Looking To Your Spirit

Lift your bibles up if you've got them right there by you and wave them around.

Make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, I'm so grateful for Wednesday Night Live Stream.

My intention is to be fed the Word of God.

I believe I receive revelation that will feed my faith, develop my spirit so that I can be more effective as a witness of your goodness and mercy in Jesus' name.

Amen, amen, all right, let's look at our bibles to two places.

First Corinthians, chapter 14.

1 Corinthians 14 · chapter mention

And also, while you're turning, find Proverbs 20.

First Corinthians, 14, 14,.

Paul is writing to the church and he says for if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.

What is it then?

I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with my understanding also.

I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the understanding also.

And then in Proverbs 20, 27,.

It says the spirit of the man, the spirit of man, is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly.

The word candle there is lamp.

So the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord.

It illuminates the inward being, all of every part of our innermost being.

And so I wanted to share a message entitled looking to your spirit, looking to your spirit.

You know, god is a spirit.

Jesus said that God is a spirit.

Those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

And the Bible teaches that we know that God is a spirit, and it teaches that man is a spirit.

We're a spirit, we live in a body and we have a soul, which is our mind, will and intellect.

And 45 years ago, when I came across this revelation, it changed my life.

I mean, I'd always been taught that spirit and soul were the same.

A lot of people still proceed as if that's true.

Well, it's not true.

The spirit is where is the part of you that's gonna live forever.

It's born.

You're born again in your spirit.

You know, peter called it the hidden man of the heart, paul called it the inward man.

And so we live in a body, we live in this flesh, you know, and we have a soul, a mind, a will and intellect.

So God is a spirit.

He doesn't speak to our mind, he doesn't speak to our body.

He speaks to a spirit, to spirit.

And so, in according Romans 8, 14, believers are led by the spirit.

It's not a question of whether we're led.

It's a question of whether we follow the leading, which is why I'm talking about looking to your spirit.

Many times we look to all kinds of experts.

We look for advice from this one and that one.

We might Google things or Duck Duck Go things.

I use Duck Duck Go just because I don't like Google anymore, but anyway.

But I mean listen, that's fine, but look to your spirit.

So God doesn't talk to our minds, because that's not where he dwells.

He dwells right inside of us, right alongside our human spirit.

A lot of times your spirit knows things just because it picks it up from the Holy Ghost.

Sometimes you can't really tell where your spirit ends and the Holy Spirit begins, and vice versa.

So we must learn to look to our spirits to receive guidance and answers.

You know his.

He illuminates.

Your spirit, is like a lamp.

When he lights your lamp, there's no darkness and all confusion, all questions, all mysteries are illuminated, and so you know.

I just want to remind you.

Most of us know these things, but it's good to be reminded, it's good to stir ourselves up in this area, because many of us are searching for answers.

We've got situations we've been praying about.

Well, let's look to our spirits.

You know, believers are born of the spirit.

John chapter three.

Believers are filled with a spirit, ephesians 519.

And believers are led by the spirit Romans 814.

So it just follows then we should look to our spirit.

Now, if we're going to look to our spirit for answers and for guidance, then it follows that we should pray much in other tongues.

Pray much in other tongues.

We read it here in 1 Corinthians 14, 14.

When you pray in tongues, your spirit prayeth.

In other words, your spirit contacts God.

Another way of looking at it is that your spirit becomes active.

When you pray in tongues, your spirit is active, you're engaging in spiritual activity.

Yes, when you pray in tongues, your understanding is unfruitful.

You don't always understand what you're praying.

In fact, sometimes it's hard to keep your mind from wandering when you're praying in other tongues.

Well, you have to just press on through there and realize the word says that your spirit is undertaking a very valuable activity.

It's contacting God.

And so your mind may not understand what you're praying, but your spirit is contacting God and God is contacting your spirit.

And the more you pray in tongues, your spirit begins to be more dominant over your mind and over your flesh.

