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Releasing Your Spirit

Though we're born spiritually dead, you can ultimately release your spirit . Scripture taken from Ephesians chapters 2 and 3, I Corinthians chapter 12 and Thessalonians 5.

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Over the past few weeks we have been talking about what does it mean, what could it mean for us to experience an extreme spiritual makeover.  Today I want you to get a copy of God’s Word and I want you to look with me to our thematic verse in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse number 23 that I’m going to read from in a moment.

If you already have that verse chosen, we’re also going to read today from Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 3, 1 Corinthians chapter 12.  So if you are of the old school, and understand what a Bible Sword Drill is, you’re on baby, get to rolling.  But if you would please, let’s begin with 1 Thessalonians chapter number 5, verse 23.  Listen to the reading of the scripture.  “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely.” Amen.  Did you get that?  The God of peace Himself sanctify you completely.  “And may your spirit,” look at the phases, “soul, and body be kept sound and blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now the scripture here talks about this element of the spirit.  Today what I’m going to talk about is releasing your spirit.  In the depths of who you are there is a spirit, and today, I’m talking about what it means to release your spirit.

Now what I’m going to do this morning is I’m going to share something with you that I believe is biblical, it’s practical, and I even believe it’s logical.  I’m going to walk you through 1 Corinthians 5.  I’m going to build from 1 Corinthians 5, and I want to begin that whole process in introduction by giving to you a simple graphic.  I could have given you this in week one, but I didn’t want you to stumble.  I didn’t want you to, I wanted to build from a biblical basis, and that’s what I’ve done all these weeks.  And today what I’m going to do is to show you what we’ve been teaching to you.

First of all you will understand that we have said that every one of us have a body.  And as that graphic comes on the screen today you will notice it.  The external man, the external of who you are, the skin represents a body.  Inside of that body there is a soul.  We have taught you that the soul is the mind, the will, and the emotion.  Now that’s a tough order right there because you know the mind is tough, and the will is tough, and the emotion is tough.  We talked about controlling each of those.

And then today we’re going to go to the inner core of who you are, and it’s your spirit.  In the depths, the depths of who you really are, you have a spirit.  So if you would, externally, there’s the body.  Then there is the soul.  And in the depths of who you are there is your spirit.

Now what I’m going to do this morning is I’m going to walk you through four questions.  I’m going to camp out on question one.  I’m going to camp out on question two.  Question three and four are going to go rather quickly, so don’t get tense about the joy.

Now if you would, I want to begin with question number 1 today.

Question #1:  What are the biggest problem areas of your life? Oh Ronnie, there’s not enough time for you to identify the biggest problem areas of my life.  But today what I’m going to talk about is those biggest problem areas of your life.  What I’ve done is I’ve identified four.  Now about these four let me say this on the front end, this puts us all on the same ground.  It puts us all on level ground.  And here are the problem areas:

Problem number one you have is your:

1. 1. Mind.  I mean your mind is a real issue.  Your mind, if you don’t

control it, will pollute your body.  And if you pollute your mind or dilute the, the power God wants to have over your mind, you can lose your life.  Did you know that?  Nothing will destroy you any quicker than losing control over your mind.  What you think about Proverbs says, you become.

Problem number two is your:

2.                        Will.  Boy I tell you what now, when I was a kid growing up, I don’t remember anybody saying, “Well you know this guy’s a strong-willed baby, or this baby is a strong-willed…” Maybe they said that in my nursery at the First Baptist Church of Yoakum, Texas, when I was born initially right there.  I mean maybe they said that, but you know, I don’t think anybody talked about strong-willed children back then.  Bottom line is I don’t know of a child anywhere in the world that doesn’t have a strong will.  Now some have got a bigger case than others, I might add.  But strong will is natural.  It’s our old sinful nature.  It’s us declaring our rights, our authority, our independence; it’s going to by my way or no way at all.  So therefore, you’ve got a will problem.

