 Every Christian has the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit does not have every Christian. And we are born with the Holy Spirit. We're born again with the Holy Spirit. But to walk in the Holy Spirit, it takes time. It takes knowledge. It takes impartation. It takes being surrounded with other ministries that walk in the Holy Spirit. to profoundly impact this generation. Leveraging modern media technology to propagate the timeless truths of the faith, Vlad has written books, hosted conferences, and created content platforms that are touching hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. Pastor Vlad's creative approach to leading hungry generation church has been used of the Holy Spirit to cultivate an anointed internship program and a worship culture with a worldwide reach. He hosted speaker with an emphasis on rarely addressed spiritual topics such as spiritual warfare, deliverance, and the Holy Spirit. Pastor Vlad is declaring ancient truths in a modern way. Pastor Vlad, my friend, welcome to the program. This has been a long time coming. It seems when I went to go to your church to minister and I posted it online that we were together, you don't know how many people told me finally my two favorite YouTube preachers are coming together. And so for those of you who don't know, Pastor Vlad and I are actually really good friends. In fact, today, because you were in town, I did something I rarely ever do. I had a cup of coffee. Yes, you did. That's your influence on my friend. Thank you. So I feel like I'm ready to go. Everything's going in slow motion for me. But my friend, all kidding aside, you are an anointed voice that God is using. Thank you. And you have a powerful testimony. I want to just first get into a little bit of your testimony because I want to talk about the person of the Holy Spirit. But talk to me about how you transitioned from that what some would call normal Christianity and to the place where you're walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, David. First of all, for being here and for your friendship, for your visit and also for your ministry, for the videos that you put out. And like many of you who watch this ministry, I also watch your teachings and take notes, then we preach some things. First time I give credit to you, then I just mention someone said the third time I say, I said it. Yes, why not? But thank you. Thank you so much. My family immigrated to the United States when I was 13. I grew up in the Ukraine. And I grew up in the Christian family. I'm the oldest of five. And I knew of the Holy Spirit. I knew about the Holy Spirit. But I didn't know Him personally. At the age of 14 or 15, I got baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. And that's pretty much in my Pentecostal world. That was the ceiling experience of all that you can get of the Holy Spirit. But to know Him as a person and to have a relationship with Him, to have a friendship with Him, to be with Him as disciples were with Jesus now on earth and seeing Him move through me, I didn't see that. I didn't see much healings. I could count in about 12 years or 10 years of ministry how many healings that happened in our ministry on one hand. And so I didn't see of His power. I read about it. I read the God's generals. And our youth ministry, I was a youth pastor for about 14 years. But youth ministry, it wasn't growing. I've tried everything that you could think of. I did illustrative messages. I brought a sheep on the stage. I brought a pig on the stage. I rode a motorcycle on the stage. I did services in the park. I mean, the fear factors, everything you can think of. And I've tried everything that I could think of. But it didn't grow. Because I genuinely believe that the church is not supposed to grow because of men's ideas, but because of the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. And the anchor of that is the pastor's relationship with the Holy Spirit. Out of my desperation on my flight to, and I already started to speak in other churches and other conferences, on my flight to California, me and my wife, we were saving money. We were doing some real estate. I felt the prompting, and I believe it was birthed out of desperation, in the ministry that was stuck, things that were not moving forward. I felt the prompting of doing something that I've never done before. And that is to take everything that I have in my bank account and empty it out, and to go across the world to one particular man of God and to pretty much sold that. And ask God to do a revival in the ministry. And so at first, of course, I rejected that voice, you know, because I'm a Dave Ramsey disciple, so I don't give anything above 10%. And I came home to my wife, and I told my wife, I'm like, you know, our ministry feels like we're kind of stuck, and we need to do something about it. We don't have children right now. Why don't we do something radical and just take everything that we have? It wasn't a lot at the time. It was about $10,000. But for us, it was a lot. It took us years to save that. And we had plans for that money. And so she agreed, which was a confirmation. And so we made that decision. And then we make a decision right after that to take one year and not to save any money, but to give that money away every single month to the missionaries. In the process of that, I could even point a room where that happened, where I felt the Holy Spirit came into the room. I didn't experience anything different, but reallyization and revelation that he was a person. I still remember the song that was playing. And it says, though, that the days that I dreamed