Catch The Wave E-Book

Steven Cole

• Herausgeber: Proisle Publishing Services
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 137

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Experience the Thrill of Holy Spirit Empowered Ministry. Engineer/teacher/author Steven Cole will guide you with an engineer’s precision through a powerful teaching on the ministry and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Practical and easy to understand, "Catch the Wave" will introduce you to the Holy Spirit in a way that makes Him real and personal. You will learn:
• Who the Holy Spirit is
• Why the Holy Spirit is given to the Church
• When the Holy Spirit indwells a believer
• What the gifts of the Holy Spirit are
• How the Holy Spirit operates through believers
Are you ready to experience the awesome power of the Holy Spirit in your life? If so, dive in and catch the wave!
About the author:
Steven W. Cole holds a degree in electronics and retired from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2004 after 25 years as a Senior Instrumentation Systems Engineer. He was saved in 1966 and filled with the Holy Spirit shortly thereafter. For twenty-five years, he has taught adult believers in local churches, and in recent years, he has developed a Holy Spirit seminar that has been well received. Steve and his wife, Linda, moved to Dewey, Arizona, in 2006. Sadly, his wife passed away in 2021 due to Alzheimer's.

Leseprobe

Wave

the

Catch

EXPERIENCE THE THRILL OF SPIRIT-EMPOWERED LIVING!

STEVEN COLE

© Copyright 2024 by Steven Cole

ISBN:

978-1-963735-75-8 (paperback)

978-1-963735-76 (E-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher disclaims any responsibility for them.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Proisle Publishing Services LLC

39-67 58th Street, 1st floor

Woodside, NY 11377, USA

Phone: [phone])

[email protected]

This book is dedicated to all of us as we joyfully align ourselves to our Savior and to His work.

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One

My Story

Chapter Two

Anatomy of a Miracle

Chapter Three

The Holy Spirit Baptism

Chapter Four

The Gift of the Spirit

Chapter Five

Spiritual Warfare

Chapter Six

Hearing God’s Voice

Notes

Foreword

T

here is only a handful of lay people to whom I hand the microphone during our worship services at Faith Community Church. Steven Cole is one of them. I know that I can trust him to bring a fresh, timely and sensitive word from the Lord. He hears from God and is gifted to bring forth the message in a relaxed manner that results in both blessing and edification.

Learning to minister accurately in the power of the Holy Spirit without becoming trivial, weird or spooky is a challenge for every believer who desires to fulfill his or her God-given destiny. For years, Steven has offered his Catch the Wave Seminar to our congregation, helping many Christians do just that. Now, by putting the practical information in book form, many more can learn how to hear from God and respond to His voice. I know I have heard His voice speaking through Steven, and I believe you too will hear his voice as you read this book.

—Dr. Jim Reeve

Faith Community Church

Preface

O

ne of the mysteries of Christianity is how one God can be represented in three distinct personalities: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Theologians call it the Trinity, but the biblical term is “the Godhead.” The personalities of God are always in harmony with one another. Each has His own responsibilities. The Father is the Master Architect of the universe. The Son is Creator and Redeemer. The Holy Spirit is the Implementer of the will of each person of the Godhead. He is God’s presence we sense, God’s voice we hear and God’s power on earth. The Holy Spirit is God’s seal on our hearts and lives. (See 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13.)

The Holy Spirit is largely ignored in much of the church today. We ask people to “invite Jesus into your heart” even though Jesus is at the right hand of the Father (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 12:2). What we are really doing is encouraging people to accept the sovereignty of the Father (Christ was made Lord; lordship is generally associated with the second person of the Trinity), the salvation purchased by Jesus and the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit. God understands what we mean and accepts us where we are. Praise God! The better we understand and use proper terminology, however, the less we are confused by the Scriptures.

The purpose of this book is to aid in that process. I want to help the church understand and think properly about the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Spirit-filled believer. Too often the baptism in the Holy Spirit is seen as just an entry into the inner circle of a Pentecostal church.

Real ministry is left to the paid staff or the select few who prophesy on Sunday morning. If there is a main point to this book, it is that “You can minister, too.” Jesus intended that each member of His church be led by the Holy Spirit in some level of ministry. I hope this book will encourage every reader to step beyond his current comfort level and get involved in touching people with the power of the Spirit.