And then you have an:

3.                        Emotional issue.  That’s right.  Every one of us do.  You say, “Are you calling me an emotional wreck?”  No, I’m not calling you that.  You can calling me nutsola?  No, I’m not calling you that.  Well, what are you calling me?  I’m not calling you anything.  I’m just telling you that we all have emotional issues.  All you’ve got to do is have something not go your way and you get emotional about it.  Right?  Anybody with me today?  I mean something not exactly happen the way you planned it, or desired it in your life.  I mean you get emotional about it.  And therefore, we either on the top of the mountain, or we’re in the depths of the valley.  If something doesn’t happen the way it ought to happen, boy, we get angry at times.  We fire off.  If you missed last week, you need to go outside today as you depart, and you need to get a copy of the message, because it was a strong message last week.  Biblical exposition all the way challenging us out of Galatians 5, this whole element of what it means to be in control of your emotions.  So we talked about that last week, but it’s a problem when it’s not under control.

And then we finally have a:

1. 4. Body problem.  That’s right.  Now you may imagine yourself to

be some kind of hunk, or some kind of babe.  If so, wonderful.  I’ve got some bad news for you, you’re decaying.  It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter how hard you work on it, I mean you’re decaying.  Now you, the reason you work out is kind of slowed down the process.  The reason you work out is so when God takes you under water physically one day, you can fight back.  Now sooner or later you’re going to be under water, and you’re going to lose that battle.  But there are times in life when you’re going to go under water for a while, and, and, you can win.  So your body, I mean, you know, I talked about it.  Is that not right?  I mean I talked about it the first week in.  Some of you liked it, some of you didn’t cause you got a little offended by it.  Well you shouldn’t get offended by the Word of God.  All I did was preach the Word of God to you.  Bottom line is the Bible says your body is the temple to the Holy Spirit.  If you saved, your body is where God lives.  So you’re supposed to take care of your body.  Now you’ve got to wear that however you want to wear that.  It’s between you and the Lord, but I’m telling you your body belongs to God.  Amen.

Now, those are your problems.  That’s not too bad, is it?  You say, “Oh Ronnie you don’t understand.  I’ve got a kid problem.”  No you don’t.  You’ve got one of those other four problems.  “Ah man, you don’t understand, my marriage is in trouble.”  You see what happens is we emphasize the symptoms, but we don’t get to the root issue of problems.  And the core issues would be the things that I’ve talked about already today.

Now let me make a simple observation in this rational and logical step-by-step explanation.  Their greatest role is never to lord over you in any way, but to serve you.  And I’m talking about their meaning your mind, will, emotion, and body.  Their greatest role is to never lord over you, but to serve you.  What does that mean?  That means that you should not be controlled in a negative way by your mind; in a negative way by your will, or your emotion, or if you don’t take care of your body, you’re going to be controlled even by your body in a negative way.

So what do we have to do?  We have to get ourselves back in the Word of God, and we’ve got to look at 1 Thessalonians 5:23 perhaps in a little bit newer light even today, different than what we have been looking at it.  Let’s take a look.  Listen to what he says.  “Now may the God of peace Himself,” God of peace Himself.  God Himself, listen to me.  The only way you’re ever going to win the battle over the mind, the will, the emotion, and the body is through God Himself period.  That’s it.  You don’t, you don’t have a chance any other way because you see the scripture here makes it real clear that it is God Himself who sanctifies you completely.  That word sanctify, it means to be set apart.  It means that God is going to make you holy.  It means that you’re in the process of becoming Christ-like in your life.

Now that word sanctification it’s kind of a scary word for some of us.  We would say, “Well, man, that’s a big old church word.”  Well, I’m telling you, you can go to a lot of churches today and you’ll never hear that word.  It’s a biblical word that the church ought to talk about.  So can we talk about it today?  Yes sir.  Go ahead Pastor.  I’ll be glad to.  Listen to what sanctification is.  Sanctification begins at conversion, and concludes at death.  That’s what sanctification is.  The moment you come to Christ, He forgives you of your sins; you declare Him as Lord; you begin sanctification.  The process of becoming holy before God; of becoming more Christ-like.  The other side of that is what?  Is that when you die one day, all of the sanctification process ends.  So let’s look at it this way: before Christ, that’s what your life is like before Christ.  Before Christ, what happens?  You understand you’re a sinner, and then you come to a point, a watershed moment, a turning point, it happened for me when I was a, when I was in high school, and that that moment was in 1971, and in that moment of the fall of 1971, what happened?  Christ came into my life, and I was justified from my sin.  That’s justification.