of being like one of the disciples of Jesus, being with Jesus, I felt that those days, I could live in those days now with the Holy Spirit. The reality of the Holy Spirit became so real. He became a person and that he has feelings, that he wants to talk to me. I know he lives in me, but I felt him in the room. And of course, as I started to experience the day after day, I started to separate myself a few hours every day to talk to the Holy Spirit. My prayer life, of course, changed. I stopped praying for a season because I started to talk. Because before I only spoke in tongues, I didn't talk to the Holy Spirit. And I started to talk to the Holy Spirit. I started to recognize that he's no less a person just because he doesn't have a body. In fact, one time I asked the Lord, I said, I wanted me to have a fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Why didn't you give him a body? It's easier to relate to Jesus because I think of a Jewish man. It's easier to relate to the Father because I think of my Father. But I'm like the Holy Spirit. Any time I thought of the Holy Spirit, I thought of a dove, fire, oil, shaking, baking, manifestations. I'm like, it's confusing. And I felt the prompting of the Lord back in my heart that I did give him a body. He chose yours. And so that Holy Spirit is no less than a person than Jesus was. And he's healed right now. And the way I treat the Holy Spirit right now is the same way I would have treated Jesus a thousand years ago. So you're a believer who's in ministry. You weren't seeing much traction being gained. You get this revelation to go and give this money to this ministry. It was a sacrifice. It was a risk. It was a step of faith. Now in the season of obedience, in the time that you're taking that step of faith, suddenly the Holy Spirit introduces himself to you in a new way. Now why do you think he chose that season of your life to reveal himself in that way? I feel that it was desperation and also acts of obedience that he prompted. I wasn't sure that the Holy Spirit prompted me. I thought I just got some crazy ideas. And little did I know is that from that point on I started to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit. Because now I use that as a reference at that time. And after that, not long after that, I started to get words of knowledge. I started to see pictures of how God was healing people and God was giving me like a prophetic image of what was happening to somebody. But the interesting part is that that's not the first time that I felt a prompting. There was other times before I felt exactly same promptings. I just took them as my own voice. And because it was always something radical and something that was sacrificial, I ignored it. But this time, because I was desperate and because the ministry was installed for a long time, I decided to give it a shot and throw myself under the bus, if I could say like that. Do you think the Holy Spirit used that circumstance to get your attention? I believe so. And I started to discover him as a person. My relationship with him enriched, was enriched and I started to feel sense him. Even right now as I'm talking, I could sense his presence. I could sense his closeness. He became like a friend. It took time. It was started with the fellowship. It started with following. And I really felt at one particular time, about two years ago on the birthday, I felt like I got this gift from him. He says, on this birthday, I give you friendship. You're my friend. I broke down. I was like, this is the greatest gift I could ever get. I've been seeing now the changes that started to happen in the ministry, the salvation that started to take place, the healing that started to take place, the boldness to pray for deliverance, to confront the demonic, the changes in my finances, the very area that I was so scared to sacrifice the very area, I started to see the favor of God and God started to expand the boundaries and the influence of our ministry worldwide. But for me, I truly believe that all of the things that I asked before, which were miracles, growth and anointing, they were wrong prayers. I'm reminded of a story in Book of Acts of a man who was paralyzed and they brought him to the temple. And the interesting part is that man had legs. The only problem is the legs he had, they didn't walk. And pretty much that was me. The Holy Spirit is like those legs, and I don't mean to belittle the person of the Holy Spirit by comparing them to that, but the comparison that I see is that the legs, they come with birth. So it's with the Holy Spirit. He comes with our second birth. The moment we're born again, we don't earn the Holy Spirit. We don't get sanctified for five years and then God grants us the Holy Spirit. Same thing with legs, the moment we're born, they're given to us as a gift. But walking with legs comes with time. And this man, he was brought to the temple. He didn't walk to the temple himself because he didn't walk in the very legs he had. And I felt like that's what happened to me. I was brought, if I could say to the ministry, I was brought to the church. I had the Holy Spirit. It just, he didn't have me. I didn't walk in him. I carried him. He didn't carry me. If I could use that word, dragged him everywhere I went. Little did I know he was capable to carry the weight of my ministry, the weight of my responsibilities, the weight of my dreams and callings. He had that. Somebody who came into my life, a few people that came into my life like Peter and pretty much lifted me, gave me a simple instruction. One of them was the book of Pastor Benny of Good Morning Holy Spirit. There