14: Understanding the Holy Spirit

[00:00] Stephanie: Season 3, episode 14. This week we are starting a new topic and we are looking at Listening to the Spirit.

Hello, Father.

[00:10] Marcus: Hello, Daughter.

[00:11] Stephanie: Good to be with you, and good to continue our conversation from last week where we were talking about increasing our joy bonds. It was a nice segue because we were talking about increasing our joy bonds with God and how important attachment with God is. And now we’re going to talk about Listen to the Spirit. For context (I like to give context at the beginning of our topics here), we are currently working through your book, Breakthrough, and working through the BUILD which is an acrostic, the BUILD maturity model.

We have just gone through the three – BUILD represents the five engines that drive our emotions – so we’ve just gone through the first three, which were our physical. Now we’re ready for the next two, which are spiritual. Would you like to unpack what we mean by physical and spiritual?

[01:06] Marcus: Yes. The three physical engines are the body, the beliefs and bonding. BBB, right? So my body sometimes is what’s driving an emotion. Sometimes it’s my beliefs driving the emotions. Sometimes it’s because I’m fear bonded that’s driving the emotions.

And then on the spiritual side, we have the Holy Spirit and we have wicked spirits, and they can affect all three engines, and they can also have a direct impact on how we’re feeling and how we’re behaving. And so it’s important for people to understand what those engines are and what some of the strategies are that we need to employ in addressing those.

[01:45] Stephanie: And this is all part of this holistic understanding of, we are whole people who all of these things affect us. As we are on our breakthrough journeys, we want to pay attention to all of these areas and not just get hyper focused on one over another because we’re probably going to need breakthrough in all of those areas.

[02:08] Marcus: Yes, because you see something about it, you could in some ways reduce the Christian life to walking in the Spirit, but then you’ve got to unpack that. And part of walking in the Spirit has to do with your beliefs, and part of walking in the Spirit has to do with bonding and how you bond to God and how you bond to other people.

And so even something like that, it flows into all the rest of this. And so what we’re trying to do in the big picture is create a checklist of, have I dealt with this engine? Have I dealt with this? Maybe there’s a different strategy I need to look at. What we’re doing now here, specifically, is we’re taking a little bit deeper dive into the listening to the Spirit part of it.

[02:45] Stephanie: Yes. And specifically, we’re listening to the Holy Spirit.

[02:48] Marcus: Yes.

[02:50] Stephanie: We’re going to defeat the demons in the next season series.

[02:56] Marcus: I did a radio interview once where somebody called in person, and was like, “What’s wrong with spirit guides? I’ve gotten a lot of help from spirit guides,” and I was like, “There’s only one spirit guide and that’s the Holy Spirit. All others are counterfeit.”

[03:13] Stephanie: I think you did a good job in that interview with practicing VCR, and you were very respectful. But yes, Holy Spirit, he is the one that we are looking to. So how do the spiritual engines affect the physical engines or interact with them?

[03:40] Marcus: How do they interact with them? For example, the Holy Spirit can heal the body. The Holy Spirit is the one who gave life to the body in the first place. The Holy Spirit, obviously it says,  “In Christ all things hold together.” And so there’s a spiritual dimension even to our physical nature beliefs. You know, the devil’s called the father of lies, so the idea is that if I’m believing a lie, in some ways I’m putting myself in his family, I’m connecting myself to him at some level. Whereas the Spirit of truth is also about belief, so at some level, I’m forming a connection there.

And demons and the Holy Spirit can both affect our attachments to people. Demons obviously want us to fear bond to people, or want us to avoid, or want us to have bad relations. And the Holy Spirit wants us to learn how to love even our enemies. So they affect all three engines. Yep.

[04:34] Stephanie: Huzzah. So this episode, what I’m imagining for our topical series here is that we’re going to kind of go from the broad perspective and then just get more and more practical as we go down.

So right now we’re looking at something that is very practical, that is a theology of the Holy Spirit. You often talk about there being two ways, two actions that we see the Holy Spirit operating in the Bible, and that is anointing and filling. And you also talk about the Holy Spirit and his association with life. So let’s start with life. How do you see the Holy Spirit’s connection with life?

[05:22] Marcus: In the very beginning of the Bible, we see the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters of the great deep. He’s there when God creates life. And specifically in Genesis 2:7, where it says God forms out of the dust, Adam, this human being, and then breathes into him the breath of life.

The word “breath” and the word “spirit” in Hebrew and in Greek are exactly the same word. And so that’s why context has to tell you, “Should this be translated breath or should it be translated spirit?” But there is clearly an implied idea that there is a spiritual thing going on when God breathes into us. And that spiritual thing that’s going on when God breathes into us brings us to life.

In the same way, in the New Testament, we are told that it is not enough to be born of water in the flesh, we have to be born of the Spirit. And to be born of the Spirit means that God has breathed into us that Holy Spirit and we are no longer dead, we are now alive.