So, so pre-Christ I come to a moment when I’m justified.  Justified meaning what?  It means to be set free from.  It’s a legal term.  Justified means what?  Just if I had never sinned.  That’s the way God looks at me.  An easy way to remember that.  When you know Christ as your Savior, He looks at you just as if you’d never sinned.  Isn’t that great?  Now the moment you come pre-Christ, then you move in Christ.  2 Corinthians chapter 5.  In Christ.  So I’m saved.  Here’s my marker, my marker moment, and the moment I am there then I become sanctified.

Now, all right, in that process of sanctification, that’s what it means to be in Christ.  So I’m in the process of being sanctified.  I’m becoming more like Christ.  And then one day when I die, that’s another marker for me.  Would you agree?  That’s a marker.  And what happens at that moment is that I have life after Christ.  So pre-Christ, in Christ, post Christ, or post, post life.  Yeah right.  Yeah.  Good.  Okay.  Now.

With all that, whatever I said, that means its glorification.  All right?  Now what that means is that you become just like Him.  And you will become just like Him as you see Him as He is.  Amen.  So with that, all that is so important to remember.  Now let me go a little bit deeper on this sanctification.  The sanctification:

It is a process.  That’s what it is.  It’s a process.  It’s not easy being sanctified.  It’s not easy walking in sanctification.  Why?  Because you are in the process constantly of becoming more like Christ, and that means you’re trying to gain more, and greater control of your mind, your will, your emotion, and your body.  You’re trying to overcome sin.  You’re trying to deal with matters.  You’re trying to become more like Jesus.  And that’s really, that’s really difficult in life.  It’s not an easy journey.

But it’s not only a process,

It’s progress.  That’s exactly what it is.  It’s progress.  You see, the moment I came to Christ, yes God looked at me just as if I’d never sinned, but you know what?  It’s a process, and it’s a progress that I have made through the years.  All right?  Now there are things that I do today, or excuse me, that I do not do today that if I did, they would be sin to me.  But in reality they may not be sin to you.  Now obviously there are those things that are absolutes that we all have to understand is sin.  But you know that we understand that, we understand that being growing in grace.  That’s what Paul said.  Growing in grace is growing in that sanctification.

So there’s some things in my life that I don’t do any longer, and they may not be a problem for you in your life.  Now if you continue to grow in the Lord, they might be.  And there may be some things that would be sin to some of you in this room today that may not quite honestly be that to me today because I haven’t grown to that in my life.  And God perhaps hasn’t revealed that as sin in my life.  Now He will as I continue to progress, and make progress in life.

Therefore, sanctification is a process and sanctification is progress.

All right.  Now that’s question number one.

Question # 2 is this question:  What about the spirit? What about the spirit?  I’m not talking about the Spirit of God; I’m talking about your spirit.  Remember what 1 Thessalonians 5 says?  You are body, soul, and spirit.  It’s to be kept sound and blameless for the coming of the Lord Jesus.  So what does that mean?  What about the spirit?  He’s talking about in the depths of who you are there is a spirit.

Now if you have a Bible, look with me to Ephesians 2.  [PASTOR COUGHS]  Ephesians chapter 2.  Now in Ephesians 2, listen carefully to the Word.  Ah, let me start before I go to Ephesians 2.  What about the spirit?  Let me tell you about the spirit.  Dead.  Dead.  That’s what the spirit is.  It’s dead.  Dead by your nature.  Dead by your choices.  Let me just make it real clear.  When I was born, I was born dead spiritually.  Cruise Memorial Hospital, Gonzalez, Texas, November 11, 1955, a pivotal day in the great state of Texas. But I was born dead, spiritually.  I was alive, claiming my rights, but I was born dead spiritually.

The Bible here talks in Ephesians chapter 2, verse number 1.  Look at the scripture.  “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” Dead.  That’s where you were.  You were dead in your trespasses and your sins.  And then he talks about in verse 2 how you previously walked like that.  That’s where all of us are.  Every one of us in this room, if we have never come to a time, a place, a point, a moment in our life when we have knowingly and willingly given our lives to Christ, we are dead in our sins, and in our trespasses.  Dead.  Dead spiritually.  May be alive as can be, but we’re dead spiritually.