was other men of God, their books and their teachings that created an appetite, pretty much stretched their hand and said, listen, you don't have to be dragged to the temple. You can walk. And like that paralyzed man, my prayer was always give me coins, meaning Lord, give me miracles. That was my survival. But my real prayer should have been Lord, help me to know the Holy Spirit. Because the moment you learn how to walk, that man no longer begged after he learned how to walk. He leaped. He praised. Because now he can go make a living by himself. And I feel like when a Christian, every Christian has the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit does not have every Christian. And we are born with the Holy Spirit. We're born again with the Holy Spirit. We can walk in the Holy Spirit. It takes time. It takes knowledge. It takes impartation. It takes being surrounded with other ministries that walk in the Holy Spirit. It takes Peter. It could take David. It could take Vlad. It could take some other minister who will pretty much with their experience stretch their hand into that person's situation and say, listen, there's more to Holy Spirit than speaking in tongues. And you don't have to just carry him. He can carry you. You don't have a Holy Spirit, Junior. We don't have Holy Spirit. Upgrade it. It's the exactly same Holy Spirit. The same thing as with legs. And then you can begin to walk. And as with legs, I have two legs. I see walking in the Holy Spirit is walking both in his gifts and in his fruit. In two legs. And I feel like... So somebody listening to you understands that there was a turning point for you. I like that you said that you had the Holy Spirit but he didn't have you. So here you find this turning point. The Holy Spirit speaks to you. You begin to listen because of desperation. He starts to work in your life. And as you say, it was because of this fellowship or this friendship. But somebody listening will say, well, I want that. I'm hearing that. I understand that friendship with the Holy Spirit is what ultimately will bring the breakthrough. What does that look like? What is exactly fellowship with the Holy Spirit? So for me, I paint a mental image that the Holy Spirit is sitting next to me. What helped me in the first stages is I actually placed a chair. I sat in the chair and I placed a chair. You did this physically? Physically. In the room. I locked my... I didn't do that in the presence of other people because I didn't want him to think I'm crazy. And so I placed a chair in front of me and I talked to him as though he sat in the chair. I felt he was there. Well, scripturally he's there. So every imagination that I painted in my mind of his reality in the room it wasn't my fabrication. It was the truth. It was in God's word. And so I started to talk to him. I talked to him about how I felt. I talked to him how I wanted to know him. I expressed my feelings of affection. I expressed my feelings of desire. I expressed that I wanted to know him. I asked him to begin to trust me, help me, change me. And then anytime I ran out of things to say, I just waited and then I went on to pray. And that's just 10-15 minutes a day. And that's how, but in my mind I painted a picture in my mind that number one he is God, he is a person and he's here. He's not somewhere out there. He is right here. And so because people sometimes ask me, can you pray to the Holy Spirit? And I ask him, can you pray to God? Can you worship the Holy Spirit? Can you worship God? Is the Holy Spirit God? So if he's God, that right away cleared everything. I know that we're instructed to pray to the Father in the name of Jesus by the help of the Holy Spirit. But right now he is God on Earth. The same way Jesus was 2,000 years ago and the same way Father was revealing himself to Moses. I sense that today is his era and the Pharisees, what they did is they loved the God of the Old Testament, hated or ignored the God who was present here. And I believe a lot of Christians are experiencing exactly the same thing. They're treating the Holy Spirit the same way the Pharisees treated Jesus, yet they love the Father. Many Christians, they love Jesus. They just really treat the Holy Spirit as the crazy uncle. Like the wild, weird one. We just want to kind of keep him. Pentecostals are the ones that have him. So for me that was a mental picture that he is here, he is for me, he is with me and that I can talk to him. So somebody's watching right now and there is a holy agitation taking place in them. They desire what you're talking about. I want you to take a couple minutes and talk right to that person about what it is to walk in that friendship. So if you are watching this right now you probably have read a lot of books and watched many sermons by David Hernandez and so many other preachers and men of God on YouTube, Facebook and other means. And all of this following after people who are walking in the Holy Spirit has created the appetite inside of you. And that's kind of how it happened with me. At first it started with me following those people that knew the Holy Spirit and then it went into the fellowship with the Holy Spirit. I would just encourage you not to compare your experience with the Holy Spirit in the process. If you read other people's experiences a lot of times what that will do is it will actually create within you a disappointment. For me my experience was more of a revelation than a manifestation. And so as you begin to in your room car 5 to 7 minutes every single day and talk to the Holy Spirit it doesn't have to be in the room. It could be in the car. It could be in your bed. He