United with Dan on a Mission

Chapter 8.1 Holy Spirit week

We started off the week by learning how to engage with the Holy Spirit and by asking questions that we hoped to answer in the coming week. My questions included:

“How is the Holy Spirit different from the ‘Father’ and ‘Son’? He’s the first of the 3 parts of God to be mentioned in the Bible – Gen1:2 “…and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters,” and Ps139:7-12 “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” Elsewhere we see the Spirit represented in the forms of a Dove, Water, Fire, Oil and Breath / Wind.

How did ‘He’ act in the OT vs NT? In the OT the Spirit came upon people, in the NT He is within.

Is he active in unbelievers? John 16:8-11 “When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.” 1. He convicts the world of sin, specifically unbelief in Jesus. Again it’s the Holy Spirit that does the work in the hearts of others, not me. 2. He ministers and gives revelation regarding righteousness to believers helping us become more intimate with God. 3. His presence in the world is a constant reminder to Satan that he has already been convicted, judged and has already lost. The Spirit declares victory and it gives us as believers the power and authority of reminding Satan that he is lost!

What are some of ‘His’ names? Helper, Counsellor, Spirit of Truth, Advocate, Intercessor, Holy Spirit, Strengthener, Reminder, Revealer, Teacher, Friend and many more: Rom1:4, 8:2, 15-16, Mat10:20, 1Peter4:14, Heb9:14, 10:29, Eph1:17, 4:30, Zac12:10, Isaih4:4, 11:2, Nei9:20, 1Cor6:11, Phil3:3.

We then learned about how the Spirit, Son and Father all dance together in perfect unison and that there is no hierarchy between them, and that we are called to join in this dance as co-workers with God, made in his image. We learnt about what our spirits consist of: A conscience, Intuition and a connection / fellowship with God. We also dove into the fruits of the Spirit briefly, but a bigger focus was the gifts of the Spirit: Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith, Healing, Miracles, Prophecy, Discerning of Spirit, Tongues, and Interpretation of Tongues. We then did an exercise practicing authority by commanding coins to remain stuck to the wall.

And then came Thursday the 8^th of November… [Aton] gave me a word, take your foot out of the door. I interpreted this in relation to the door that I’ve kept returning to within me. It was just at the right time. In reflection I had recently come to peace with walking into the light, and possibly getting lost in there. With the 5 images of the Holy Spirit (Dove/Water/Fire/Oil/Wind or Breath) our leader laid out 5 stations for each, so that we could interact with them. While at the ‘oil station’ the Holy Spirit reminded me of a scripture that’s been one of my favourites for a while, Ps121:5 “The Lord watches over you— the Lord is your shade at your right hand.” Then He said, “Oil is used for many things, one of these is for anointing and welcoming of guests. Wash your right hand with this oil in preparation and to show that you are ready, because from that point on, ‘I’ will not just be the shade, but will hold your hand and walk with you.”

A word from [Ada]: she saw me sitting at the fire of the Lord, the Lord is keeping me warm, and as long as I stay near him he will continue to keep me warm. She also said that she saw me with sticky hands and climbing a wall like Spiderman. I can do stuff through God which seems impossible. In relation to this it spoke to me regarding my ‘talents’ of which many were lost with the accident. I guess the Spirit just reminded me to not forget about putting work into talents and multiplying them.

Later that afternoon I was spending alone time again, deep in prayer… when suddenly the Spirit brought something forward that I had shelved to deal with later, and said it’s time. It was the question concerning, “God / Jesus, where were you those days when I felt all alone? When I questioned your existence? Searched for you to no avail until finally giving up? Why didn’t you protect me from all that hurt and pain? Where were you as my comforter and rock? How about all those promises?” He answered showing me a picture, and then said:

“You are ready to know, in fact I was all around you. At a time when you had no faith as a shield I sent angels to carry shields on your behalf! The fact that you felt alone was you believing a lie. The walls you thought were your own were made from the shields the angels carried. The fact that you are here now, is because I was with you, making sure no obstacle was too great. You just couldn’t see Me, because I faced the enemy. You beat your fists in rebellion trying to escape from the wall of shields, you grew in anger and hate towards me because I didn’t let you outside the walls, but thus you were shielded from the arrows of the enemy and are here today! I took those arrows on your behalf and dumped them at the cross.” What I thought was my dark corner of isolation was in fact me under the protection / shade of God. Then He said: “As revealed a while long ago, I am training you to be a knight in The Kingdom, in other words you have matured enough to hold your own shield. There’s your answer, that’s where I was.”

Two months in, and then it happened. My mind still can’t make sense of it, but Thursday night the group gathered for worship. I was reflecting on all that happened the day, and was praising God for it. Next I felt what I first thought was heart burn, but it spread out too wide to be heart burn. Next it turned into a feeling of pins and needles and creeped into my ribs. I felt it spread with every breath and then the leader [Cat] came over concerned because I didn’t look myself. I started to describe to her how I was feeling, and how weird it felt in my ribs, and that I’m not that ticklish, except for in my ribs, but only people with the ‘right’ size fingers can get it right, and before I could finish my sentence, amongst the pins and needles in my ribs it felt like a pair of hands just started tickling me from the inside. And there I was laughing for the next 30 minutes or so, uncontrollably. Everyone else believes it was the manifestation of the Spirit; I well, I am inclined to agree…