That’s why Paul, in Romans 8:20, I think it’s – get my verses right – somewhere in Romans 8, Paul says that if I do not have the Spirit of Christ, I do not belong to Christ. [Romans 8:9] It’s this idea that it is the indwelling Presence that gives me eternal life and makes me alive in God. And so the idea of the Holy Spirit is always connected to life, and the Christian life cannot be lived apart from the Holy Spirit and walking in the Spirit, very important.

[07:00] Stephanie: Yeah. And Jesus said, “Hey, it’s going to be better for you once I go back to the Father because you’re going to get the Holy Spirit.”

[07:11] Marcus: Yeah, precisely, and that’s why it says again and again that we’ve all been baptized by one Spirit into one Body. And there is this idea that there is one Lord, one faith, one Spirit, and all these connections to it. It is that the Spirit is what brings us to life. It is essential to our Christianity to,  I say “it”, I mean the Holy Spirit isn’t an “it”. The Holy Spirit is essential to our Christianity.

And we experience that life largely through relationship and then that’s the main way in which we experience it. But the result is that the eternal life that is going to be ours forever is already in us because of the Holy Spirit’s presence.

[07:56] Stephanie: Yes. That’s a good little aside to address, which is, as we’re about to go into the idea of power and wisdom, the Holy Spirit is a person and is not some spiritual warfare, some spiritual Star Wars. Okay. I had S and W in my head and I was going for the wrong thing. It’s not some Star Wars force, right? It’s not an impersonal force that we tap into. Like, “Oh, I have the power!”

[08:28] Marcus: So your Grandpa Warner used to teach on this all the time. He was a missionary anthropologist. He would teach that the most universal religion out there is this idea of this neutral, impersonal force and is called mana. I think it’s M A N A. The idea of mana is that spiritual power is kind of like electricity and that there are certain people who just know how to – they’re sort of like the elect spiritual electricians, and we call them witch doctors or shamans or priests.

And the idea is that they know the secrets of how to channel the electricity. But that electricity is neutral in and of itself, but can be used for good or for evil.

[09:12] Stephanie: Which is where then you get black magic, white magic.

[09:14] Marcus: And that’s where you get the idea of black magic and white magic. It’s where you get the idea. It’s profusely found in Disney and all these things. It’s also what leads to, like in Raiders of the Lost Ark, their idea of the Ark of the Covenant is this neutral power that can be good or evil depending on who gets it. And so they don’t want Hitler to get this thing because they think it’ll give him too much spiritual power. Then Star Wars, of course, has that worldview, but it’s reflective of folk religion everywhere.

Then it goes from this neutral power to certain spirit beings having more of it than others and so you get like these demon spirits or fairy spirits or sprites, and things like that and then all the way up to gods and goddesses and whatever. And the idea is that they are beings behind it.

From a biblical perspective, the Bible does not teach this kind of a neutral, electricity view of spiritual power. It teaches it all as being connected very much to personal beings. And the Holy Spirit in this case is the source of tremendous power. But that doesn’t mean that he is simply “a power”.

[10:31] Stephanie: Very good. Well, on that note, then let’s go into, you talk about anointing and filling. Anointing being related to power and filling being related to wisdom. So let’s go with power first.

[10:42] Marcus: So again, you talk about the spirit coming upon someone, and you think about that like, especially in the Book of Judges, you get a guy like Samson, right? And Samson’s just going around, and then all of a sudden this Holy Spirit comes upon him and what happens? He gets incredibly strong, right?

And we don’t know if his physique changes and he goes from, you know, Captain America pre shot and post shot, we don’t know what happens. But you know Samson becomes incredibly strong. He doesn’t always have that strength because when his hair gets cut, it goes away. Because it’s clearly the anointing of the Spirit that gives him the strength.

We see this throughout the Bible, that even at Pentecost, when there is an anointing that comes upon people, the result is miraculous signs and wonders. There is a power demonstration that comes out. It’s not exclusively this, but that is the predominant use of the idea that anointing, or coming upon, ends up in the release of power into a person or into a situation.

Filling, on the other side, when it talks about someone being filled with the spirit, if you go back to the Old Testament, you get guys like Daniel and Joseph who are said to be filled with the Spirit. You get the architects of the tabernacle, Bezaleel and Holiab, (which are just fun to say), they’re filled with the Holy Spirit. And the result in each of those cases is that they have wisdom. They know things that other people don’t know because the Holy Spirit is filling them. Even Peter, when he gives his sermon, filled with the Holy Spirit, he now has the wisdom to say things. We see this again is a common analogy that to be filled with the Spirit.

Therefore, when Paul is telling us to live a life filled with the Spirit, it’s this idea that I am connecting with God in a way where I have his wisdom on what needs to be done here, what I should be doing here. What we find is that if I am filled with the Spirit and following God’s wisdom, it is more likely to lead to the Spirit’s power, and so they do overlap at some point, but there is kind of this subtle distinction that you can notice.

