By Greg Ball
My name is Pastor Greg Ball and I am the founding pastor of Destiny Church in Naples, Florida. On October 13, 2009, my wife and I were jogging when my heart went into V-fib sudden-death. I was unconscious and not breathing for approximately 15 minutes. After my wife ran back to our house and called 911, a Collier County sheriff arrived and attempted to revive me with CPR. When that was unsuccessful, he went to his trunk and retrieved his AED machine and was able to get my heart started again. I was in a coma for three days. On the fourth day God gave me a supernatural miracle and woke me up. I don’t remember anything that happened that day. But one thing I’m sure of, there is a supernatural world. And it is as real as the natural world in which we live.
My experience got me thinking about the Holy Spirit and His role in helping us to understand the supernatural. And it occurred to me that most churches are not placing enough emphasis on the Holy Spirit today. We rarely teach about who He is and what He does. Because of this, most Christians are not aware of the importance of the Holy Spirit and the supernatural. So much of our time and energy is focused on ourselves and the problems of this natural world. We tend to spend most of our prayer time and energy around our own problems and needs. If we are not careful we can start to believe that what we see is all there is. The Bible tells us in Matthew 6:10 that we should pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It is God’s desire to bring the supernatural into the natural. As I stated before, the supernatural world is as real as the natural world. What we see is not all there is!
The Bible also says in 2 Corinthians 10:3 that even though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. There is a real battle going on in the supernatural and we are not alone in our fight. The Bible teaches us that the Holy Spirit is a person. He has a mind, will and emotion. He is a comforter, teacher and guide. John 16:8 describes His role on the earth: “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”
The Holy Spirit has an active role on the earth and He desires to have an active role in our lives. In Ephesians 6:10 we are instructed to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might and to put on the whole armor of God. He’s telling us to be strong in the Lord’s power, not in our own. The power of His might is the power of the Holy Spirit.
We cannot fight a supernatural devil in the natural. Our battles must be won in the spiritual realm. Our spiritual enemy, the devil, is scheming, planning, setting traps and doing everything he can to bring destruction to our lives and the lives of those we love. The good news is the Holy Spirit is much more powerful than our enemy! When we allow the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us, He we will take us to victory. Remember we are not fighting for victory. We are fighting from the place of victory.God created Adam in His image and likeness. God gave Adam dominion over the whole earth. Dominion in Hebrew is the word rä·dä’. It means to rule, to reign and to dominate. God intended for man to dominate the earth. When Adam sinned, he was removed from the garden. From that time forward mankind lost his dominion. God’s plan was that His son Jesus would come to earth and redeem man and place man back in dominion.
The Bible tells us in Titus 2:14, “Jesus gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us.” Redeem means to recover ownership of something by paying a specified sum. God gave His only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us and restore us to a place of dominion. We need to know that in the spiritual world we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. The Bible says in Luke 10:19 that He has given us power over the enemy. This is the kind of authority God wants us to live in. His authority is available to every believer, but only through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The only way to know if you are living a life full of the Holy Spirit is to do a fruit inspection. In Galatians 5:22 we are told what the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. When the fruit of the Spirit is in your life, you will live victoriously. You will live supernaturally in a natural world.
All Christians need to wake up everyday and welcome the Holy Spirit with a “Good morning, Holy Spirit!” We need to spend time with Him through the reading of the Word of God and praying in the Spirit. This will help us live full of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 6:13-18 says, “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints…” Praying in the spirit is a part of the armor of God. It’s one of our spiritual weapons.
Jude 20 says we build ourselves up by praying in the Holy Spirit. Is it possible that the reason many Christians are not growing in their faith is that they’re not giving enough attention to the Holy Spirit?
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Greg Ball is the Senior Pastor of Destiny Church in Naples, Florida. Learn more about Pastor Greg at destinynaples.org.
