 Hello, this is David Diga Hernandez, and you're watching Spirit Church here on the Encounter TV Network. This is the ninth and final installment of my series on the Holy Spirit, and I want to talk to you about friendship with the Holy Spirit. Now that you've become acquainted with his nature, with his person, with his power, with his ministry, and so forth, I want to teach you how to cultivate your friendship with the Holy Spirit. But first, Stephen Moctezuma is here with me. He's going to lead you in some very anointed worship, and then we're getting right into this message here is Stephen Moctezuma. So one of the first keys to developing a friendship with the Holy Spirit is dependency or involving him. So number one is dependency. Now we have to recognize that we need the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our ministries, but the Holy Spirit doesn't just empower preachers and prophets. The Holy Spirit empowers moms and dads and brothers and sisters and parents. The Holy Spirit empowers business owners and students and teachers. My point is simple. Whatever you do, you can be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Whoever you are, so long as you are a believer in Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit is your helper. He's waiting for you to involve him. He's waiting for you to seek his counsel. He's waiting for you to invite him into your life, into the church service, into the ministry planning, into your life planning. The Holy Spirit wants to be by your side, involved in your day to day activity. Sadly, many in the church today are shying away from the power of the Holy Spirit. Many are treating him as if he's a liability or something that we should be embarrassed of. But the Holy Spirit is a person, a person who is our friend, and we must involve him in our everyday lives. Now here's something that I teach believers. It's a very simple practice that you can implement immediately in your life. If you want to depend upon the Holy Spirit, if you want to involve him more, then I recommend this. Make it a point to think about the Holy Spirit as often as possible. Every moment of every day can be filled with the acknowledgement of his presence. Now this is not a prison. This is not something that we're to do being paranoid as if God will be angry with us if we're not thinking about him 24-7. This is a good practice because I think we tend to go the opposite way. I don't think that we think about the Holy Spirit often enough. And so this is why we must make this our practice, to think about the Holy Spirit as often as we possibly can, to have as many thoughts about the Holy Spirit all throughout our day. And when we do this, we become dependent upon him. When we do this, we become aware of his presence. When we do this, we walk in that awareness of his presence. We realize that he is near to us. And when we realize that he is near to us, we begin to live our lives according to that reality. We don't forget so easily that the Holy Spirit is with us when we are constantly putting him in our thoughts. So my recommendation to you, if you want to become more dependent upon the Holy Spirit, then constantly put him in your thoughts. Number two, understanding. This is embracing him. Don't be suspicious of him. First, Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14 says, But people who aren't spiritual can't receive these truths from God's Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them, and they can't understand it. For only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. He's very misunderstood. In fact, he's the most misunderstood person that I know. And many believers are afraid of letting his power move in their lives because they think they're unbalanced if they let him have full control. You cannot find this, how shall I say it, you cannot go wrong with giving the Holy Spirit full control of your life. Now I know that by what you've seen, you might judge the Holy Spirit. Maybe you've seen some things in church services where people are acting foolishly or being loud and clamorous, or maybe, for example, you've seen those church services where people are crawling on the floor, barking like dogs, and acting silly and foolish. That's not the power of the Holy Spirit. But at the same time, neither is the power of the Holy Spirit that stoic, angry presentation that other believers give to him. Some people fall to either extreme, but we must recognize that the Holy Spirit is a gentle person, but he's also powerful. The Holy Spirit is a mighty rushing wind, but he's also a whisper. The Holy Spirit is like that cloud, but he's also like the fire. The Holy Spirit has many different dynamics to his nature, and we must embrace them all. We must not be ashamed of him. We must not treat him as if we are suspicious of him. We must give ourselves entirely to him. So number one, dependency that's involving him in your decisions, involving him in your life, thinking about him as often as possible. Number two is understanding, embracing him, understand his nature, defend him. I'm very defensive of the Holy Spirit. Not that he needs it, but I love him