[13:02] Stephanie: So maybe we should touch just briefly on Holy Spirit power and wisdom versus counterfeit power and wisdom and what that looks like. That could be cracking open a huge topic. What seems important to you to note here?

[13:27] Marcus: Well, let’s just start with this idea of thoughts in the head because we’re getting into a listening prayer thing. And that is, how do you know when thoughts in your head are coming from God? How do you know when they’re coming from you? How do you know when they’re coming from something demonic? Classic discernment question: how do I know where this is coming from?

[13:47] Stephanie: And we are going to address discernment more in another episode. But you can address it too.

[13:51] Marcus: So you understand that the devil is a counterfeiter. He masquerades as an angel of light. And he’ll masquerade as an angel of light to give knowledge that you could only know from a spirit. In other words, when you talk to a fortune teller or somebody and they tell you accurate things about your family, you’re like, “How did you know that my grandmother lived in a house like that? How did you know that these things happened?”

It’s because those are things that are easy for a demon to know. It’s easy for a demon, through their network or however it works, to know factual things about your history or your past. But the twist there is that they will gain your trust by this human person telling you things that this human person could not possibly know, which tells you that that human person is connected to something spiritual.

That spiritual guidance is accurate when they first give it to you, and now they’ve laid the foundation for you to trust that anything else that they tell you is going to be true. That’s where it switches, because now the next thing they tell you will be about your future, or will be about instructions on what reality is like, and what God is really like, and whatever. That’s where they’ve hooked you with a demonstration of spiritual power. You now become convinced it’s spiritual power. Therefore I need to believe this and trust this.

And then it gets especially confusing when it happens in a church, and the person who is doing it is doing it in the name of the Lord, and they’re still just kind of channeling spirits. That’s why Paul tells us and James tells us to test every spirit and to see if this is really from God. And don’t accept every prophecy just because somebody said, “The Lord has told me.” You have to test the spirits to see if it was really the Lord who told them.

There are a couple of different tests. One of them is, are they using the name Jesus in this or are they using a pagan deity in it? Another one is, is it leading to the fruit of the spirit and is it making me more loving, more joyful, more peaceful? And then the third one, of course, is this contradicting Scripture in some way?

I first ran into this when a friend of mine was told to divorce his wife. And the wife was told that she was, by a pastor in their church who said, “The Holy Spirit has spoken to me. And the Holy Spirit is telling you (he wife0, divorce your husband and go marry this other man in the church.”

So you know, that’s a pretty easy test, right? The Bible’s pretty clear. That’s not how it works. And so that’s a pretty clear sign. Even though that pastor is saying, “Thus says the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus,”  and it’s happening in a church, that is clearly not from God.

And so that’s why we have to learn to test these things. That’s why we are going to spend more time on discernment in later episodes. It’s because there are counterfeits and the counterfeits are always going to look like the real thing, but they’re going to lead us someplace bad. They’re going to lead to false behaviors, false beliefs and a counterfeit sort of peace.

[17:25] Stephanie: Not a long lasting,  and it’s something that is transactional. But yes, we’ll get to more on that in both this topical series and also after that we’re going to talk about defeating demons. So I’m sure we’re going to talk about this more then.

But when in doubt, a good “if” prayer, would you give them just a quick, what is a good “if” prayer?

[17:51] Marcus: A good “if” prayer? It’s like, “I don’t know if this is you or not God, so if this is you, thank you for this and show me how to use it for your glory. But if I am being deceived and this is a demon, I command that thing to come to attention and get out of here now and to take all of your works and effects with you.”

And then you just pay attention to what changes when you pray that prayer. Does that thing still feel true? Am I still hearing that in my head? Did something else change? And so that’s one of the ways that we test the spirits.

[18:21] Stephanie: Very good. Well, if you are reading along, we are in chapter nine of the book, Breakthrough, and next week we are going to continue in this topic of listening to the Holy Spirit.

Father, any final thoughts for this episode and the theology of the Holy Spirit?

[18:38] Marcus: Yes. When you’re talking about a theology of the Spirit, he’s the source of life, he’s the source of wisdom, and he’s the source of power. What tends to get skewed when people get off on their theology, they’re only focusing on one of those things. They equate the Holy Spirit with power, or they equate the Holy Spirit with wisdom, or they equate him with eternal life, but that’s all that they see.

So again, it helps us to maintain our balance. To get a theology of the Spirit and how he actually works can help us to keep our balance as we tread into these areas. It’s always difficult when you’re dealing with the unseen realm because you can’t see it, and so you have to have good theology as a kind of a framework and guardrails, and you gotta know how to test things and discern.

[19:26] Stephanie: All right. More on that next week.

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