The best thing you can do for your growth is to be open for the Holy Spirit to move in your life. The Holy Spirit is an integral part of the trinity. While he is not the Father who created us, or the Son who came to die for us, he still is God. The Holy Spirit comes upon us and speaks into our lives. When we invite the Holy Spirit into our lives, he regenerates us. He lives inside of us, and becomes a part of who we are, making us holy in the sight of God the Father.

It is God’s will for the world that none should perish. His will is not being done on this earth; people perish every day. If we do not get with his plan, then people will continue to perish. Position yourself for the plan of God. Jesus promised us that we would do bigger and better things than he did. The Holy Spirit helps us do that.

Galatians 2:20 (NLT): My old self has been crucified with Christ.It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The House of God is a place to come to be refreshed. It is a place where the Holy Spirit moves; to convict where conviction is needed; to bring change where needed; and to refresh the believers. When we make room for the Spirit, He moves on our behalf.

There are four aspects of the House where one can encounter God and His Spirit:
–Fellowship: God moves in friendship; no one can truly survive the trials of life alone, we need friends to walk beside us and hold us up.
–Worship: We encounter God in worship. The worship leaders worship; they lead us into worship, and it is there that we encounter God.
–The Word: the Word is preached in this church. No matter who is speaking, they are speaking from the Word. The seed is scattered, and when it hits your heart and takes root, your world will change.
–The Alter: The supernatural happens on the alter. Healing, repentance, freed–it all happens here.

Now, the Spirit of God empowered Jesus. Wherever Jesus went, the Spirit went with Him. W have a spirit in us–upon conception, something eternal was created in the physical. It is part of being made in the image of God. That spirit part is the part that will never die. The human body will die, but the spirit will live on. When we are born in the physical, we are born into a fallen world; God waits for us to come to Him for a rebirth into the supernatural. This happens upon accepting Jesus’ sacrifice. When we come to that point, we encounter the Holy Spirit and are filled with Him!

Jesus was reunited with the Holy Spirit upon His baptism. From then on, Jesus and the Holy Spirit worked hand in hand to reach the World. Jesus would withdraw to pray. He, The Holy Spirit, and God would be one for a little while, then Jesus would return to perform the miracles growing inside of Him. The Holy Spirit would work through Him to change people’s lives. And when Jesus died the physical death on the cross, it was the Spirit that brought Him back three days later.

Then, in John 20:22, Jesus imparted the Spirit to His disciples. It was like receiving a new toy; they weren’t certain what to do with it, but they went for it anyway! They followed Jesus example: they went to pray. And when they prayed, the Spirit showed up! (The Spirit is in us; the Spirit fills the room around us.) Then, Peter–the disciple known for sticking his foot in his mouth–stood and preached! He was a fisherman! yet, when the Spirit came upon him, he did something he had never done before–he spoke with power, eloquence, authority, and theological accuracy! When the Spirit comes upon you, you do things you never would have done before! And what’s more, Peter already had boldness; the Spirit used his boldness to bring honor and glory to God! The Spirit takes what you already have and magnifies it for use in the Kingdom! He takes you into things you’ve never done and uses the gifts you already have! It is all for the benefit of the Kingdom!

The Holy Spirit is powerful! And He empowers us to perform miracles! He is in us! In every aspect of who we are. Paul said it in Galatians. It is no longer we who live, but Christ’s SPIRIT lives in us. He is in our hands, our minds, our hearts, and our feet. Where we go, He goes. And where the Spirit goes, there is also freedom! The Spirit brings freedom.

As God is three in one–God, Jesus, Holy Spirit–so, too, is humanity. We are created with a body, a soul, and a spirit. All three parts are sanctified when we accept Christ as our Savior. We commune spirit to Spirit with God through the relationship established by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead. It is in our spirit that we feel God the most. However, there are days when we don’t feel particularly spiritual. That is when we engage all three parts to seek God again.

All things of God engage all three aspects of who we are. The human body struggles to submit to the spirit. The soul is the battle ground where we battle our broken sin nature with its corrupted thoughts and propensity to lean towards the ungodly with the new nature God gave us upon Salvation. These two aspects of who we are, the parts we sometimes feel is what makes us less godly, are parts that have also been sanctified by God. And when we feel less spiritual, we engage these two parts to stir the spirit: We go to our God Zone.