But notice what happens.  There comes a moment, there comes a time, and notice what happens here, “We previously walked according to our flesh.  We’ve previously walked by our nature.  We were children under the wrath of God as everyone else was, but then all of a sudden dead became,” what?  Alive.  Alive.  So our spirit, which is dead, is now alive.

What does that mean?  Well, I tell you what, chapter 2, verse 4 and 5 of Ephesians are two powerful, powerful verses.  Paul here builds his case about how we’re dead, how we’re walking in the death of our trespasses and sins, how we’re under the domain of the atmospheric domain of a ruler of darkness, how we’re under the flesh of ourselves, and the carnal flesh of ourselves, and we are, we are literally depraved, and we’re carrying out every inclination of our flesh, as everybody else is in the world!  But look at verse 4, “But God,” amen, “But God who is abundant in mercy,” look at it in verse 4, “because of His great love that He had for us,” what did He do?  Underline it!  “Made us alive.”  Verse number 5.  He made us alive with the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Lord Jesus, even though we were dead in trespasses.  And look at verse, look at the last phrase of that verse, “by grace you are saved.” Amen.

So I was dead, and all of a sudden Jesus woke my spirit up.  Jesus called me to salvation.  You know what’s amazing?  John 6:44 talks about that I don’t come to the spirit, I don’t come to Jesus on my own; the Father draws me to the Lord Jesus.  People talk all the time, “Oh you can come to Jesus whenever you want.  Sorry, you really can’t.  You’ve got to be drawn by the Father.  The Lord has to draw you, has to convict you, understanding Jesus is the only way to your life, and the only way to life, you have to understand you’re a sinner.  He personalizes it for you.  And all of a sudden He takes death, and He brings it alive.

Therefore, I was dead, but now I’m made alive by the mercy of God, and by the grace of God.  Thank God for those two words in verse 4…. “but God…” And then all of a sudden, the moment I become converted, I become one.  All right?  The moment I say yes to Christ, my spirit becomes one with the Spirit of God.  I mean if you want to know if you’re right with God, and you’re always in right relationship with God, it’s in your spirit.  It’s in the depths of your spirit.

1 Corinthians chapter 12 let me show you what happens.  Chapter 12, verse number 13.  “For we were all baptized by one spirit into one body.” Who baptized us?  It was the Holy Spirit.  “Whether we’re Jews or Greeks,” in other words, it doesn’t matter what we are.  “Whether we’re slaves or free.” It doesn’t matter if we’re slaves or free.  “For we were all made to drink of one spirit.” That spirit is the Spirit of God.  So the moment I confess my sin and ask Christ in my life, the moment that happened I, my spirit became one with the Spirit of God.  Nothing can interrupt that oneness.  When that occurred in my life, and when that occurs in your life, here’s what happens.  The Spirit baptizes you at salvation.  Some people say, “Well you know, I believe you’re baptized by the Holy Spirit at a separate time after you trust Jesus.”  Incorrect.  Biblically, can’t prove it.  You are baptized the moment you are saved.  Why are you baptized by the Holy Spirit?  Here’s the key.  You’re baptized into the body of Jesus Christ, the family of God.  You may not have joined a local church, but you’re still a part of the church.  Now you need to join a local church because you’ve already been baptized into the body of Jesus Christ.  You need to be a part of a visible union that God has you spiritually involved with.

And what He does is, the Spirit of God places you into the family of God, and then the Spirit of God comes to live in you, and you live in that oneness, and you’re empowered for your life.  In other words, the Holy Spirit doesn’t come and go, the Holy Spirit comes and He abides within you.  Are you with me?

Now, dead.  Alive.  You become one, and then all of a sudden your spirit can become strengthened.  Strengthened.  How do I know that?  Well let’s go back to Ephesians chapter 3, verse 16.  We know John 3:16, we need to learn a little bit more about Ephesians 3:16.  He says, “I pray that he may grant you according to the riches of His glory,” look at what he says, “to be,” look at what the scripture says, say that word out loud, “strengthened with power through His Spirit in the,” look at this, “inner man.”