Many books on the baptism of the Holy Spirit or on spiritual gifts go beyond what the Bible actually says. I do not want to do that. The only reliable information we have on the subject is in the Word of God. Going beyond the Bible has the potential to teach false doctrine, to leave a false impression of what God wants for each of us. It would be better not to teach anything than to leave the reader with a false impression or attitude toward God. Where personal experiences are mentioned, they elaborate and illustrate what the Scripture says, but the Scripture is foremost in this book.

Introduction

I

n the history of religion, the Hebrews were unique. All the other societies had multiple gods. They had a god for everything. The sun was a god, the moon was a god, trees were gods, animals were gods, and even rocks were gods. These gods were much like the people who worshiped them. They ate, drank and got drunk. They slept and became angry. At times they acted foolishly. They had sexual relations with one another and occasionally with ordinary humans, creating demi-gods.

The God of the Hebrews is not like mankind at all. The God of the Hebrews is a God of extremes. He always loves, always acts with great wisdom, always does right, and is always vigilant. There is no being more powerful or with more knowledge or wisdom. He is not confined to a specific location. He is everywhere, but separate from the physical world. He is beyond our comprehension. In fact, one of the arguments for the existence of God is His dissimilarity to mankind. If God really exists, it is reasoned, He must be of a different nature than mankind, not just a copy of man with special powers.

Throughout the Old Testament, God identifies Himself as one of a kind. All the other gods and idols worshiped by other societies are just created things. The main purpose of the plagues in Egypt was to show that God had power over all the gods worshiped by the Egyptians.

The New Testament reveals that the one God of the Hebrews appears in three personalities, which are called the Godhead in Scripture.1 God the Father is the Master Architect of the universe. God the Son is Jesus, our Savior. God the Holy Spirit leads us to salvation through conviction, conveys the felt presence of God to us, and leads and instructs us as we live our lives. He is the Comforter Jesus promised to leave with us before He ascended to God the Father.2 Finally, the Holy Spirit is the power of God on the earth.

This book deals at length with the Holy Spirit, the least understood member of the Godhead. Many churches completely ignore Him or acknowledge Him only in passing. As we read the Book of Acts in the Bible, we see the Holy Spirit constantly at work: speaking through prophecy, acting in power to strike Ananias and Sapphira dead, healing and raising people from the dead. As dramatic as these events are, He also works behind the scenes in the hearts of tens of thousands as the Gospel spreads throughout the known world. The miraculous work of the Holy Spirit is primarily to facilitate His work in the heart of man. Miracles are transitory; His work in men’s hearts is eternal.

Throughout history, there have been periods when the Holy Spirit was especially active. We call them revivals. These have occurred about every twenty to forty years. His activities are like waves on the ocean. Sadly, however, believers easily miss these periods of the Holy Spirit’s activity. The purpose of this book is to help the reader be aware of the Holy Spirit’s activity and to partner with Him—to catch the wave of the Holy Spirit.

Chapter One

My Story

I

was born on December 6, 1948 at Queen of Angels Hospital. My father was a hardworking man who had left high school at the age of seventeen to join the Merchant Marines during World War II. By the age of twenty, he had been around the world twice. He left the sea to marry my mother a year before I was born. My mother became a “housewife” upon marrying and was always there for my younger brother and me. We were a middle-class family living a middle-class life.

My mother was a believer, and my father claimed to be, but we did not attend church. They moved from South Central Los Angeles to the suburbs of Azusa in 1955. After the move, they were unable to find a church in which they felt comfortable. I attended church on a few occasions, but it made no real impression on my life.

My first real contact with God was when I was eleven. I was joining the Boy Scouts and had to memorize the Scout Oath and Law. I was having trouble with it, so I prayed that God would help me. He did, and for the first time I realized that the stuff I had heard in those few Sunday school classes was true and that God was real.

I grew up as a “good kid,” but I was chubby, uncoordinated and wore glasses. In addition to this, I am dyslexic. I didn’t learn to read until the seventh grade. These all combined to make me a target for abuse by other kids throughout elementary and junior high school. These things made two impacts upon my life: First, I became a loner. At least by sticking to myself with few friends I stayed away from those most set on tormenting me. Second, I used my intellect to create verbal darts I would hurl at anyone who threatened to get too close. The combination worked most of the time; but that, combined with a naturally quiet and thoughtful nature, gave me a morose and sullen personality.

