Fellowshipping With the Holy Spirit – Mike Bickle

Notes from Mike Bickles Series :Fellowshipping With the Holy Spirit

*please also visit this guide on “how to walk in the Spirit”

Fellowship of the Spirit

-A Way of Life The Only Means to Effective Intercession

God Created Man

            1 Thessalonians 5:23—God created man in three parts:

1. Spirit or innermost man
2. Soul or innerman
3. Body

In man’s innermost man dwelt the uncreated God.  In the innermost man is where God lives, but in the innerman is where God is experienced.  The Holy Spirit lives in us, in our innermost man.  Eph 3:16 uses the term innerman, John 7:38 says belly (rivers flowing out)

When God created man, He made him to walk in the consciousness of his Spirit.  Until man walks in that consciousness again, no man or woman will ever live as God intended them to live.

The Design

You were designed to walk by your Spirit.  When you don’t walk by your Spirit, you cannot do what God has called you to do.  We ‘walk by the Spirit by talking with the Spirit, and the Spirit is most engaged when we talk about the anointed Word of God, the Scriptures.  This also strengthens our ability to percieve and experience the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:17 : He that joins himself with the Lord, becomes one Spirit with the living God again. 

Hebrews 7:16 : The power of an indestructible life living in you. 

Three Activities

The three activities of God’s Spirit in the soul of man.  Distinguish the old covenant from the new covenant.

1. Wisdom:  From your Spirit you will find there will be a continual spontaneous flow of wisdom.
2. Godly Desires:  From your Spirit will flow desires for holiness.  If God’s Spirit is not in you, you cannot desire holiness.
3. Power:  The power that raised Jesus from the dead.   This power is the means to an effective ministry.

Your Soul

¨     Soul

¨     Heart

¨     Inner Man

see Ephesians 3:16 – Galatians 4:19

God dwells in your Spirit, but He needs to be formed in your heart.  How much of God is moving and active in your soul?  Many ask: “do you ask God for love, or do you thank God for love?  You do both!  You thank Him that love dwells in your Spirit(innermost man), but ask Him to cause that love to rise mightily in your soul(innerman/belly).  The burden of God is in your Spirit right now, but it isn’t doing any good until it’s in your soul.

The premium issue within the Church of God is to get our souls healthy: getting filled with the wisdom of God, rising up in Godly desires, and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Revelation 3:20

The area of your body in which you are sensitive to your Spirit is your belly.  The area of your body in which you are sensitive to your soul is your heart. 

2 Peter 1:19

Pay attention to the Word of God so that Jesus will be revealed in your heart.  Your soul will become one with the soul of God.

Christian Maturity

How do we get the activity of God’s Spirit to rise up mightily in our souls?  If God will arise and do might things in us, we could do great things.  It’s true that on one hand, you could never receive more God than you have right now in your Spirit, but on the other hand, you have much of God to receive in your soul.  So it is true to say of one Christian, he has all of God, but he has none of God.  It depends on what part of his makeup you are talking about.

Mathew 11:29

Jesus said that everything that we are called to do in the will of God is easy!  Praying is the most easy thing in the world, if you contact your Spirits.  If something is hard it’s only because of one of two reasons:  You’re new to something, or because you are looking to your own wisdom and your own natural desire, because we don’t know how to connect to the Spirit easily.  We must take our attention off ourselves and put our attention on the Spirit.  Prayer gets very, very easy if you persevere.  Actually, there is a third reason, you haven’t given your whole heart to it yet.  Until you make a decision that you are going to grow in something, it’s very difficult.

How Do You Get the Spirit of God To Rise Mightily in You?

see:            2 Corinthians 13:14           Philippians 2:2

Fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit.  If you don’t fellowship with God’s Spirit, things are going to be very hard for you.  You don’t have a chance to make it in victorious living.  What’s victorious living?  The book of Acts.  That’s the only valid standard to compare living by.  Everything must be judged by the absolute  standard of the word. 

You will never be victorious until fellowshipping with the Spirit has become a way of life.  Paul dwelt with God’s Spirit all day, every day.  The development of Paul’s soul is a picture of God’s will for every hungry soul in the 21^st century.