I think about Paul.

He said I keep under my body, while having preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.

What is he saying?

I keep my body in subjection to my spirit.

See, we need to be spirit dominated.

Our spirit must dominate our flesh and our mind, our thinking.

And so when you pray in other tongues 1 Corinthians 14, 4 says he that prayeth in an unknown tongue edifies himself.

Well, who is the himself?

It's not your flesh, it's not your mind, it's your spirit.

You edify your spirit when you pray in tongues.

Notice, we're engaging in spiritual activity.

That activity results in your spirit being edified, and that word edified is an interesting word.

You literally become a home builder.

I can relate to this because I built homes for a lot, of, a lot of decades.

It means to build up from the foundation, to rebuild, to restore or repair.

It means to grow in wisdom or in piety.

Piety is just dedication and faithfulness.

So, notice, when you pray in other tongues, it's not, it's not helping your brain, it's not helping your flesh, it's edifying your spirit and literally you can't really help anybody else if you're not getting helped.

So praying in other tongues is vital.

Jude 20 says it this way, building up yourselves on your most holy faith.

Pray it in the Holy Ghost.

You literally build yourself up and develop your spirit, praise God.

So we're talking about looking to your spirit.

In order for your spirit to be an authoritative guide, in order for your spirit to be reliable for you to check with, then you need to spend some time praying in other tongues, edifying and building it up and causing it to become dominant over your flesh and your mind.

So look to your spirit for answers.

You know, stop looking for profits.

I know people, they'll run around the country and go to some, you know meeting bunch of meetings.

You know that.

That.

You know maybe they're valuable in certain things, but really I mean we need to.

You know, if we spent the time and the money to develop our spirits, we wouldn't be so having to go run to this meeting, run to this prophet, run to what so, and so saying I mean the Holy Ghost will will let you know what you need to know for your life.

So stop looking for so-called profits, stop looking for so-called.

You know I had a lady one time.

You used to ask her husband all the time honey, have you got a word about our situation.

She was always looking for a word.

Well, yeah, we've got the word it's, it's.

It's good for any situation you happen to be in.

And so my, my advice and my teaching to you is to look to your own spirit, because that's where God is contacting you, that's where he is answering you.

You know, I just think about when I first started operating in this year, 45 years ago.

I started, you know, giving myself every day to having a prayer life, and I would spend time worshiping God.

I had a little thing called an omni court.

It's an electronic auto-harb and I learned I've taught myself how to play choruses on it and I'd sing to the Lord and worship him for a while, and then I'd read my Bible.

I'd pray much in other tongues.

I'd walk around my outside of my house, in the backyard I had a big old backyard and I'd preach to the squirrels.

I'd say, devil, come here and sit on this jagged stump.

I had a pine stump where the tree had fallen and they removed the tree and there's this jagged stump of the pine tree sticking up and I'd imagine him sitting there on that jagged stump while I preached to him and tell him what he wasn't going to do and what he would do.

I'd remind him of his future, I'd remind him of his past.

You know, pastor, that sounds crazy.

Well, you know, that's just how I prayed.

I mean, I spent time confessing the Word.

I could spend time using my authority over the devil and I'd pray much in other tongues, walking up and down in my backyard, and every now and then I would just I'd have a word bubble up, it just I don't know how to describe it any differently they just kind of bubble up and I'd have a word of encouragement for myself.

You mean, you prophesied to yourself what prophecy is for edification, exhortation and comfort of the church.

If my spirit is edified by praying in other tongues, then it follows that if I'm full of the Holy Ghost, speaking to myself in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in my heart to the Lord, see, I've already done that.

I've been singing, making melody in my heart, I've been praying in other tongues.

Well, you know, sometimes what would happen is that I would begin to speak to myself and edify and comfort myself in language that I understood, and I would be encouraged that way.

I'd be edified that way, I'd be comforted that way.