is right there and he wants to talk to you. He is interested in you the God of universe, the Creator of galaxies, the Holy Spirit the one that Jesus relied on is deeply interested in you. That you don't like you that you with struggles, that you with weaknesses, that you who makes promises to God and keeps breaking them that you that's disappointed in your own personal lack of fervency for God consistency after God, that you that loses the streaks on you version Bible app that you that still slips into some of the things in your past that you if you begin to give Holy Spirit moments during the day of attentiveness affection to his to him as a person something will begin to happen. You will begin to see his hand on the rest of your life and on the rest of your day. One of the examples that I use is I try to drink coffee without a lid for a reason to remind myself that when your coffee is full you become extremely careful how you walk. I spilled my coffee so many times in the car I spilled it on myself because I wasn't careful. I moved so quickly and the Holy Spirit uses that example all the time in my life and I keep having coffee without a lid for this reason to remind myself when I am full of the Holy Spirit I become conscious of the Holy Spirit when I become conscious it changes my behavior and if it doesn't change my behavior I spill meaning I make mistakes which then I grieve the Holy Spirit and I feel something different and I go and I repent and I go back to that fullness I don't try to change my behavior I try to change my perspective on the person of the Holy Spirit and being conscious of him automatically dictates changes makes me slow down makes me change how I speak makes me restrains me you will see an increase in holiness you will see freedom flowing in your life and most amazing part is that as you follow the Holy Spirit miracles and signs will follow you I want you to pray with them right now and then I'll pray with them but let's ask that the Lord would continue to cultivate that fire within them so that they would continue to pursue that fellowship with the Holy Spirit go ahead and pray precious Jesus I thank you right now this presence is in this room it's in the studio and it's with that person watching on their phone on their computer on their television in that hospital in this car Lord in that office I pray Jesus that you will reveal the Holy Spirit to them I pray the scales will fall from their eyes I pray that they will get to know a person that they will not just know the power but they will know the person of the Holy Spirit they will have the fellowship with the Holy Spirit so real and so precious I pray starting today that there's something we'll just cultivate that the words that were spoken that they will take root I pray for those who are desperate and for those who are hungry I pray for those who are tired of making resolutions and breaking them for those who are maybe tired of their ministry never taken off and seeing just their own fruit but not seeing results of your favor and your grace upon their ministry I pray for every single young man and young woman in ministry but who is tired and burned out that you will kindle a flame right now within them that will never die I pray that you will kindle within them a passion to know the Holy Spirit as a person and that you will begin to move in their life through signs and wonders in Jesus mighty name and Holy Spirit we ask that for that one who is struggling to begin to seek you Lord that you would come seeking after them I pray in the name of Jesus that there would be a desire even for a desire to seek after your face Father capture their heart and precious Holy Spirit draw that one into the depths of Jesus and let them see a side of your glory such as they've never known before I pray it be done in the name of Jesus and I want you to say it because you will agree say amen Pastor Vlad my friend I'm so glad we did this you know you've got a tremendous YouTube channel and there's so many other things we can promote about your ministry but I think if they get the YouTube channel they'll get connected with pretty much everything else that you guys are doing so talk about the YouTube channel just for about a minute and tell them how they can find that so we have a hungry generation YouTube channel and you can go on YouTube and look for hungry generation and then you will find we've posted a lot of content about the person of the Holy Spirit about relationship with God testimonies of healing and deliverance and that's one of the unique points you guys bring about you're one of the few ministries I'm seeing today that are still demonstrating the delivering power of God and not just the healing power of God so I really appreciate that about you but as we said go check that out get connected with this ministry awesome awesome awesome I watch the content I love the content and I love my friend Pastor Vlad we're coming on to EncounterTV well that is it for this edition of ETV interviews here on the EncounterTV network until next time remember nothing is impossible with God thank you for watching EncounterTV don't forget to subscribe and click the notification bell also help us spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit make a one-time donation or become a month's subscriber and if you want to know more about and draw closer to the Holy Spirit this is the channel I know you'll love this is the Holy Spirit's channel EncounterTV Encounter the presence and power of the Holy Spirit thank you for watching EncounterTV make a one-time donation or become a monthly supporter by clicking on the donate link now