By the time I reached high school I was definitely a member of the “out” crowd and didn’t like it. Starting college in 1966, I decided to change my image no matter what it cost. The best way seemed to be to join a club. The clubs on campus introduced themselves to new students during a week early in the fall semester. Booths were set up in the student center. The day I showed up to look for a club, the only booth that was manned was for a nondenominational Christian club called Alpha-Omega. I figured that I was already a Christian, so I decided to try it out.

As I started going to the club meetings, the president of the club, and probably every other member, saw my need for the Savior. The president of AΩ invited me to his church. I thought, If you really want to find out what the church is like, go to the evening service. So I did. The evening I showed up, the Teen Challenge choir was “performing” at the church. (Teen Challenge is an organization that works with drug addicts helping them become free from drugs and find a new life in Christ.) I still remember one testimony. The speaker had been arrested and convicted for possession of drugs. He was on bail before sentencing when he was introduced to Jesus Christ through Teen Challenge. His life was obviously changed by the Savior. I wanted what this drug addict had discovered. When the altar call was given, I went forward. I expected over half the church to join me, but I was the only one. The pastor tried to talk to me later that evening, but I was so overwhelmed by the experience I could do nothing but bawl. My life had changed in an evening!

I started reading the New Testament every spare moment I found. I was growing fast. A couple of months later I decided to return to my high school and share what I had discovered with my favorite teacher. That was one of the hardest things I have ever done. He, for all I could tell, was a hard-nosed, intellectual agnostic and did not want to hear about some kid’s epiphany. He was polite, but not much more.

A few weeks after that experience I was invited to an evening home prayer meeting. When I arrived, I soon found that this was not just another prayer meeting. The host, John Baker, was teaching about something called the baptism in the Holy Spirit. He said it would give believers power to share their faith. I immediately thought of that encounter with my high school teacher. I wanted what John had. At the end of the meeting, a few asked for prayer. John, along with others, prayed for them one by one. All the While an argument was going on between me and “the Voice” that I knew was God. He wanted me to ask for prayer, and I was not that sure I wanted to. About the time I gave in to the urging of God, John was talking to a young man just behind my chair. I waited for an opportunity to interrupt, and I asked John to pray for me. He encouraged me to give voice to whatever sounds were going through my mind, and I did. When I finally got up, I could barely walk. I understood why the disciples on the Day of Pentecost were accused of being drunk. I was “drunk in the Spirit.” This was the second experience that changed my life.

I had always been a thinker. When I was fifteen, I had almost convinced myself that there was no physical reality and I was a disembodied brain being fed impulses in a jar somewhere. I needed something more than just theology to hold on to my faith. God knew that, and He gave me the baptism in the Holy Spirit. It is His involvement in my life that continually convinces me of the reality of God.

At that time I attended an American Baptist Church in Azusa. Our pastor, Frank Mason, was a white South African who had become an American citizen. He and others invited me to a Charismatic prayer meeting held in a nearby house after the Sunday evening service. The first time I attended was the Sunday before my experience at the Baker’s. I noticed some of the people speaking in a language other than English, but since Pastor Mason was South African, I assumed it was he and maybe others who shared his heritage. As I attended the next week, after being filled with the Holy Spirit, I realized they were speaking in tongues as I was. That evening, as I prayed for people, I prayed in my new language. Then God gave me words in English, and I spoke them. I alternately prayed in tongues and spoke the words God gave me for most of the evening. As I continued attending the meetings, I learned about the gifts of the Spirit and saw them demonstrated.

One evening a woman in a wheelchair came to the meeting and asked for prayer. She was dying from some illness and had only weeks to live. She was not asking for healing. She had a larger problem. Her husband had either died or left her, and she had no one to take care of her children. She was almost frantic trying to find someone in time for her children to get to know them before her death. We prayed. We felt nothing special, but God moved. A few weeks later we heard the news she had been completely healed, giving her doctors a real problem. Most requests we prayed for were not nearly that dramatic, but every week we heard reports of how God moved.