Paul’s Life

• He never spoke an ungodly word in his life
• His thoughts were always obedient
• He always walked in the Holy Spirit
• He prayed at all times

This is the standard in which God can bring a soul in the grace of God.  God put the life of Paul and He opened up his heart in the scriptures as a picture of what God could do in the life of a desperate saint.  God gave it as a picture.  He gave it as what He would give the soul of the diligent.

Romans 8:6

If you will be able to behold the Spirit of God and fellowship with the Spirit within you, it will rise up in you.  If your soul is weak, you are weak.  If you don’t get from the potential to the actual then it doesn’t matter.

When you set your mind, not on the things of the Spirit, but on your Spirit, or the Holy Spirit, it will result in life: living water out of your innermost being.  You have to set your mind on your Spirit.  You do it with an attitude of obedience.  You do it with an attitude of faith.

An Attitude of Obedience

You set your mind on your Spirit, and in your heart, in the physical aspect of your being there is no deliberate sin in your life.  If you have an area of deliberate sin in your life, you will never, never see the activity of God rise up mightily in your soul.  You don’t have a chance for reality.  God will only say one thing to you: stop.

Many of you have decided to obey, and it wasn’t until much later that you got the victory over whatever it was that you were battling with.  God’s only asking that you decide.  You make the wholehearted decision, and deliverance will come.  Do not ever confuse the decision of obedience with the obtainment of obedience.

An Attitude That Activates God’s Spirit in You

If you want the activity of God to be mighty in you, you must submit to His rules

Attitude of Faith

            You agree and thank God for what said in His word.

Approaching Your Spirit

It’s not enough to have an attitude of obedience.  You’ve got to approach the Spirit of God on a friendship basis, face to face.  You’ve got to turn your mind straight to your Spirit, and you’ve got to talk to Him like a real person with an attitude of obedience and an attitude of faith and that will activate the Spirit of God in you.

Roman 8:6

The mind set on the flesh is death.  The flesh is not just lustful things, or dirty pictures.  That’s a very, very small aspect of what the flesh is.  In its broadest sense of the word, in the way that Paul means it here, the flesh is the created part of your being.  The flesh is your mind, emotions, and will uninspired by God.  You could have noble thoughts, but it is still the flesh, resulting in death.  God said to set your mind on your uncreated part, your Spirit.  The flesh is that which does not have the supernatural breath of God on it.

John 6:63

It’s the Spirit that gives life, the flesh profits nothing (in terms of Spiritual reality).  We need wisdom, and if your mind is set on your mental powers instead of your Spirit, that’s when we make mistakes.

When you set your mind on the flesh, you’re setting in on the created man.  When you set your mind on the Spirit, you’re setting it on the uncreated man.  That’s the source of life, all wisdom, all power.

John 14: 16

Jesus did not leave us orphans, or helpless.  Even thought he world cannot behold Him or know Him, He is in us.  Beholding the Spirit of God is when you set your mind  on God’s Spirit or your Spirit and with an attitude of faith and obedience the Spirit  flourishes.

St. Augustine,  “I spent many years looking for God on the outside until I finally realized that He is found on the inside.”

There are two things that we cannot do without the Spirit:

1. Worship
2. Pray—Zachariah 12:10 The Spirit of supplication in the Last Days.

If you’re going to pray in the Sprit, it takes the activity of the Holy Spirit in you.  If effectiveness before the throne is to be your way of life, you’ve got to have deep fellowship with the Holy Spirit.  Most people go right to the Father in flesh, and that’s why they don’t have the results in the Book of Acts.  We need to spend a great amount of time today beholding our Spirit, waiting on God.

2 Corinthians 3:17

Liberty in your soul.  We only have a dim view of the glory because of our humanity.  When you behold God’s glory within you, although dimmer than He that sits on the throne, that is the source of being transformed in to the same image of Jesus, the same wisdom and power.  Even the word of God must lead us to Jesus.  In of themselves, they are nothing if the Spirit of God doesn’t move on you.  Communion with God is what changes the soul of man.

      The word without the Spirit dries up.

The Spirit without the word blows up.

      And the Spirit and the word grows up. 