What’s in the depths of who you are?  It’s your spirit.  Your spirit was dead, now your spirit is alive.  Your spirit is one with the Holy Spirit.  Now what Paul is saying is, this inner man, this spirit that you have that is now alive that was once dead, you’ve got to grow it.  You’ve got to nourish it.  You’ve got to strengthen it.  You’ve got to do everything you can to make it stand up and be strong on it’s own under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

So the great news today is that your spirit can be strengthened.  Therefore, let me just say these words to you: the spirit’s power is limitless in your life.  Do you agree with that?  Say Amen.  And the Spirit of God can energize your inner man.  That’s what he says here.  The Spirit energizes your inner man.  He strengthens you.  And you know what?  He does it according to His riches in glory.  Wow.  I think He’s pretty rich, don’t you?  And that spirit then strengthens your inner man.  Now I want to say again, now what is your inner man?  It is your spirit.  The depths of who you are is your inner man.

I’m going to give you a statement.  You’re not going to see it on the screen today, but I really want you to grasp it, and I want you to get this statement.  Your body will decay, your soul may wander, but your spirit can be strengthened.  Listen to it again.  Your body will decay.  It’s not optional; it will decay.  Your soul may wonder, and that old mind, and will, and emotion, it wanders.  Does it not?  Anybody ever deal with that?  Yeah.  Okay.  If you don’t, you’re dealing with it, because you’re lying.  All right?  And you don’t even know you’re dealing with it.  Your soul may wander, but your spirit, God said, can be strengthened.

Folks, what an encouraging word that is in your life and my life because we have to strengthen the spirit within us that is right now in oneness with the Holy Spirit of God.  Therefore, we come to:

Question #3: I told you question one’s going to take a few moments.  Question 2 is going to take a few moments.  Question 3 is relatively simple and quick.  How does this occur? How does this strengthening occur?  Remember we’re logically, rationally, spiritually, and biblically working through.  How does this occur?  How does my, my spirit become strengthened?  How does my inner man be strengthened by the Holy Spirit of God?

All right?  Now again, I’m not going to give you this on the screen, but I’m going to give you what God’s Word teaches us, and we should know, if we’ve been around Jesus any length of time at all, but let me just bring it up again.  All right?  I’m going to make it simple, where you can remember it.  Are you ready?  How can you be strengthened?

By abiding in the Word of God.  I’m going to give you three ways, and they’re not separate.  They go together.  They’re not a singular fruit; they’re a cluster.  Abiding in the Word of God to the degree that you abide in the Word will be the degree that your spirit is strengthening, and your inner man is strengthened.  Don’t minimize the power of God’s Word in your life, or you will make a sore mistake for your life.  Abiding in the Word of God.

Secondly, communing with the Son of God.  Communing with the Son of God.  Praying.  Communing.  Fellowshipping with the Son of God.

And then thirdly, surrendering to the Spirit of God.  So it’s a cluster.  If I am going to have my inner man strengthened, then what’s going to happen is what?  I am going to abide in the Word.  I’m going to commune with the Son of God, and I’m going to surrender my life to the Spirit of God.  Holy Spirit speak to my life.  Spirit alone can help you, but I’m telling you you’ve got to base it on concrete, powerful Word of God.  You’ve got to spend time in the Word.  You’ve got to spend time with Jesus, and talk to Jesus.  You need to let Him talk to you through the Word, and then you need to talk to Him after you’ve been in the Word.  Are you with me?  Because the Word’s going to alter what you say to Him.  If it doesn’t, you’re in real trouble because it’s always going to be about you. You’re not going to pray according to the will of God.  You don’t pray according to the will of God, you won’t have any prayers answered.  You pray by the will of God by one thing, and that is by the Word of God.

Then you are empowered, you are filled, you are surrendering to the Holy Spirit of God.  Therefore, what are the four biggest problems you’ve got?  Mind, Will, Emotion, and Body.  Then you go through this little process of all that, which what about your spirit?  It’s dead, alive, it becomes one, and then it strengthens.  How does your spirit become strengthened?  Abiding in the Word of God, communing with the Son of God, and what?  Surrendering to the Spirit of God.

Then you come to that final question that’s kind of a tough question to answer, but not necessarily.

Question #4:  What is the goal? I need to know what the goal is.  Amen.  I’ve got to be able to win the game.  If I’m going to win the game, I’ve got to know what the goal is.  So today what I’m going to do  is I’m going to give to you what the goal is.  Are you ready?  The goal is for the Holy Spirit to be released through our lives continually.  That’s the goal.  The goal is for the Holy Spirit to be released through our lives continually.  Continuously.  It’s got to happen constantly.

