we see this woman she sees this prophet who passed her by who came for a meal
and now she decides to host him in her house and she sets up four pieces of
furniture and these four pieces of furniture was to accommodate the men of
God who was coming by and today I just wanted to prophetically look and
digest just simple simple instruction of how these four pieces of furniture
actually relate to four facets of your relationship with the Holy Spirit in
your life the first piece is the bed the bed speaks of intimacy and secondly the
the bed speaks of rest everybody who has a bed at home if you're single
this is a place of rest if you marry it's a place of rest and
intimacy and only single people said I don't know what I have no idea what
you're talking about but for us who are single people and that is the place of
rest for people who are married who have a covenant with somebody a bed is not
just a place of rest it's also a place of intimacy we have to
understand as Christians number one that the Holy Spirit comes to live in us
through salvation he gets us through salvation but we get the Holy Spirit
through surrender the Holy Spirit I get the Holy Spirit when I get saved but the
Holy Spirit gets me when I surrender that's why all Christians have the Holy
Spirit but the Holy Spirit doesn't have all Christians because not all
Christians surrender to the Holy Spirit they have are you with me all Christians
have a relationship but not all Christians have intimacy with the Holy
Spirit intimacy and relationship are two different things for example I am
married to my wife I have a relationship with my wife it's a legal relationship
it's a covenant relationship we are in the same house we work in the same place
we sleep in the same bed but it does not mean we are close all the time in fact
just five days ago on our second day of conference actually the third day of
conference my wife sat on the bed at our house and she looked at me and she
said we are so far from each other when I sat on the other side of the bed and
every man understands what that means she's not talking about the distance
from here to here and she's not talking about the facts that that our marriage
is going through things he's just saying this that though we have a relationship
we actually are not having intimacy right now many Christians have a legal
relationship with the Holy Spirit they are sealed by the Holy Spirit they speak
in tongues they are led by the Holy Spirit but the closeness to the Holy
Spirit is not the same thing as having the Holy Spirit living in you for those
of you who live with your parents you know how it is how you can be in the
same house with your parents but be million miles apart because intimacy and
relationship are not the same thing you can have a relationship and not have
intimacy but in order to have intimacy we first start with the relationship can
somebody say Amen and so the intimacy with the Holy Spirit
begins when we get the relationship and when we begin to surrender to the person
of the Holy Spirit secondly is when I have intimacy when you have closeness to
the Holy Spirit there will always be rest that will follow that rest is
the result somebody say rest no that rest after you eat that kind of rest not
rest because he took antidepressants 30% of people in the America today are
living on the pills to help them find freedom from anxiety what I believe in
reality the secret to overcoming anxiety the secret to overcoming depression the
secret to overcoming pressure and heaviness is not antidepressant pills
it's finding intimacy with the Holy Spirit because in intimacy with the Holy
Spirit that is rest and when you find the rest you find greater intimacy
with the Holy Spirit can somebody say Amen say when I find rest
I find intimacy say when I find intimacy I find rest
every intimacy for those people who are married intimacy in marriage
always happens behind closed doors and when I share something practical that
has helped me in my spiritual life prophet told one woman who had a problem
and he said this to her he says you have a little bit of oil in your house go
into your house gather empty vessels and then shut the door behind you and then
the oil started to flow Jesus said exactly the same thing in Matthew he
says if you go into your secret place talk to your father who is in secret
but he says before that make sure you shut the door behind you one of the reasons
why many people do not find intimacy with the Holy Spirit is the intimacy is
not found by striving it's only found by surrender and intimacy with the Holy
Spirit cannot be found if the doors are not closed and there is the door that
each one of us have in our life this door is called the door of distraction
it finds its fullest manifestation through iPhone Android Facebook snapchat
Instagram YouTube Twitter WhatsApp viber and every other thing and the
problem that happens is this we go into our secret place with God with our phone
on and as you are reading the Bible you're seeing somebody like your picture
on Instagram so you need to click which picture that they like because you