The Spirit and Intersession

You’ll never be an intercessor until you learn to commune with the Spirit in a somewhat mature fashion.  An intercessor is a man or woman who contacts the Spirit and leans how to flow in the wisdom, the burden,  and power of prayer. All mighty intersession flows from the Spirit.  Intersession is the most supernaturally high thing you’ll ever put your hand to.  Jesus is always interceding for us.

Isaiah 62:6-7

Remind God night and day of His word.  You agree with God that His word is true, and you thank Him for it as it has already happened in the Spirit.  You agree with His promises, and offer prayer with thanksgiving.  Thank Him that it’s a reality before you see it.  Faith will begin to rise within your Spirit.

Two Burdens Necessary for an Intercessor

1. Pray the Compassion for afflicted human beings will consume you = LOVE.
2. Pray for a zeal for the glory of God.

Ezekiel 36:20

For His Name.  We’ve got to have a zeal for the glory of God.  We were created  to worship God, so that Jesus would receive the reward of His suffering through redeemed peoples.

Intercessory Prayers

□   Daniel 9

□   Isaiah

□   Ezekiel                       

□   Jeremiah

□   Psalm 120-135

□   Psalm 80-90

1. Pray the scripture
2. Agree that it’s true
3. Thank Him that He’s released it to you

Fellowshipping With the Holy Spirit:   A Way of Life

The Only Means to Effective Intersession

Session 3

See: Philippians 2:2

2 Corinthians 13:14

Ephesians 3:16

1 Corinthians 6:17

I believe that we’ve failed in separating that which is ours in our spirit and that which is ours in our soul.  In confusing the two, we’ve stepped out in presumption in  a great deal of things.  And it causes a lot of problems for people.  They begin to try to be that which is resonate in their spirit.  They try to live up to all the power that dwells in them until they’ve matured into it and then they fall flat on their face saying, “What happened?  What happened?  I thought I was confessing the truth all the time.  I don’t understand.  Does God live in me, or doesn’t He?

We’ve seen a lot of sincere, even foolish things done because people have confused the power that dwells in their spirit and the power that is being manifested in their experience and is being strengthened in their inner man, the realm of the soul.

What We Really Need

So our big need is to get the Jesus that dwells in our spirit to dwell in our heart. To get the holiness, and the purity, and the power, and the wisdom that dwells in our spirit to be dwelling in the place where we are conscience of it so we can use it and walk in it.  Jesus will do no good in your spirit if you don’t experience Him in the realm of your heart.

Hebrews 13:9

The whole point of Christianity is God’s grace strengthening your heart.  Your heart needs to be strengthen by the prescience of God.  Important to know what you’re praying for.  Do you ask for power or do you thank Him for the power that is in you?  When God’s presence descends on you it fills you with the power of Himself.  Through the knowledge of God, you will increase in power.

Ephesians 1:17

            How do you begin to walk in greater power?

­ The eyes of your heart are opened, a surpassing revelation.

­ Then you might know the great power that is in you!   You receive the seed of the living God when you get saved, but that will do you no good until you receive the knowledge of Him.

Fellowshipping With the Holy Spirit:  A Way of Life

The Only Means to Effective Intersession  Session 4

The function or the place of the Lord Jesus in the life of a believer.

Jesus as the Source of Life

• John 15  Jesus says that He is the true vine.  He is the source of life that you live on the earth. 

• Colossians 3:4

Jesus is our life.  The Spirit of God that dwells in our Spirit is the source                                     of life.

• 1 Thessalonians 5:10

We live together to share life with God.

Jesus said that we were called to bear fruit.  As you bear fruit He will cause a deeper fill of the Spirit to move away darkness in you.  That’s the character and the power of God in your life.

v.4 The one that abides in Him and He in them will bear much fruit.

The Joy of the Lord: Fellowship With the Radiance  of God’s Life In Us

Nehemiah 8:10  When the Spirit of God’s joy rises up in your heart, nothing can conquer you.

Isaiah 40:10  An old testament way to abide in Christ.  They that wait upon Him.

            see: Romans 5:17 , Revelation 1:5-6

This is Eternal Life

The problem is that the Gospel isn’t presented as a chance to live with God.  Instead of invite sinners to live in this Earth possessed by eternal life, we only tell people they will live forever in eternal life one day.  God’s life comes to live in our Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:16-17: We are a new species, a new creation on the earth, joined together with Christ on this earth, in this lifetime.  The Spirit of God lives in us.

