The Holy Spirit E-Book

Edir Macedo

• Herausgeber: Unipro
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 130

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Though some of the most basic elements of nature are used to describe the Holy Spirit (fire, water, wind), He still remains a mystery to many. Jesus said, 'You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,' but who is the Holy Spirit? What is baptism in the Holy Spirit? Who can receive Him and how does it happen? What are the benefits of being baptised in the Holy Spirit? What's in it for me? Find all the answers to these and many other questions in this book by Bishop Macedo. 'The Holy Spirit' is a detailed explanation of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity as well as a practical guide to people who truly desire to Know Him.

Leseprobe

M141h

Macedo, Bishop Edir 1945 –

The Holy Spirit: Bishop Edir Macedo1st ed. - Rio de Janeiro: Unipro, 2018.

ISBN 978-85-7140-855-5

1. The Holy Trinity. 2. The fruit of the Holy Spirit.

I. Title.

CDD – 231.3

Copyright© 2007 Unipro EditoraGENERAL COORDINATION: Renato CardosoGENERAL DIRECTOR: A. LobatoEDITOR: Mauro RochaDESIGN MANAGER: Paulo S. Rocha Jr.DESIGN AND LAYOUT: Handerson R. Theodoro and Mauro RochaENGLISH VERSION: Sandra GouvêaEDITING: David HigginbothamCOVER ART: Nei Carvalho

1st edition 2018

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means.Transgressors will be prosecuted according to the law.Scripture quotations in this publication are from The New King James Version, property of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Rio de JaneiroEstrada Adhemar Bebiano, 3.610Inhaúma – CEP: 20766-720Rio de Janeiro – RJ, BrazilTel.: +55 21 [email protected]

Index

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1  THE HOLY TRINITY

Chapter 2  NAMES AND SYMBOLS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Chapter 3  THE FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Chapter 4  THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Chapter 5  THE GIFTS OF POWER

Chapter 6  THE GIFTS OF INSPIRATION

Chapter 7  BAPTISM WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT

Chapter 8  WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR BAPTISM WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT?

Preface

Do you need the baptism in the Holy Spirit?

Let’s just say that Jesus Himself had to receive the Holy Spirit before He started His ministry or did any miracle on Earth (Matthew 3.16). If the Son of God needed the Holy Spirit when He was here in flesh and blood, what about the rest of us?

Read this book, check the referenced Scriptures, apply what you learn. Give yourself no rest until you have been filled with power from above!

Enough said. Start now.

Bishop Renato Cardoso

Introduction

The Holy Spirit is real and active in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is not some kind of force, energy or feeling. He acts in the life of Christians in a way that will last forever.

Many Christians say they have been ‘visited’ by the Holy Spirit and they are content with that; others, like birds without a nest, keep looking everywhere for people or places where they can hear the voice of the Spirit, or they may nibble at the crumbs that fall from the table of the mercenaries of faith, those who perform signs falsely attributed to the Holy Spirit.

Christians who are faithful and attentive to what God says in His Word do not need to do this.

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to His Church on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and, since then, He has baptised all those who have been touched by Him with the same Spirit.

The Holy Spirit was sent with the sole purpose of dwelling within Christians; so, if we are His dwelling place, we must not be content with occasional ‘visits’.

Dear friend, the intention of this book is to share with you what God has put in my heart since I began to serve Him.

My sincere desire is that people accept the Lord Jesus as their Saviour, that they are set free, blessed in every area of their lives and that they enjoy the fullness of a Christian life, with the Holy Spirit always dwelling within them.

It goes without saying that the Holy Spirit was sent to His Church—the only representative of the Kingdom of God in this world. He cannot be used for personal gain and does not belong to any particular group. No one, regardless of how holy he is, can manipulate the Holy Spirit—although some people try.

Everything the Holy Spirit does has the aim of comforting, guiding and strengthening Christians, so that we are able to build the Church, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, of which we are all members.

Chapter 1

The Holy Trinity

Although we will only truly understand the Holy Trinity when we come before the throne of grace, we can be certain of its existence from the information contained in the Holy Scriptures.

Some verses are absolutely clear about it and leave no room for doubt about the existence of the Holy Trinity. The clearest and most evident manifestation of the Holy Spirit was during the baptism of the Lord Jesus, carried out by John the Baptist. It says,

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent Him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?’ But Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he allowed Him. When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’

Matthew 3.13-17

At that moment, three People were present:

- The Son, being baptised;

- The Holy Spirit, descending upon the Son like a dove; and,

- The Father, recognising His Beloved Son, Jesus, from heaven.

The apostle John also confirms the existence of the Trinity when he says, ‘And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one’ (1 John 5.8).

There is no direct reference to the Trinity in the Old Testament. We can see, however, from the expressions used when God created man that the existence of the Holy Trinity is revealed. ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness’ (Genesis 1.26) and ‘Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us”’ (Genesis 3.22).

The Bible shows that three distinct People form the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. However, there is only One God. This is a mystery, but our knowledge of the existence of the Holy Trinity should bring us great joy. The secret things belong to God. As the Word says, ‘The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law’ (Deuteronomy 29.29).