Now again, how’s that going to happen?  If I don’t spend time in the Word of God, I don’t spend time in communing with God, and I don’t spend time surrendering to the Holy Spirit of God, I’m just telling you right now He will not be released.  And my mind, and my will, and my emotion, and my body will lord over me.  And that’s not the will of God!  The will of God is for the mind, the will, the emotion, and the body to be under the leadership of the Holy Spirit of God.

Now if any of you have ever fasted and prayed, that’s why, and many of you have, the longer you fast and pray, the more your spirit becomes alive.  Everything begins to change.  Why?  Because your spirit is calling into order your mind, will, emotion, and body.  That’s what’s happening.  It’s hard to understand it when you’re in it, but that’s exactly what’s going on personally, spiritually and biblically.  It’s calling into order.  It’s putting everything under the lordship of Jesus in your life, and no longer is your mind, will, emotion, and body run like a bunch of renegades our here standing defiantly against the will of God for your life.

Now, we’re doing good.  Now I want to give you a final graphic, and I could have built this graphic, not me personally, I can ask people to build things.  I’m not a builder.  All right?  In that relationship.  But I could have technologically asked my guys I want you to build this graphic, but I don’t want to, I didn’t want to do that.  That means we’re going to stage it for you.  I want to just lay it up here, and I want to just teach you from it.

So I want ya’ll to bring the final graphic up, and I’m going to tell you right now, you’re going to leave it there until I say you can put it down.  Okay?  Don’t take it down until I ask you to.  Now, look at this graphic.  Body.  Soul.  Spirit.

Look at the body.  I know it’s going to be tough on you, but I want you to say that word that is marked right off of body.  All right?  Are ya’ll ready?  I want ya’ll to say that word.  What is it?  Decaying.  All right, it’s kind of hard to say, isn’t it?  I mean to know that this incredible deal right here, I mean that incredible deal you’ve got, I mean it’s in the process, isn’t that right?  It doesn’t matter what you do to make it look better, I’m just telling you it’s in the process, it’s decaying.  All right?

Now, then we have a soul.  What did we tell you that soul was comprised of?  It’s very simple.  Read it out there.  What is it?  The mind, will, and emotion.  Are you with me?  Now notice the body is external.  And then, inside of your external is that soul.  The mind, your will, and your emotion.  And then in the depths of who you are there is the spirit.  Now in that spirit, let’s walk through those words.  Remember your spirit was once what?  Say the word out loud.  Dead.

Now for every one of us who know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior our spirit is no longer dead, but let me just stop right here.  In a crowd of this size there will be many people you have never come to a moment, and an hour, and a time in your life where you have confessed Jesus was not your Lord and Savior.  You have never asked Him into your life.  You have never declared Him as the Savior of the world, personally.  You’ve never let Him come to live in your life as Lord and Savior.  Therefore, you are still dead!  You may be here today full of life externally, but if you were to peel back the onion of your body and your mind, and your will and your emotion; eternally you are dead spiritually. Dead.

Great news is, Jesus doesn’t want you to remain dead spiritually.  He came to take away your sins to become the Savior of the world, and when you are willing to yield yourself to Him, and you establish that moment, a watershed moment, a turning point in your life when you turn to Him, then what happens?  You who were dead become what?  Say the word!  Alive.  Are you with me?  Now the moment you become alive.  He wakes you up, and everything changes that day.  The very moment that happens, you become what?  What do you become?  What’s that next word?  One.  One.  One with the Holy Spirit.  One with God.  One in the body of Christ!  Isn’t that wonderful?  One in the family of God!  I mean you’re with Him!  He’s baptized you!  He’s placed you into the family!  And no one can get you out of the family!  You know why?  Because He did it!  He adopted you man!  You have full rights, full privileges of the family of God.

Now that you’ve got that, what are you going to do with it?  Well.  If you don’t do anything with it, even though it’s exciting, the mind, the will, the emotion, and the body is going to rule you, but it doesn’t have to be like that!  Because what have I taught you today?  You can become what?  What’s that final word?  Strengthened.  Remember how you become strengthened?  By abiding in the Word of God, communing with the Son of God, and surrendering to the Holy Spirit of God.  You got it?  Say got it.