Divine Love

The highest expression of God in the soul of man is divine love.  God’s desired that love would not just be an act of your will, but that love will completely consume your emotions that divine love would be you.  A Christian characteristic will first start in your will, then it will be in your mind, then when Godly virtue has a hold of you, your emotions become filled with love.

Galatians 4:19

Labors in prayer so that Jesus would abide in the soul of man.  As long as Jesus just abides in your Spirit, you are not going to enjoy God, and you are not going to be a blessing on the earth.  Revelation—the Laodician Church, He’s talking about those who are saved.  Jesus is already in your Spirit, He wants to reform your emotions in your soul.  The condition of your heart has much to do with the amount of conditioning the Spirit of God has done to you.

Bearing Fruit

To the degree that we abide in Him, He will abide in me.  To that degree we will bear much fruit.  St your mind on your Spirit.  You look to your Spirit and grow.  It takes time.  Apart from drawing life from Him we can do nothing.

vs. 7: Fellowshipping with the Spirit of God in you.  If you’ll fellowship with God, you’ll abide in Him, God’s voice will be presently in you, speaking to you direction.  Then anything you ask, is done for you.  The voice of God cultivated in the soul of man is done by fellowshipping with the Spirit.

vs. 16: He chose us to go and bear fruit.  We did not choose Him.

John 6:52           

            Unless you abide in Him, you have no life in yourself–Zoe life.

John 5:19

            Jesus looks to His Spirit, and until the voice of God is in Him, He does nothing.  When God’s voice speaks to Him, He does it.

John 5:30

Jesus abides with the One in Him.  He does nothing on His own. He sought the will of the One in Him.  Jesus abides in the Father.

Fellowshipping With the Holy Spirit:  A Way of Life

The Only Means to Effective Intersession  Session 5

A Sober Mind

1 Peter 4:7 Be of sound judgment and of sober spirit  for the purpose of prayer.  If we don not learn how to cultivate a sober mind, we will not learn how to pray.  If you want to walk in communion with God you must cultivate a sober mind.  A sober mind is the mentality that allows you to dwell with the Spirit of God that dwells with you.

Sobriety is the ability to see reality, or the ability to gain a real perspective on life.  The only real true perspective on life is how God sees it.  You’ll never have a sober mind just by showing up one day, it must be defined and cultivated.

2 Essential Aspects of  Sobriety

1. The fear of God: Acts 9:31
2. 2.     The joy of the Lord: Acts 13:52

The early church was a church that was rooted in the fear of the Lord and the joy of the Holy Sprit.

The fear of the Lord is not being afraid of Him.  It is coming into a comprehension of God’s majesty and His awesomeness.  You give Him the respect of His name.  The joy of the Lord is that sense of well being that is rooted in the sense that God loves you.

We are not just sons, but we are servant.  He’s not just a father, but He’s a master.  We don’t just understand His love, but also His majesty and His holiness.  It’s not just a relationship, but it’s walking out the responsibility as His mouthpiece on this Earth.  There’s the fear of God, there’s the love of God.  Those two threads regard man’s relationship to God.

Losing a Sober Mind

There are several different ways that we lose a sober mind.

Ephesians 5:4—Silly talk, when your mouth is filled with silliness you cannot stay in the concept of the joy of the Lord or the fear of the Lord.

Mark 7:21-23—Foolishness will defile you, like adultery will.  It cuts out your ability to enjoy God.  No sober spirit, no ability to pray.

A trifling mind, a mind that pursues many things of this world.  Living in this age as though God’s perspective was wrong.  They don’t see the privilege of living in God in His fullness.

Luke 10—Mary of Bethany.  Only one thing is necessary.  Martha was bothered by so many things.  Mary chose the one thing.  Martha was the picture of a “practical, balanced Charismatic”.  She wasn’t a backslider.  It’s hard for us to imagine ourselves being compared to Martha.  She loved Jesus.  When you begin to see things as God sees them, your whole value system will change.  You will be labeled as a radical, a fanatic.  Martha couldn’t comprehend Mary’s single-mindedness.