so much that when I hear people speak about him or his power in a negative way, it hurts me and I say, Holy Spirit, they may not welcome you. You may not be welcome everywhere that you go, but I want you to know that here with me you have a home and I want you to feel at home in me. So number one is dependency. Number two is understanding that's embracing him. Number three is reverence that's obeying him. Ephesians chapter four, verse 30 says, and do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit. Obey him, reverence him, know what pleases and displeases him. When you know his likes and his dislikes through the word of God and through your experience with walking with the Holy Spirit, then you become aware of those things that you do that displease him. Now, as a preacher, I often am criticized. Anyone who has any form of a public platform will be criticized and to the extreme. There is no such thing as pleasing everybody. I can remember a story. I often tell it. I was so excited to attend a Bible conference and I was very excited to hear the speaker that was speaking on that night specifically. So I get to the service early. I'm ready to hear the word of God. I had a Bible. I had a notepad. I had a pen. And I remember I wanted to sit in the front row, not so that I could be seen, but so that I wouldn't be distracted, that I could just see this preacher and hear this preacher preach and take notes. So I go that night and I sit in my seat. I'm excited. I'm ready to hear the word. And a pastor comes up to me and he says, well, look at you. You think that just because now that you're having somewhat of a successful ministry that you get to sit in the front row and you want everyone to see you. He said something to that effect, basically criticizing me for sitting in the front row. And so I thought, okay, well, maybe there's something to what the pastor said. Perhaps there's something in my heart that I didn't see. So I said, okay, the next night I know where I'll sit. I'll sit in the very back. And so the next night I arrived, it was a week long conference. I sit in the very back of the church and that night a different pastor comes up to me and he comes up to me where I'm sitting in the back, he says, oh, look at you. You think that just because you're real popular now that you have to sit in the back so nobody sees you. And I realized it doesn't matter where I sit front row, back row, middle row, no matter where I sit, there will be someone who has something to say about where I sit. What's my point? You can't please people and you shouldn't even try. Now, if I'm being honest with you, there was a point in my life where I was really, it was really important to me that I pleased people. And from time to time I still have to fight that urge. And this is not some immature approach to it. I'm not talking about that immature high school mentality that says, I don't care what anybody else thinks of me. I'm going to do what I want to do. That's just selfish living. We have to recognize that our lives don't just impact those immediately next to us. They impact our friends. They impact our church family and so forth. So I'm not talking about that type of rebellious thinking. I'm talking about a simple concept. This fact, we should not seek to please people or we should not fear people. We should seek to please God first. And so I've developed this, I should say sense where I just realized that I'm not going to be able to please everyone and I don't even try anymore. So I'm not afraid of people. I'm not afraid of their opinions. I'm not afraid of them attacking me. It doesn't strike fear in my heart anymore. Also growing up I was really afraid of demonic beings. I had heard the stories about people getting possessed. I saw certain images sometimes in church services when people would speak on spiritual warfare. They would show images up on the screen and that would scare me and they would talk about the occult and the power of the enemy. And I would become really frightened. And I remember the first time I saw a demon cast out of somebody it was just terrifying. I backed up and I said I can't even believe I'm seeing this. I heard several voices come out of one man all at once. As he screamed I heard more than one voice coming out of him. That was a terrifying experience. But then after I learned that we have authority over demonic powers and after I've cast out demons several times from people, I realized I don't need to be afraid of demons. I don't need to be afraid of people. What can they do to me? Even if they should kill me, what can they do to my spirit, my soul? Nothing. I'm not afraid of demonic beings because so long as I'm in the glory of God there's no demonic being that can touch me. God is my hiding place. I'm under the shadow of his wing. They can't harm me. Nothing can touch me. So I'm not afraid of people and I'm not afraid of the demonic. I'll tell you what I am afraid of. This is my greatest fear. I'm afraid that I might grieve the Holy Spirit. I'm afraid that I might hurt him. This is why we must reverence or obey the Holy Spirit because we can hurt him. We cannot be ashamed of