This study is part of a more extensive series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I wanted to make you aware of this entire resource before getting started.
- Believers Guide To The Holy Spirit And His Gifts
- Living A Naturally Supernatural Life
- How To Be Empowered By The Spirit
- What Are Spiritual Gifts?
- Should We Use Spiritual Gifts Today?
- The Motivation For Using Spiritual Gifts
- The Word Of Wisdom
- The Word Of Knowlege
- The Gift Of Faith
- Gifts Of Healings
- Working Of Miracles
- Discerning Of Spirits
- Prophecy
- Speaking In Tongues
- Tongues In The Church
- Interpretation Of Tongues
- Activating The Gifts
The Believers Guide To The Holy Spirit And His Gifts
This guide to the Holy Spirit is exceptionally long. (over 21,000 words). It is available on Kindle and Nook if you would like the convenience of reading it on your e-reader or bookmark this page so you can read it all at your pleasure rather than trying to read it in one sitting.
Dedication
Dedicated to the one woman who supernaturally stood by me all of my life, Juneetta Marie Surber, My mother.
Introduction
I hate hype. I don’t care if it is Madison Avenue hype, TV preacher hype, or political hype. I hate the feeling of being manipulated.
Many people don’t realize it but when hype is used to promote something or to make something happen; it is a form of manipulation. It is selling something.
That is acceptable with some things in life, but it is unacceptable when it comes to the elements of the Spirit of God and the Spirit-empowered life.
When starting to write a book on the Holy Spirit, my prayer was that God would enable me to write something that is fresh and unique. I am not a theologian, but neither am I a novice.
I have spent 33 years of my life on a journey with Jesus trying to live in such a way that I first and foremost bring glory to Him and secondly am being used by Him to touch others with His grace and mercy.
There have been a vast number of books written by people on the Holy Spirit. I have found that most of them come from either one of two standpoints.
Either they are written from a purely experiential point of view where they share their experiences of the Holy Spirit’s work throughout their lives, or they come from an intellectual point of view where they try to understand and teach about the Holy Spirit using human reasoning.
While both approaches have their merit, I have discovered that the fruit each of them produces is not what I would call balanced.
Either you have people coming to an understanding that a Spirit-filled life is dry and uneventful, or you have people heading off into chasing experiences and emotions that cause them to do some pretty nutty things.
I believe in balance. I have said many times that I am on a quest for the radical middle. I do not think that God gave us our brain for nothing and that when we live our Christian faith in the real world that we should put our minds in neutral.
God also created emotions and the Christian life is one that should be experienced. Unusual and out-of-the-ordinary experiences should be part of the Christian life.
I do not think that these two aspects of being human to have to be mutually exclusive. We can have a reasoned and balanced approach to experiential Christianity.
It is because of this belief that I am writing this book. I am going to share with you my journey both experientially and theologically that has brought me to the point where I have found, at least for me, the balancing point where a believer in Jesus can genuinely walk in supernatural power but at the same time not become a religious fanatic or holy rolling nutcase.
My Pentecostal and Charismatic brothers and sisters will probably hate me for some of what I am going to say, and I am sure that my brothers and sisters in the Cessation-ist camps that do not believe in the modern-day gifts of the Spirit are not going to like what I have to say.
That is Okay!
In all honesty, if that is their reaction, then I have probably struck the balance that I am trying to hit.
It is my prayer that God will speak to your heart and through all of this, enable you to walk in a natural but supernatural way as you go about your daily life and see real fruit coming from it in ways you never dreamed possible.
Remember it was just ordinary fishermen, IRS agents, political zealots and a doctor who changed their world. They had some crazy things happen, but they never tried to be crazy for the craziness sake.
Blessings,
Pastor Duke
All of our articles on spiritual gifts are listed at the top of this page. I didn’t want to get redundant and list them again!