We will now look at each member of the Trinity and the part that they each play in the plan for the salvation of humankind. It is important to understand that They are all equal in glory, majesty and power, it is only Their roles in the plan for eternal salvation that are different.

God the Father

From the creation of all things until the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole universe witnessed the powerful manifestation of God the Father. With just a word from His mouth things that did not exist came into being. The psalmist spoke about Him, saying:

Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, You are very great: You are clothed with honor and majesty, who cover Yourself with light as with a garment, who stretch out the heavens like a curtain. He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters, who makes the clouds His chariot, who walks on the wings of the wind.

Psalm 104.1-3

God the Father manifested His glory in this world, especially in the establishment of His chosen people in the land of Israel. Patriarchs, kings, judges, prophets and priests all experienced the strength of His power with such force that even now we remember their experiences and exult in the power and glory of His presence.

God the Father would come down from His throne of glory in order to manifest Himself in the midst of His people. He has never been distant from His creatures. Instead, He has always participated in the history of humankind. In this way, He shows each generation that He alone is Lord and God.

Every time God spoke to His people through a patriarch, prophet, king or judge, it was a clear manifestation of God the Father, although God the Son and God the Holy Spirit were in and with Him. As a matter of fact, the Holy Spirit has always followed the work of both the Father and the Son. We can find proof of that in the first verses of the Bible, which say, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters’ (Genesis 1.1,2).

One can easily identify two of the three Members of the Holy Trinity in these verses. However, there are many other Bible verses in the Old Testament that confirm Their existence.

Whilst God the Father was working with His people here on Earth, He announced the coming of the Messiah, God the Son, the Saviour of humankind. Isaiah prophesied about Him, saying, ‘For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’ (Isaiah 9.6). The same prophet also spoke of His sacrifice, saying:

Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Isaiah 53.1-3

When the Lord Jesus was born, God the Father began to speak through His Son, as described in the epistle to the Hebrews. It says:

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.

Hebrews 1.1,2

God the Son

Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

Hebrews 1.3,4

Before we define the Lord Jesus’ position on Earth in relation to the Holy Trinity, we would like to make it clear that, before He was born of the virgin Mary by the work and grace of the Holy Spirit, He had already been sitting on the throne of glory, for it is written:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

John 1.1-3

His human side lasted until His death. Many Bible verses reveal His human characteristics, such as: ‘Jesus wept’ (John 11.35) and ‘He was asleep’ (Matthew 8.24); on the cross, He said, ‘I thirst!’ (John 19.28); ‘And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry’ (Matthew 4.2), etc. These Bible verses are clear evidence that the Lord Jesus kept His human side, so that He could serve as a sacrifice on behalf of humankind.

God determined that, ‘The soul who sins shall die’ (Ezekiel 18.4). When Adam sinned, not only did he condemn himself to death, but also he passed on to humankind the seed of sin and, because of this, death.

On the other hand, in order to save humankind, the Lord determined, ‘Without shedding of blood there is no remission’ (Hebrews 9.22). There is life in blood. This is why the sacrifice of animals had been established. Every time the people of Israel sinned, they would bring an animal, depending on which sin they had committed, to the Jewish priest and he would sacrifice the animal in order to purify the sinners.

That was a symbol of the future and eternal sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why John the Baptist called Him ‘The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1.29).

God the Son stripped Himself of His glory in order to become the ‘Lamb’ and shed His blood for all those who accept Him as Lord and Saviour. It is obvious that those who do not accept Him as Lord and Saviour do not have the right to receive eternal salvation.

This is wonderful. We no longer have to sacrifice animals to purify ourselves. Besides, not all the animals in the world would be enough to make up for our sins, for they are too many. Thank God for the Lord Jesus Christ, who made Himself an Advocate with the Father, to defend and grant salvation to all those who sincerely accept Him as the only Saviour and God.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5.1,2

The Lord Jesus Christ represents salvation of body, soul and spirit purely by faith—not by good works, for the practice of good works is our duty. We should try and help a person who is in need, but it does not grant our salvation, for salvation comes only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as it written, ‘Now the just shall live by faith’ (Hebrews 10.38).

History says that Martin Luther lived in a Catholic monastery and that, in everything he did, he had the sole purpose of purifying himself before God. He had barely finished a task and he would already look for something else to do in the monastery. He would work hard all day doing the washing-up, cleaning the floors, washing clothes, etc. In the evening, he would read the Bible and pray.

This happened for many years until the day that he was washing the stairs in the monastery and he heard the Holy Spirit speak in his heart, saying: ‘Now the just shall live by faith’ (Hebrews 10.38). He immediately stopped washing the stairs and said to himself: ‘If the just shall live by faith, then all my work is in vain!’

Later on, he abandoned the Catholic Church and began to teach people that the salvation of the soul comes through faith and not through personal sacrifice.

That was when true Christianity was born into the world. People began to leave aside religious obligations in order to live through faith in the Lord Jesus.