here and preach a great lesson. I read the Bible so I can get to know Jesus. And then all of these things, your character, your worship, the power of God upon your life, all of those things fall into place. Is it that simple? Yes, all truly spiritual depths are found through simplicity. Complexity is not spirituality and Jesus simplifies this for us. Instead of chasing devotion or chasing ministry and you should do those things, we choose rather to chase Jesus. And when we grab hold of him, the substance and the person of Christ, we become transformed in his presence. Something begins to stir, something begins to change. And a genuine overflow, a genuine expression of that love becomes everything that we're supposed to do. All of our spiritual duties are empowered and fulfilled when we simply love Jesus. You want to know how to never know burnout, you want to know how to keep a passion for Christ. Stop measuring your success by results that men praise and instead measure your success by how much you know Jesus and how much he knows you and how much you love Jesus and how much he loves you. I want to pray with you now and let's believe that God is going to touch you and he's going to do something new in your life. I really do believe that the Holy Spirit right now because I truly believe it's not an accident that you're watching. The Holy Spirit right now is going to cause that love to be cultivated to greater measures. So let's pray, let's believe, and God's going to touch you right now. Come on, stretch your hands toward mine. Father in the name of Jesus, Lord I pray that your Holy Spirit's presence would abide with us. I thank you Father you've given us the Holy Spirit to cultivate our love for Jesus to greater measures. Lord help this one watching to recognize that there's only one thing needed that is a love for you. Holy Spirit, intensify and vivify the wonderful Savior. Let us see Jesus. Let us see our precious Lord with clarity and detail. Holy Spirit make Jesus real to that one watching right now and I pray this be done Father and that you would fan into flame the fire of the Holy Spirit within the heart mind and soul of that one watching. I give you honor, I give you glory and we thank you that it is done in the name of Jesus and I want you to say it like you believe it. That's right. Amen. Well I want to now transition. I really felt the anointing on that one but I want to transition now to welcome the new members of the Spirit Church family. There you are up on the screen as I always say because I always mean it. We love you. We are praying for you. Get in touch with us. Let us know how you're loving the program and we welcome you. We thank God that you're part of our community. We thank God that we have more brothers and sisters joining us who are willing to gather together in spirit and collectively help spread the Gospel all around the world. If you'd like information on how you can join Spirit Church you can watch these videos anytime you want. You're not obligated to join but if you want to join that collective group you want to claim this as your church. You want to join a membership where you get emails from us weekly and you get to correspond with us through those emails and you'd like to bring in your resources and partner with the hundreds of Spirit Church members that we have from all around the world almost every every you know nation you can think of that is popular in your mind is going to be on that list and we want to get the ones that are not even that well known we want everyone to join. So join in join the spirit family and you can do that by clicking on a link that just appeared over my head. If you're watching this on Facebook which would be the Facebook version of this video or on the app you're not going to get that link appearing overhead it'll only appear on the YouTube version of this video instead what you can do is you can use the information at the bottom of the screen to manually find that link and join us and that would be at the link below. So go ahead and join I want to get to now the comments and we have some comments that we select from all over our YouTube channel we just get the most recent ones. So here we go this is on Steven Moctezuma's cover of Cornerstone Michaela Rodriguez writes love it God bless you David and Steven from Cleveland Ohio also on the same video Crystal Redinger beautiful I feel God's presence whenever I hear you worship thank you for helping me draw close to my heavenly Father through the anointing that is on your ministry I am beyond blessed. Here's a comment on three keys to clearly hearing God and this is from Francis Mendoza I love you David you're anointed thank you for letting the Lord use you to help the church I could fill the Lord's power right through my phone thank you Jesus well you know Francis we often get comments from those who are watching from all over the world and they are filling the presence and power of the Holy Spirit just by watching these videos in fact we've had people give their lives to Christ get filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit and receive healing just by watching these clips so we're glad that you did and in even some people who wrote to us they said I've never felt the presence of God through a YouTube video I've never been healed while watching something on media and that's what's happening it's exactly what's happening with many of our YouTube viewers so you're not alone in experiencing that thank you for watching here's another comment from Amabel Alviado thank you brother David that was very encouraging you said these words just at the right time all glory and praise to our almighty Father God bless you your ministry and the people behind the camera well we couldn't do it without the people behind the camera so we thank God for them also on the reign of heaven happy family rights hi brother David and Tim lay nice to meet you both praise the Lord that me and my friend can meet David at the church in north Carolina well actually I remember meeting you and if you're watching this I want you to know that we do events all over the United States and all over the world so to keep up with the events go to davidhernandezministries.com slash events we update that every single time we add an event as soon as we solidify the booking we put that on the calendar so that link right there is constantly being updated and you can go there see when I'm going to be in your area I would love to meet you too and it was nice meeting you happy family there in north carolina so here's a comment on the video how to pray in tongues king warrior writes hello david such a good explanation and presentation it is good to keep it simple I pray in tongues a lot I want to encourage the younger christians as you said not to be ashamed I sing and praise in tongues and this leads to extended worship God loves praise and worship bless you here's a comment on the video how to pray in the spirit susan you writes after receiving the holy spirit and speaking in tongues the pain I was having in my shoulder was gone I didn't even ask praise the most high and our messiah shalom well shalom to you too Suzanne and I'm glad that you had such an experience while watching encounter tv that's it for the comments now if you have a comment here go ahead and leave them in the comment section below we're more likely to read your comment if you post it on the most recent spirit church and now I need to transition don't turn off the clip just yet I need to talk to you for a second about supporting this channel now I know many of you are tempted to turn it away at this point but I need you to listen because this involves you you're a believer you maybe you're a member of the spirit church family if you're a member of the spirit church family and this is where you sell your ties and offering go ahead and do that now but I'm going to talk to just our casual youtube viewer you're watching this right now and you're blessed from this ministry remember this we are a ministry that is totally focused on winning souls to Jesus that's what this is all about it's an evangelistic ministry with a double-edged sword we win the lost and we edify the believer we build up the believer so you're watching this maybe you know about our television program encounter tv is a television program it doesn't just air on youtube encounter tv airs all around the world available in over 150 million homes worldwide then their spirit church this is our internet program encounter tv is on youtube but it's mostly meant for television and this spirit church program that you're watching right now this is meant for the internet this is where we interact with our youtube viewers and whatnot then there's all the videos that we post on here that's our media ministry but then we do events and this is what you see featured on encounter tv where we go and we'll get a venue i'll maybe i'll go to a church and we invite people from all over to hear the gospel and see the power of god and experience the presence of the holy spirit that's the distinction in our ministry people can sense the presence of the holy spirit in a very unique way and so when you support this ministry you're not just supporting a youtube channel you're not just supporting an evangelist you're not just supporting a full-time staff you're not just helping to keep our studio you know open our office spaces here you're not just helping to sponsor events you're helping us to preach the gospel all around the world you look at everything that's going on in this world and you may feel powerless to change what's happening in this world but you're not powerless this is what you can do when you join your gift with those from all around the world you're collectively joining your resources with believers to make a difference to make an impact the gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer Jesus is the only way and we need to get this message out i need your help consider today a gift of 10 20 or 30 dollars consider also some of you can do 100 500 or a thousand if you can do 100 500 or a thousand do that today if you can do 10 20 30 do that today whatever you can do whether those be one-time gifts monthly monthly gifts so into the ministry now well that is it for this edition of spirit church until next time remember nothing is impossible with god we start to love what god loves and hate what god hates may not look like anything's going to happen but the rain is coming actually and something just blocked it and disrupted that flow and so i said lord i