Now, with all of that, all of a sudden when you have abiding in the Word, and you have communed with the Son of God, and you’ve surrendered to the Holy Spirit of God, look at the graphic!  The spirit, remember, which is one with the Spirit of God; He becomes released through your life!  I mean it’s like a jet!  You ever been on a jet when that jet takes off?  I mean boy it’s like this, oh man it’s wow, what a moment.  I never get over it!  I mean it’s just; it’s just pretty exciting.

And if you’ve been on a little pole jumper, it’s pretty exciting too.  You know, I remember back in that Fayetteville Airport out there, any of ya’ll remember that?  That’ll make you come to Jesus now because I’m going to tell you, you get up there, and you see that mountain right up there to your right, you want to recommit your life to anything there is! But I’m telling you man, it’s like this.  I remember one time when we were at Beaver Creek with some friends, and they had flown us out there with them privately.  I mean we got on that jet, and there’s that mountain up there, this huge mountain in that airport, I mean, boy it, that jet just boom!  Just like that!  That was a great moment.  Thank God it went up.  That’s what the Holy Spirit does in your life.

I mean do you realize, look at it this way, when He is released through your life, listen to me now, the environment changes completely in your mind; the Spirit of God changes the environment of your mind, your will, your emotion, and your body.  Everything’s changed, and when He can lift through all that junk that gets in our way, then the culture around is changed.  Are you with me?  Case in point; look at what’s happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now.  A 5-inch hole in the depths of the ocean spewing out incredible source of oil is affecting the entire environment of the Gulf of Mexico, and perhaps the life of this nation.  Wonder what would happen if in our lives hundreds of us, thousands of us, millions of us who claim that Jesus is Lord would be so empowered, and released by the Holy Spirit of God that I mean we could affect culture, and environment by the power of the Holy Spirit?  That’s God’s will because He wants us released in every way, and that’s the hope of the world.

This past week one of great members of Springdale, he died.  And uh, he was one of our staff members’ dads.  At the same time, over in Amarillo, Texas, one of our other staff members’ fathers passed away.  Both great men of God.  One had a barber shop here in Rogers for years, a soul winner, loved the Lord Jesus, love his church, very committed to Christ.  He was the father of Chris Emert.

And then Deane Hyde’s father died.  Deane’s daddy, his name was Shad.  Shad pastored the great Paramount Church in Amarillo for years.  Shad was 85 when he got promoted to heaven this past week.  I, I conducted Fred Emert’s funeral, and tomorrow there will be another one of our great members at Springdale whom I will assist in conducting that funeral, a former pastor who joined our fellowship.  His name was Gene Webb, a great man.  And Gene went to be with Jesus yesterday morning early.

Now listen, those caskets they’ve set here, and they’ve set in that canvas at Springdale.  Have you ever asked yourself what happens to those people?  The moment those people die?  You see those bodies and those bodies, they look the same, but there’s no life.  Why?  Because when death happens, where the Lord Jesus lived in you, the spirit, the spirit leaves the body, and the spirit goes to be with the Lord Jesus in heaven.  And that’s what happened in all three of those great men in their lives.  And anyone else who’s ever died in…Their spirit went to be with the Lord Jesus.  And one day when King Jesus shows up in the clouds, and He says okay all this is gone long enough and far enough, and He calls them home, every cemetery those men are buried in, and every cemetery in the world will be interrupted by those who are the chosen, the saved by the blood of the Lamb.  And the body, which was not able to stand on it’s own any longer, will be raised to walk with glorified body, and together the spirit and the body will come together, and will live forever with the Lord.

My friend, that’s our hope.  That’s our hope.  And that’s why today that if you’re spirit’s not alive, you need to make it alive, and let Jesus bring life to it today.  And if it’s struggling, that old mind, will, and emotion, and body are winning, then you have got to come alongside of that, and let God nourish you and grow you beyond that where it’s no longer winning the battle.  Spirit under the leadership of the Holy Spirit is winning that battle.

SKU:

2Z226L

MP3:

http://www.ronniefloyd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/2Z226L-Releasing-Your-Spirit.mp3

Vimeo:

12917661