Jesus rebuked Martha for worry that distracted her.  Sobriety and anxiety are complete opposites.  Anxiety cannot exist in a sober mind.  If you don’t have sobriety, you cannot pray.  Worry is another word for fear.  As long as you do not attack fear, you will never attain sobriety.

Martha also was so bothered.  When was that last time that you linked being bothered to being distracted?  Some of you cannot pray because you are bothered so easily.  Bothered is having an opinion that is not necessary.  The essence of being bothered is being opinionated.  Another way to describe it is: majoring on minors, and minoring on majors.  Their energy, opinions, time, and speech is centered on minor things in life.  What Martha viewed as major, was really minor.  Being opinionated is step one for keeping a revival from coming to your city.  If you are opinionated, you will be distracted, if you are distracted, you will never have a sober mind, if you don’t have a sober mind, you will never know how to pray. As long as you continue in anxiety without refusing it and as long as you continue your opinions and your human right to hold onto them, you will never have communion with God.  Irritations and opinions are exactly the same things, because 99% of them are born of man, and not in heaven.

What Do You Do

It is my idea more important than the work of the Lord going out in the Earth?  You  refuse the arrogance that puts value on your opinion more than the word of God  going from you.

Fellowshipping With the Holy Spirit: A Way of Life

The Only Means to Effective Intersession Session 6

The Design of Life

Ephesians 3—Jesus came so that He might bring life. 

1 Corinthians 2:10—The Spirit of God searches even the very depth of God’s vein so that He might reveal it to His people.  The Spirit strengthens us with the revelation of God.  We were created to live in this fellowship with God continually.  Man was created to live in the communion of the life within them, communing with the one that is in our Spirit.  That is the beauty of the Gospel, that is the beauty of the new covenant.

John 14:17—Believers will behold the Spirit of God.  You behold Him by setting your mind on the Spirit.  Sit with your mind on your Spirit focusing on the living Spirit within you.

Zachariah 12:8

In the day of visitation, the last day, the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, He will defend the people of God against the powers of darkness.  They will be like David, and the House of David will be like God.  We will have the grace of God strengthening our Spirit.

Strengthening of God’s Grace in the Inward Man

Acts 9:22—Paul continually was strengthened in God.  Praying that the Spirit of God would dwell in their heart.

I Timothy 1: 12—Until the one that lives in you strengthens your soul, you will not do the will of God.

2 Timothy 4:17—The Lord stood with me and strengthened me in order that through me the proclamation would be fully processed, so that the Gentiles would hear.

1 Thessalonians 1:5—The full proclamation of the gospel.  We will never be satisfied until we fully proclaim the Gospel of God: in power, in the Holy Spirit (revelation of God’s Sprit, supernatural revelation of the Spirit of God, visions, dreams, and revelation), full conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment from the Holy Spirit.

The Power That is in You

1 Peter 4:11—Being strengthened by the power in you.

            2 Thessalonians 2:16—May He now come in comfort and strengthen your heart.

2 Thessalonians 3:3—He will strengthen your heart.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

Philippians 1:21—For me to live is Him.  To live as Jesus did.  There should be no difference.  The glory of the new covenant makes us sons as God, ruling and reigning in His power.  Ephesians 5:1—Imitate God by the grace that dwells in you, adore him, behold him.

James 5:8—The day that we are living in is a day of glory.  Be patient, strengthen your heart for the coming of the Lord is at hand, in the clouds and in you today.

1 John 4:17—As He is, so also are you in this world.  Gen. 1:26.—We are made to be like God.

How Do You Do It?

You do it in prayer and by the word.

Luke 21–Jesus  warned us not to let our hearts be weighed down with dissipations, indulgences, drunkenness, and the worries of this life.  It will come upon everyone like a trap, unless you are on your guard.  Pray that you would have strength in the inward man.

1 Corinthians 14:4—Pray in tongues and build yourself up.

Jude 20

Receiving the Strength of God

The warning of Jesus: Luke 22:31—Satan wants to sift you like wheat.

So you must be strengthened through:

• Personal prayer and getting in the word
• Praying with and for your brothers and sisters.  Ephesians 14:21
• Calling on the angels of God to strengthen you, asking God for the ministering of angels.

It is deeply crucial for this age and the Body of Christ to be strengthened in our innermost being.