The God Zone is prayer. We pray. We physically take ourselves to a place of solitude. We pour out our souls before God. We pray and seek Him; we seek His will. And our spirits are revived. God said in Joel that He
would pour His spirit out on all people, and they would Prophesy! In the God Zone, we engage that gifting. All three aspects of humanity come together in prophesy. The spirit stirs–whether upon hearing bad news or seeing something tragic or whatever else–and the body and soul engage.

Prophesy is speaking out truth into your world or into the worlds of others. You literally speak. The power of God manifests in speech. God spoke and the world came into being. When we speak, we change our worlds. Good or bad; believer or non-believer; as long as you have faith in what you are saying, it will happen. This principle goes across the board. Imagine what would happen if you align your words and belief with God’s Word? The Word of God is the Power of God. When we align ourselves with His Word and speak HIS truths into our worlds, great things happen. What He promises comes to pass.

When you speak His truths over your world, your world is changed. You can speak His truths over the worlds of your family and friends, over your situations, over your finances, over everything! That is prophecy. Speaking into the future changes the future for the better! Speaking GOD into your future opens the doors for HIM to do what He does best: Be Awesome! He will go above and beyond your expectations! So, speak out in faith! Believe it! Engage your body, soul, and spirit, and let God move.

There are three different layers to this miracle. The first layer is provision. The couple at this particular wedding ran out of wine. You don’t want to run out of wine at a Jewish wedding. It’s not good. Jewish weddings last for days, and the people feast on wine and good food. If you run out of wine, you will be looked down upon, as poor and lowly, but when you invite Jesus to your party, or your life, you will always be provided for. He doesn’t go half-way, either. He created the best wine from dirty water. With Jesus, you will always have the best of the best.

The second layer of this miracle is obedience. The servants had no idea what filling pots with dirty water would do. Still, they did what Jesus told them to. When your plans fall apart, do what Jesus says- even though it is hard, and all it feels like you’re doing is carry dirty water. The servants had to carry 180 gallon pots to the river and back. They did this when Jesus told them to. They did not ask why, they just did it. All Jesus asks of us is to carry a burden, not give up, and do something crazy. The Bible does not say when the water turned into wine, but we know that when the servant dipped the cup into the pot, it was water, and somewhere in the middle of his obedient walk to the master of the banquet, it turned into the best wine. If God can get us involved in our miracles then they will stick.

The third layer of this miracle is that we are the pots- God wants to cleanse us and fill us with something priceless. The substance inside of the pots started out as dirty water from the river, and wound up as wine, the best wine. God wants to do that in our lives. he wants to take all that is in our hearts and make it better, clean it up and make it beautiful. You don’t even know when your water turns to wine but it happens. Somewhere in the walk of being obedient, a miracle happens.

In reflecting on our ongoing discussion about the power of God, a theme that you hopefully have seen emerging in recent weeks is the fact that nearly every breakthrough and miracle that we will experience in our Christian walk will require a faithful request or else some sort of bold initiation on our part. I have said it before: “God will use you to work your own miracles.” Scripture confirms this. Two weeks ago, we learned about the woman who was healed because she waded through a crowd just to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe (Mark 5:24-34). The two blind men in Matthew’s Gospel similarly had to call out to Jesus before having their sight returned to them (Matthew 20: 29-34).

This week’s story is a little different. It’s a little shocking, really. It starts off ordinarily enough—if one could ever really refer to Christ’s miracles as “ordinary”—beginning on the heels of yet another ‘self-initiated’ miracle, where a Roman officer has just offered a bold analysis of authority, thereby impressing Jesus and healing his slave (Luke 7:1-10). After this episode, Jesus travels the ten miles from Capernaum to Nain. It is here where this week’s story begins.

Jesus, as you can probably imagine, has garnered quite the following by this point in his ministry. He’s healed leapers (Luke 17:11-19); he’s cast out demons (Matthew 8:28-34); he’s fed the 5,000 (Matthew 14:13-21) and restored the sight to the blind through some rather unusual means (John 9: 1-34). What’s more, he’s probably earned the reputation as a particularly cheeky prophet at that. By now he’s worked a month’s worth of Sabbath days (thereby incensing the local Pharisaical devotees), and even managed to get kicked out of his hometown of Nazareth. Indeed, controversy tends to spiral in his wake. That is all to say that this young rabbi was likely to have a crowd of disciples, onlookers, enthusiasts and scrutinizers surrounding him wherever he went.

