An Open Heaven

Notes:

An Open Heaven      See Session Slides Here   

  • Does tithing open the windows of heaven? No! Heaven IS open, John 1:51.
  • Matt. 3:11. John used an earthly element, water, to baptize. But Jesus baptizes in a heavenly element – the Holy Spirit, Acts 1:5.
  • This is how Jesus lived His life and carried out His ministry, Lk.4:14,18&19.
  • This is how the Early Church lived its life and carried out its ministry.
  • God lets us see our inability in order that we might depend upon His ability. Don’t do anything until you are baptized in the Spirit, Acts 2:2. The Holy Spirit is mentioned 40 times in Acts 1-13.
  • Is this a secondary experience in the Holy Spirit? The Greek word for ‘breathed’ in John 20:22 is emphusao. This is the only place where it is used in the NT, but in the Greek translation of the OT it is used in Gen.2:7. One is generation (Gen.2:7), the other regeneration (John 20:22).
  • The Holy Spirit comes in to bring the life of Jesus, Rom.8:9. You are in Christ and Christ in you.
  • Yet, it is clear that there is a distinct and subsequent experience known as the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
  • Often, when the Person of the Holy Spirit is referred to, the definite article is used – ‘the Holy Spirit’.
  • Whenever the power or gifts of the Holy Spirit is meant the definite article is omitted.
  • All have received the Person of the Holy Spirit. Have you received the power of the Holy Spirit?
  • The word ‘baptize’ means to completely fill with, or cover with. But not necessarily from the outside. It can also mean to suffuse, i.e. saturate, permeate, flood from within.
  • You have all of the Holy Spirit. But does He have all of you?
  • The human spirit is a reservoir into which the Holy Spirit flows when we are saved.
  • But when we are baptized in the Spirit there is an overflow of that which is on the inside.
  • Jesus causes the Spirit who lives inside our spirits, to rise and overflow from where He is living.
  • The first experience of the Holy Spirit is an incoming; the second an outflowing.
  • The first experience we know about it, the second others
  • He dwells in each one of us. Our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. There are no pilgrimages in the Christian life. God comes to us. Emmanuel. We have received Him abundantly, Tit.3:5-6.
  • This dispensation is called the ministry of the Sprit. Contrasted by the law, 2 Cor.3:5-6; Gal.3:3&5.
  • 2 Cor.13:14. Koinonia = fellowship. The Holy Spirit is a real Person, called alongside to help.
  • Everything God wants to get done in us and through us is done by the Holy Spirit.
  • Everything Jesus accomplished for us is applied to and effected in us by the Spirit.
  • Take away the Spirit and Christianity becomes a dead letter.
  • There is nothing done by us that is acceptable to God, except by the Spirit, Jn.15:5.
  • Do we need constant fillings? Does the Holy Spirit leak out of us? Or does He abide forever?
  • In John 4:14 Jesus used the Greek aorist tense, i.e. to drink once only. This is what the woman understood. When we drink we receive a fountain of living water springing up.
  • We have been baptized in the Spirit, i.e. we have entered the realm of the Spirit.

How does it work, practically?

  • Be intimate with Him and foster fellowship with Him.
  • He will give you a vision. He will give you focus. He will show you the grace of God for every situation.
  • Open the door to His life and ministry.
  • The anointing works as we go into action. It does not operate on feeling, but action.
  • As we stay true to Christ and Him crucified these signs follow.
  • There is no doctrine to operate the gifts except the Cross.
  • 1 Thes.5:19. ‘Do not quench the Spirit.’