him. We cannot push his wishes to the side. You know you've heard people say well to each his own, that's a saying of the world. In the world there's this idea that everybody can create their own truth. That's your truth. I'm living my truth and it's just a nonsensical idea that everyone can have their own truth. Look everybody can be wrong but not everybody can be right. That's just illogical to imagine so. But still there's this idea, people persist in believing this idea that each individual can create for themselves their own standard of right and wrong, their own standard of morality. Well you live the way you want to live and I'll live the way I want to live to each his own and to each his own only actually works if each doesn't actually believe his own. We have to recognize that that mindset has actually crept into the church. You see the world says to each his own or live your own truth. The church having adopted that mindset without realizing it doesn't say to each his own the church says well I'm not convicted about it as if their feelings were the standard of right and wrong. You're not to live by your convictions. You're to live by the Holy Spirit's convictions and the Holy Spirit's convictions are based on the word of God. Not on your emotions, not on your preferences, not on your upbringing, not on your family's philosophy, not on your culture. Right and wrong is based upon the word of God and the Holy Spirit convicts us causing us to conform to the word of God. So when we reverence the Holy Spirit, when we obey him, when we live mindful of not wanting to grieve him, then we truly are reverencing him. Then we truly are being his friend because we're considering his likes and dislikes. We're living in a way that doesn't hurt him because we don't want to hurt the one we love. It's not necessarily even that I'm afraid of punishment. It's that I'm afraid of hurting him and I don't want to do that and I know you don't want to do that either. So we must live reverencing the Holy Spirit, not living based on our standards, not living based on our preferences, not doing right in our own eyes, but doing right in the Holy Spirit's eyes, accepting his standard, accepting his mindset. You might say, well, I was raised a different way and this is what I grew up believing. Look, it doesn't matter how you were raised, truth is truth and the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth and we must live in a way that is according to his standard that we might not break his heart. Number one, dependency that's involving him. Number two, understanding that's embracing him. Number three, reverence that's obeying him. Number four, trust. You must learn to trust the Holy Spirit. How many times has he spoken an instruction to your heart only to be ignored by you? How many times has he tried to lead you in a certain path but you didn't take that path because you were afraid? Some of you watching, you should be doing ministry by now. Some of you watching, you should have obeyed him by now and I'm not trying to shame anyone. Please don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not trying to shame you. I'm trying to make you aware of what's available to you. He hasn't forgotten you. He hasn't passed you by. He's still standing there with his hand outstretched saying, come follow me. Let me take you on the path where I will lead you. Trust me and the destination will be divine. If you will stop trying to live based on your own understanding, based on your own wisdom and you follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will guide you to the places of victory. The Holy Spirit will guide you through the places of prosperity. The Holy Spirit will guide you to the places of peace but you have to trust Him. You have to stop questioning Him. Here's the thing about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will speak and then not speak on the matter again until you've obeyed what He's already spoken. You're saying, Holy Spirit, show me the next step. But He's already shown you the first step. Have you taken that first step that the Holy Spirit has revealed? And if you haven't, why even ask for the second? The Holy Spirit progressively reveals the will of God, wanting us to follow Him with faith and with trust. He reveals only a portion of the staircase, asking us to take that first step even though we don't know where that staircase may lead. We must trust the Holy Spirit. We must move to the sound of His voice. That is what the true believer does. That is what the true friend of the Holy Spirit does. It hurts Him when we don't trust Him because He's never given us a reason to doubt Him. So number one, dependency involving Him. Number two, understanding, embracing Him or not being suspicious of Him or embarrassed of Him. Number three, reverence obeying Him. Number four, trust Him. Number five, as in any relationship communication. Communication is key in your relationship with the Holy Spirit. Not just Him speaking to you but also you speaking to Him. Now some of us have trouble with either one of those. Perhaps you do hear His voice, you read the Word, you pray and you allow Him to