So on the road to Nain this entourage, all abuzz with the witnessing of miracles and ten miles of teaching, meets up with a crowd with an altogether different timbre. The crowd whom Jesus encounters in Nain is a funeral procession accompanying a widow who has just lost her only son. This is a rare and terrible blow for any single mother, but even more so for a woman in this time and culture, who would’ve lost not only her last blood relative but her financial safety net as well. She, in effect, has lost everything. At the front of this procession would likely have been a band of her peers wailing along with her in an act of demonstrative sisterhood.

These two crowds eventually meet—one craving life and the other mourning death. The emotional contrast could not be starker nor Jesus’ reaction more surprising. Upon witnessing this woman and intuiting her sad circumstances, he is moved to intervene. His intervention, however, is surprising in several ways. First, it is interesting to note that this woman, unlike the other stories mentioned above, does not ask for his intercession. Her dire worldview has probably become such that she is tired of the faithful and all their optimism. She’s stopped asking for miracles long ago. Her prayers, she tells herself, have not and will not be answered. She’s done. Jesus, though, spots her and calls to her, “Do not cry!” Authoritative. Curiously, Luke reports that his reaction was one of excessive compassion, though most of us are prone to intuit one’s yelling at a widow as an especially insensitive act. The thing to catch here is that Jesus is refusing to agree with her situation, and is instead provoking her to think otherwise. Tough love, some might call it.

But Jesus isn’t finished. He never is. He goes a step beyond speaking and moves to action. As Luke reports, he walks into this crowd, the death crowd, and tells the boy to “get up.” Equally authoritative. And out of an equal compassion. The boy, as you have read, does exactly that. Another miracle has been worked and witnessed.

As an aside, it is crucial to recognize that becoming a Christian is not a one-way ticket to The Good Life. Even after that altar call your day to day existence will more than likely remain a challenging endeavor and your obstacles will still be there where you left them. So let’s be frank, the Christian walk is not paved in bricks of gold. What Kingdom living does offer you is not only a Savior and Redeemer, but what’s more, a community of people who will speak into your world encouragement and, when necessary, conviction. They will become your brothers, sisters, friends, and mentors. It is the crowd round you, and not a plastic smile, that will help to keep your feet moving when life becomes nearly unlivable, and in this circle you will find hope. And Jesus will of course be there as well, teaching and affirming you every step of the way.

What Jesus has effectively done in this story (and beyond) is shaken death by its collar. Perhaps you require a similar ‘shaking.’ Perhaps you have responded to the wailing of the death crowd and decided long ago to tuck tail and walk in their ways—out of fear, or despondency, or faithlessness. Jesus is perhaps calling to you those same tough, provocative words: Stop crying and get up! And perhaps the local church will be the last thing, maybe the only thing, that can help get you back on your feet.

There are seven miracles recorded in the Book of John set before the Crucifixtion. Each story is written with several layers. This story is no different. It is a story about an encounter with God that leads to a slowly unfolding revelation. The first hint is the word John uses to descibe this man’s blindness. It is not the usual word for “someone who cannot see.” It actually means general blindness.

Now, let’s start at the beginning. Jesus is walking along with His disciples when He sees a blind guy. His disciples see Him as well and begin to question the origin of the man’s blindness. It was the belief of the time that sin caused sickness. Jesus immediately refutes that belief with the truth: he is blind so the power of God can been seen through him. Jesus is about to shake up this young man’s life in the most radical way! He proceeds to spit on the ground, make clay from it, and then rubs it all over the man’s eyes. This guy has not met Jesus; Jesus and the disciples were talking about him without talking to him; and then, suddenly, he gets spit on. Then, Jesus tells him to go to the PUBLIC pool of Silom to wash. This guy can’t see. He’s probably never been to the pool of Silom. But, without any help, he does as he is told.

He find the pool, washes, and, BOOM, he can see! He walks out his miracle! Sometimes, we have an encounter with God that shakes up our world but requires us to go a step further. He requires us to walk out the miracle. Jesus has healed several people in several different ways. He is capable of the instant heal (which we all love and want for Him to do for us), but some times, He requires us to walk it out by faith. This is what this man had to do. He had to walk by faith to achieve his miracle. And he did! But the story does not end there.