remember that some pictures don't get a lot of likes because the algorithm
changed on Facebook and Instagram and it's affecting our identity and our
self-esteem next thing that happens unless something else pops up somebody
else's and your text message from work hey can you bring me some coffee
and next thing happens is that our focus is broken in order to have intimacy in
marriage you have to keep the doors locked and in order to have
intimacy with God you have to learn to come to your prayer time
without your phone you might say but that's what I read my Bible that means
put it on the airplane mode because you can't have intimacy if the door is
open for some people that door is something else but in order to have
intimacy with the Holy Spirit you have to pay a price of putting away the
distract outside of your time with the Lord so
that God is the only one who can communicate to you not just someone else
people can wait and it's important to make time with God the first thing in
the morning there's nothing wrong with praying the night for those of you who
are night owls when you wake up at 11:00 at night like you've you physically
emotionally wake up but something happens when you rise before the Sun
something happens before everybody else rises that you spend time with the Holy
Spirit amen I'm going to share something else about
intimacy with the Holy Spirit is that in order to have closeness to the Holy
Spirit you have to learn to be silent more than you shout and wait more than
you wear wage war the challenge that happens on the conference setting like
this one or in the service as right now there's a lot of shouting there is a lot
of yelling there is a lot of screaming and that is good because that's a
corporate environment when you are in your private place God speaks and God
fills us through solitude and silence not through shouting the problem with many
of us is this is that the shouts are many times are empty there is no
substance inside and therefore these shouts they never do any good except
they strain our voice when Israel was conquering Jericho God told them I want
you to walk for seven days in silence and then on the seventh time on the
seventh day I want you to lift the shout and when they lifted a shout the walls
fell you know why because the shout was preceded with seven days of silence the
reason why many people are empty on the inside and their words have no power is
because the words are not backed up with moments where you come before God where
you rest your soul like David says I ween my soul before God you calm your
soul and you let your thoughts you let your emotions rage and connect to God
and you let the voice from the inside your spirit connect with God not just
tongues not just words but things on the inside and then you feel your cup your
spiritual soul begins to melt you begin to be repaired inside David says my soul
is restored on the inside and you walk out and it takes one shout and the
Walls begin to crumble why the walls crumble because your shout is that bass
and shout it's based on the silence where God fills you up the reason why a
lot of times a lot of rebuking and commanding doesn't move mountains is
because the commanding has not been preceded with the communion of the Holy
Spirit with us I love when people fall when we pray for them but in my ministry
personal ministry the Lord has told me I felt like he told me he said
Vlad people are not gonna fall when you pray for them but I will bring down the
walls in their life when you pray for them that means that when they walk out
something will be different and I said Lord I'll rather take that but also of
course will be nice if people would fall there's other ministers that the grace of God is too
much in their life for that and that's good but what my goal is and I want it
to be for you is that in order for your words to have power they have to be
preceded by moments with God where only God's Word is heard and yours is
silenced people sometimes come to God and say well you know God needs to
honestly there's nothing you have to say that God hasn't heard whatever your gonna
say to God it's not gonna change God and pretty much it's not gonna change you
but what God is gonna speak back to you is we're really gonna change and place
of intimacy with God is the place of solitude for me honestly it takes death
to learn that because I am Pentecostal in my blood the only way we experience
God is Pentecostals is when we you know three hundred three
hundred miles per hour we speak it fast we speak it loud and we strain our voice
but sometimes you leave and you're like man I shouted I screamed I overpowered I
mean it was a lot of hype but I'm empty but I'm dry when my soul is broken but I
am exhausted I am worn out I am burned out for your soul to be repaired
you don't need shouting in his silence in the presence of God when we get
together we have to shout but when we get alone with God solitude
and silence is where the repair and intimacy happens when we wait on the
Holy Spirit can somebody say Amen amen so the first one is intimacy the first
part is when we wait on the Holy Spirit he begins to repair us