speak to your heart. That's good. But do you communicate back to Him? Do you speak with the Holy Spirit? Do you talk with Him as a friend? Do you confide in Him? Do you express what's in your heart to Him? He's waiting to hear it. Not that He doesn't already know it but there's something that happens when you communicate with the Holy Spirit. A friendship is cultivated. The communication goes both ways. Some of us have become spiritually deaf. We don't spend time in the Word. We don't pause in the busyness of life. We don't give a pace to our walk that allows for the Holy Spirit to speak with us. Some of us, if we don't trust Him, we're not walking as fast as He is. But some of us, if we don't communicate with Him, we're walking way ahead of Him. We're going too fast. We don't allow for those moments of pause in which the Holy Spirit could insert His gentle instruction. You must communicate with Him daily. You must communicate with Him moment by moment. Remember that first key I gave you dependency and when I was talking about dependency, I gave you a practice that you should implement that is retaining the Holy Spirit in your thoughts as often and as much as possible. And when you do that, you're actually slowing the pace of your life. You're slowing the pace of your mind and your thoughts and you're giving Him a moment to communicate with you. When you do this, when you become a friend of the Holy Spirit, when you depend on Him, when you understand Him, when you reverence Him, when you trust Him, when you communicate with Him and He communicates with you, you become a carrier of the presence of God. You become a carrier of His glory, a friend of the Holy Spirit. And that is it for the lesson and that is it for this series. I want to pray with you now. I want to pray that all that you've learned over these past few sessions, I pray that would be truth planted in your heart and I pray you would not forget a thing, Father, in the name of Jesus. I lift that one receiving this prayer now and I ask you to begin to cause them to become a friend of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, help them to embrace you, to depend on you, to trust you. In Jesus' name we pray. I want you to say it because you agree, say Amen. I want to welcome now the new members of Spirit Church. There you are up on the screen. We love you and we are praying for you. I always say that because I always mean it. If you like information on how you can join the Spirit Family, go to DavidHernandezMinistries.com slash Spirit Church. When you join, you'll be joining over 11,000 members from all over the world. This is a powerful Jesus-loving Spirit-filled community of believers online. And when you join, again, it's absolutely free. You're going to get an email from me every single week with a brand new teaching in it and a brand new worship cover from Mr. Stephen Mock. To zoom in with the best part, you can always reply to that email for prayer support from our ministry staff. Now to your comments. Last week's comments come from the teaching titled, The Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now, if you haven't seen this one yet, you need to go and watch it. In this video, I gave you a very clear breakdown of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the purpose of those gifts, and even how to discover the spiritual gifts that God has given to you. So that's where these comments are coming from. Go watch that video. Make sure you're subscribed to us on YouTube and following us on all the social media accounts. And when you do subscribe on YouTube, by the way, make sure you also click that notification bell so that you can receive all of the notifications concerning our content. And if you'd like me to potentially read your comment next week, then leave a comment in the comment section right now. Let me know what you thought of this whole series. I'd be interested to know that. So here are the comments from The Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Abigail Buffo writes, By the direction of God, I found your channel. I am watching from Italy, and I love the way you and your team teach and present the Word of God. I also love your worship. May God bless you in Jesus' name. Amen. Beverly Gould writes, Thank you for clarifying how The Gifts of the Spirit operate. Your teaching brought me to a calm, peaceful place in my spirit. God bless this ministry. Our good friend Jesus moment writes, You are an excellent evangelist and teacher. This is a clear overview of The Gifts of the Holy Spirit. I work in administration. Maybe that's one of the gifts the Holy Spirit has given me. I've never looked at it this way. I like when things are organized and I love to encourage people. And finally, Joey Hare writes, Your teachings are inspiring. Though I know the Holy Spirit, the wisdom he gives you to share with us believers helps us understand him in ways we might have never known if you had not embraced this amazing ministry. Jesus has given you. Thank you for obeying his will. Well, Joey, all glory belongs to the Lord. It's not because of me. It's despite me. For anything good that you see in me, give