He goes home. His friends immediately begin to question him about what happened. He says, “The man called Jesus…” Jesus, a man, healed him. That is his first understanding of who it was whom he encountered while begging. His friends don’t believe him. And soon, the Pharisees come in. They are perturbed by the fact that someone worked on the Sabbath. Jesus made clay! He isn’t supposed to do that on the Sabbath! They are so locked in their religious rules that they can’t see the miracle in front of them. Religion is a killer. It stops us from encountering God. The man’s parents could not even rejoice over the fact that their son was healed out of fear of being kicked out of their religious bubble.

The Pharisees interogate the man. They want to know who did this. The man then answers that it was Jesus, a prophet! The revelation is continuing to unfold. First, Jesus is a man. now, he is a prophet. The Pharisees protest that he is a sinner. The man counters with an understanding that he, himself, does not know what all the rules and regulations (religion) dictates concerning this event, but all he knows is that he was blind and now he can see. He had an encounter with God. Jesus came in and shook up his world. And now, he can see. Then, he goes the bold and decalres himself a disciple of this man/prophet Jesus whom he has not ever seen, but he heard the disicples call him Rabbi and decided that he, too, wants to follow him. Jesus, the man, the prophet, and now the rabbi; the revelation continues to unfold.

The Pharisees kick the man out. He is cut off from the social religious norm. He is left alone to wander. That is when Jesus finds him. In life, God intervenes and shakes up our world. He puts his finger on an area of our lives that we are blind to and wants to shake us out of it. He wants us to see it, to heal from it, to overcome the thing holding us back–fear, broken home, addiction, failing marriage, bankrupcy. He shakes up our world, and then He withdraws to watch and wait as we walk it out. he wants us to trust in Him. So, we walk it out. And then, the world turns against us. Our friends and even family want to pull us back into the box that is the safe social norm where no one upsets the status quo. Your stepping out in faith angers them, and they try to pull you back down. But, you push on; you make a stand for God. And then, Jesus finds you.

Jesus heard what had happened. Jesus knows what is going on in your world. When He finds you, He knows what is going on. Jesus heard what had happened to this man. He asks, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man answers, “Yes, I want to. Tell me where He is!” This man has declared himself a disciple. He wants to follow Jesus. Jesus replies, “How have seen Him. And He is speaking to you.” The man falls to his knees before Jesus, declaring, “Yes, Lord!” Capital “L.” And he worships Jesus publically. From man, to prophet, to rabbi, to Lord, to God. The revelation is complete. This man has had his life transformed by the real the living God.

God wants to do something radical in our worlds. He will come in and intervene; either through church or someone speaking into our worlds; He comes in and shakes us up. He does something radical, frightening, amazing, and completely against the social norm to motivate us out of the place holding us back. He pushes us to walk out the miracle. We take teh steps of faith, trusting in Him to do what it is He promised to do; and as we walk in faith, the revelation unfolds and the miracle happens. No more staying at the same level. Will you let God shake you up so you can experience Him?

This woman’s situation was possibly the worst. In accordance to Jewish Law, she was completely shut off from society. She had no one in her life save for the doctors who were causing her grief. They would get her hopes up for healing, but she would only get worse and her hope would fall. Despair and solitude are a bad combination. This combination makes room for bitterness, anger, and thoughts that lead to a twisted, darker view of the world. She was completely alone.

Then, she heard that Jesus was coming. Jesus was on His way through town in order help someone else. Usually, Jesus would show up without any one knowing; this time, word came ahead of Him. And she had heard about Him. Now, she has a choice. She can either adhere to the Jewish Law and stay at home, away from society and from the people who were constantly letting her down. Or, she could muster up her faith one more time and break the rules by seeking out Jesus. To venture out was a danger, for she could not hide her disease; she could not hide that she was unclean; but that fact did not stop her. Her faith was stirred when she heard He was coming. Faith comes when the Word is spoken.

The woman came to an interesting conclusion in verse 28. She thinks that if she can “just touch His robe,” she’ll be healed. Why? There is no Biblical mandate stating that the robes of a Rabbi are holy and have healing powers. She could have come to this conclusion because of the rules influencing her world. An unclean woman is forbidden from touching a Holy Man. So, in following the rules, perhaps she thinks just touching His robe will do the trick.

OR…she remembers the Word of God and has received a revelation. Isaiah 6 describes God as sitting high and lifted up with the train of His robe filling the Temple. There are several Biblical references to God’s robe and His glory. Maybe, she knew this. Maybe, she believed Jesus was the Messiah and how He is different from any other. She believes what she hears and decides to take a chance and break the rules. She fights through the crowd–the doubts, the fears, the opinions of the world–and reaches out to Him and grabs His robe…

And Jesus feels it. He immediately stops what He is doing and asks, “Who touched me?” Everyone around Him is like “We all are touching you!” But Jesus knows. This was different. The woman approaches Him, falls at His feet, and tells Him her story. And He listens intently. That is the nature of Jesus. When someone reaches out to Him, He stops everything and focuses on the person, wanting to know their story. Nothing else matters save this one person.

