INTRODUCTION
On the 12th day of June 1993, just after a night vigil, when I got home, I was lying down on the bed trying to sleep when all of a sudden; I was feeling what felt like raindrops on my face. I was very surprised because I was in the ground floor of a storey building. There was no way it could be raining outside and get in there. In addition, it was not even raining outside! Then I tried to wipe my face with my hand and it was all dry. I had never had this kind of experience before and since then. I remembered the scripture text of Acts 3:19 that talks about times of refreshing coming from the presence of the Lord following the night vigil because I ministered all night and needed to be refreshed.
Prior to this experience, I had just read the book “Good Morning Holy Spirit” by Dr. Benny Hinn. That book made the Holy Spirit so real to me that I began to relate with Him as the person He is. Then I was invited to minister in a fellowship where I taught on the will of God and I found myself teaching about the gift of the Holy Spirit and how we can benefit from Him. At that meeting, the Holy Spirit showed up in a very spectacular move. So many testimonies were shared later after that meeting. I will share two of these testimonies here as they happen to be relevant to what we are going to be looking at in this book. The first is that of an unbelieving lady who had been sick and was admitted in the hospital for two weeks prior to the program. She said later that when she was not recovering, she decided to honor the invitation to the program we were having. She said when she came in and heard the message, she decided she was going to surrender her life to Christ and when I was laying hands on them to be filled with the Holy Spirit, she got filled and began to speak in tongues unknown to her and was instantly healed.
The second testimony which is sequel to this first one is that of a little boy in the fellowship whom God opened his eyes as I was ministering. He said he saw fire coming out of my fingers and igniting the people I was laying hands on and that when I laid hands on this lady who got healed on the spot, the fire went through her whole being and the vision cleared off his eyes.
I personally did not feel anything and did not exactly know what was going on but I believed that if I obeyed God to lay hands on the people, the nail scarred hand of the Lord was going to come between mine and the people on whom hands were laid and Jesus Christ would fill them with the Holy spirit and fire. I believe that is what the little boy saw in his vision of the fire. John the Baptist said concerning Jesus Christ in Matthew 3:11 and Luke 3:16 respectively that He will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Over the years, I have observed that this doctrine of the ministry and gift of the Holy Spirit has generated a lot of controversy in the Church to the point of division in some extreme cases. I find this very amazing because any bible believing Christian should really have no doubt about the gift and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I have put this piece together in faith believing God to use it to clarify this message to anyone in doubt of the ministry of the Holy Spirit and help to minister this grace to as many as are truly seeking to experience God in their daily lives.
I also intend to make this little contribution to the general Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to help ministers attain to their maximum potential in ministering in the power of God.
It is my sincere heart felt prayer dear reader that this book will minister to you.
THE HOLY SPIRIT AND HIS MINISTRY
One day; a few months after I got to the mission field for the first time, I prayed that the Lord would wake me up at the same time He usually does because I had slept very late that night as I had to do some recordings in the studio which took time into the night. I had to be up before four that morning to host the early Morning Prayer meeting which held at four every weekday morning. When I got up and looked at the time on my handset, it was a few minutes after five in the morning and I was not happy at all as I felt that I had over slept. The first thing I said that morning was that I was not happy with the Holy Spirit and He immediately asked if that was how I was going to talk to Him. I was struck with conviction and immediately repented of my rudeness and I greeted Him good Morning like I learnt to do from Dr. Benny Hinn’s book. He responded as though I had done nothing wrong.
Then I began to reason that God never fails and it is very unlike Him not to wake me up at 3.20 am. Then something occurred to me and I jumped off the bed and switched on the lights and frantically searched for my wrist watch and when I found it and checked the time, it was just 3.20am. He had faithfully kept His part and I was even feeling more terrible about the way I had spoken earlier. What happened was that the previous day, I had removed my battery from my phone and when I replaced it, I did not reset the time. So the handset could not give me an accurate time.
At this new discovery, I apologized again for my previous rudeness and asked the Lord to tell me whatever He wanted me to do and I would do it and He said I knew what to do. So I began to praise Him. From that day, I came up with this sublime understanding that God is matchlessly faithful!
That early Morning Prayer service that day was so powerful that I can call it a landmark event in my life and ministry.
In my experience in my walk with God over the years, I can say authoritatively that there is no better companion than the Holy Spirit and He is the most patient and compassionate person I ever met. I recall my dad once saying that people take on the character of the God they serve over time which explains why idol worshippers bear children that look like the ugly images they worship. He further explained that God made all people beautiful but idolatry corrupted the good looks of men. I used to be amused by what my dad said then, but over time as I find myself striving to be more and more like the God I serve, I am beginning to come to terms with the truth of that statement jokingly made by my dad as I was growing up.
When you look through the bible from Genesis to Revelation, you will find that at no point in time have large numbers of people experienced God in an intimate way like now. The reason for this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in manifestation. His ministry to the Church began on the day of Pentecost when Peter said concerning Him in Acts 2:16-18 thus:
“But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
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, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:”
His ministry to us is intended to be forever. When Jesus spoke about it, He said in John 14:15-17:
“If ye love me, keep my commandments.
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
This is the mystery known as Christ in you the hope of glory which Apostle Paul wrote about in his letter to the Church at Colossae in Colossians 1:27. It is this mystery we shall begin looking at in this part of this book.
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