him glory. For anything bad, please give me grace. And this is what we do. We love to spread the Word of God. You know, the world has its mechanisms that it puts out there, the music industry, Hollywood, even social media. Now everyone's using social media. The world has its mechanisms through which it infects a generation with its ideas. Millions and millions of those in our generation and in generations before and after are being impacted by this machine, this anti-Christ machine that is propagating lies. And this is the light. Encounter TV, the Holy Spirit Channel. This is a light that the Holy Spirit is using to shine in dark places. I want to read a verse to you. If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. As the Scripture tells us, anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. Verse 13, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Now watch this, verse 14, but how can they call on him to save unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone tell them without being sent? I'm asking you to send me to them. Send us to the nations. Look, the content we create costs money to create. We don't charge for that content because there are some people who can't afford the gospel. This channel, these teachings, these sermons and miracle services and worship clips go all around the world to parts of the world where they couldn't afford to pay $200 for an E-Course or $300 for a mentorship class. This is how we reach them. We reach them by propagating the message. And I don't ever want to put a paywall between someone who needs to hear the truth and the truth. So who funds this? It's you. Our viewers, our partners, our supporters, we don't want to force anyone to pay anything, which is why we do it this way. The biblical way is to ask for offerings. That's the way you're to do it according to Scripture. So I'm asking you, send me. Help us continue to produce this content. Help us to continue to put this media out there for others. You've received, now help someone else receive. Not just through media, but through events. You realize we don't charge registrations for any of our events because we rely upon God who speaks to the heart of His people and that's you. So God is speaking to you now. You know, I think we over spiritualize it sometimes. We say, well, God didn't speak to me directly to give that. Well really, did the Lord speak to you about when you bought that cup of coffee? Did the Lord speak to you when you went through that drive through and you bought that meal? Did the Lord speak to you when you bought those clothes or that gym membership or when you signed up to that streaming account? No, the Holy Spirit did not speak to you. You just did it because you budgeted. You saw, you had the money and so you did it. Here's what I'm asking you to do. If you have the resources, give. That's why God gave it to you. Some of you have subscriptions to Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime, yet the content they give you doesn't enrich your spirit. Here the content we're giving you enriches your spirit. So you as a donor in some way are subscribing to this and you're helping us to continue to create this content. So do that today. If you have it, do it. Don't say, well, God hasn't spoken to me or I need to pray about it. That's what he does when he wants you to give those larger gifts we need to hear from God. There are times when the Lord will speak to you about very large amounts and I have to make sure it's God because otherwise I'm being foolish with his resources. But when it comes to these types of things, $30 a month, $20 a month, $10 a month, come on. Some of you spend more than $10 a month on those streaming services. Some of you have, you know, Disney Plus and so forth and you have all these streaming services that you spend more than $30 a month on. I'll tell you what, if you say you can't afford to support this ministry, cancel those streaming services and then reroute the money here. Because if you can't support the gospel, but you can support a streaming service, there's something wrong if you're a believer. Now I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I'm trying to get you to think about this. Why feed into the world's machine when you can feed into something that's expanding the kingdom? So let it challenge you. Become my partner today, $10 a month, $20 a month, $30 a month. Some people do $250 and $100 a month. When you sign up to become my partner for $30 a month or more, I'll send you one of these books as my gift. I'll sign it, send it to you, and God will bless you for it too. And that's just an initiation gift to say, thank you. Do that today. Go to davidhernandezministries.com slash donate, sign up to be my partner right now and help us continue to take the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit all around the world. And that is it for this edition of Spirit Church here on the Encounter TV Network. Until next time, remember, nothing is impossible with God. Thank you for watching Encounter TV. 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 monthly supporter by clicking on the donate link now.