This woman had lived her life in rejection and pain, yet, in hearing the Word, she stirred her faith. She worked her miracle; fighting all doubts and fears to reach Him. And Jesus listened to her. Then, He completed the miracle. In front of everyone, He says, “Daughter, your faith has healled you.” He elevates her back into the Family of God by calling her “Daughter” and seals the deal started by her faith.

Faith is the key. It stirs a person to go the bold. Position yourself, work the miracle, and GO THE BOLD!

Vision is what drives us. If we don’t have vision, we go nowhere. As a man thinks, so he becomes.

You can only go so far without Divine power. Man’s wisdom only goes so far. When we reach our limits, and don’t want to accept defeat, we need to go to prayer. The only thing that can do anything is God, and we have his power inside of us when we give our live to Christ. There is nothing more powerful spiritually than when you give your heart to God.

The doorway into the power of God is the understanding of the promises of God- the Bible. If you don’t understand the words of God, then you will not understand the power of God. It is our job to get into the Bible, and get to know what God says about our lives. Stuff is going to happen in our lives; we are going to get challenged. We need to put the promises from the Bible into practice in our lives. When we step over into the supernatural, we are unstoppable.

John 20:1-18 (NIV): “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead) Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (Which means Teacher). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ “Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.”

Let’s take a trip into the tomb for a minute. The tomb is place where you die with Christ. When you die with Christ, your eyes are opened to the spiritual atmosphere around you. There are things going on around our lives that we have no idea about. As Mary Magdalene ran into the tomb to make sure that Jesus was gone, her eyes were opened to the things inside of the tomb that the disciples had overlooked.

There were three things inside of the tomb, in addition to the Angels sitting in reverence and praise at the head and foot of where Jesus had lain. The first of these things were the strips of linen that Jesus’ body had been clothed in. This means that as Jesus rose from the grave, he donned new garments. For those of us dying with Christ, this means that we become new people. We have the same person inside of us, but we are now clothed with the King of all Kings, with the best of the best. Our attitudes in life are radically changed, and people notice that.

The second thing that is found in the tomb is the burial cloth, the face cloth that covered Jesus’ face as his body lay in the tomb. For us, this means that we will be washed clean of our past, not forgotten, but washed clean. It is a brand new day; the freshness of God is on our lives. We have the brightest of futures to look forward to.

The third thing we find in the tomb is Mary’s humanity. She falls down on her knees and weeps, begging for her savior to be given back to her, to know where his body lay. She died to herself, wanting nothing more than her savior. As she realized who was standing before her, she wept with joy, not sorrow. As we ourselves die with Christ in the tomb, our humanities are also stripped away. As we die to ourselves, we turn around and find our lives in the hands of our savior. Joy floods into our lives, replacing the sorrow.

It is hard to believe what Jesus says sometimes, but his promises are true. Visit the tomb- so that you can die with Christ and come alive with a new life. The same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead is also alive within us. Take a hold of that, and don’t you ever let go.

Everyone has choices to make. Even Jesus had to make the right choices regarding temptations. We must choice, daily, to go with the right choice, or the wrong choice. Only you can make that choice for yourself. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, the Bible comes alive within you- not only written on the pages, but living inside of your heart. The Holy Spirit leads you into truth. He is there to help you make the right choices.

The power to make the right choices, get bold, and get confidence is found in your greatest trial. In the midst of the battle comes the power- when you tap into the supernatural of God’s strength. Know what the Bible says about you and be able to find where it is. In knowing what is said about you, and being able to quote it, you are able to make the right choices for all temptations sent your way.

God wants to anoint you with things and He has assignments to give you. Your job is to get in that assignment and do what God has appointed you to do. Get up off your butt, and use your gifts. Use your gifts to change the world you live in. if you do that, then your world will fall together.

When you came to Christ, you stepped into a new world, but don’t stop there. Keep marching on, through that great trial that seems impossible. You will come out greater than ever.

Get filled with the Holy Spirit. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, it’s all love. Love for people, love for God, and love for yourself. It’s all about love.