I'm not talking about going to my spirit for guidance.

It wouldn't tell me what to do, it wouldn't be.

I'm not going there for guidance, but I'm just talking about the benefit of speaking in other tongues.

I would actually get the edification that would come out of my own mouth and I would have my own confession.

I would have my own and it would be in first person, as if God was speaking right back to me, and he was.

He was speaking right back to me.

And so you know, later on I was only two or three months old in the Lord, I'd only been baptized and a holy ghost a month or two, and then, not too long after that, you know, I'm sitting in a Sunday night service and that same, and I wasn't praying in other tongues, I was just in church and I had that same, you know, bubble up inside of me that God wanted me to prophesy, and I just had the very beginning phrase to start with.

I didn't even know what the point of the prophecy was going to be exactly, and so I lifted my hand and was recognized by the usher, and the usher got brother Osteen's attention and he had me stand up and I, the microphone was brought to me 3,000 people there on a Sunday night and, man, I was nervous, I couldn't hardly hold the microphone, I'm shaking and I delivered my first prophecy.

Well, where did it?

Where did it all start?

It started in my private devotions.

I began with my private devotions, edifying myself and comforting and exhorting myself, and then God used me to do the same thing to the church in a service, and it was in the moment.

It wasn't something I got you know a week before and I wrote it down in my journal.

Sometimes I would write things in my journal, but you know, the power of prophecy in church, the utterance gifts, the power of those is when they're in the moment.

When they're in the moment, that's when they're most anointed.

And it's not how fancy the language is, it's not how you know, it's not like a miniature sermon.

I mean, if you make more than one point, you've gone too long.

You just make one point and sit down.

And so I learned that, and I learned it from my personal devotions.

You know, I learned it from my prayer life, and so you could say my public ministry was born out of my private devotions.

You know, I remember a guy one time that was that I knew well, and he prophesied almost every service, and I don't know how to describe this.

It sounds critical, but I mean I just never since an anointing on what he was saying.

It just was like he wanted to hear himself talk.

He'd stand up and be recognized.

He'd prophesied, and it was always be very similar to the last time he'd had the same rote.

It was like it was a, it was like it was a rote.

And I went to the Lord I said what?

What's the deal?

He said well, it's not.

He's not prophesying out of his personal devotions, he's not spending time worshiping me, he's not spending time with me, and his motive is wrong.

He's not prophesying in love, he's prophesying just to say what he wants to say.

And so I had to learn from other people.

Sometimes you know what not to do, what guard against.

They've been.

And I'm talking about looking to your Spirit, because really tonight I'm not really so much talking about the gifts of the Spirit as I am going to your spirit for guidance.

And what I wanted to Make the point is it's many times your spirit knows what your mind has not yet understood.

There is a communication between your spirit and your mind to where, when you pray much in other tongues, the information you seek can bubble up, much like a prophetic word does.

It can bubble up from your spirit into your mind and all of a sudden, all Of a sudden, the light that's in your spirit illuminate again like a lamp, like that hundred watt bulb or a 200 watt bulb going off, and it lightens up everything on your inward man.

Suddenly, that is conveyed to your mind through this process, when you're praying in other tongues.

It's a supernatural thing, and now your mind becomes aware of what your spirit has known, possibly for some time.

Sometimes your spirit knows things well out in advance of what when your mind catches on.

And why is that?

Well, because we don't spend enough time Letting God just percolate he, we don't let him work in our lives.

We're in such a hurry, we're just, we don't have much of a prayer.

Life is oh God bless me, my for and no more, and out the door we go.

You know, and so you know.

This message is born out of what God said about this year, the year of momentum, and one of the One of the main things that we've got to gain out of this year is finding out what does God want us to do.

You know, every prayer should have an action item.

My prayer is not Asking God to do this, that and the other prayers, just communicating with God and having him communicate with us.

And it's not necessarily a voice.

Quit straining to hear voices, quit straining to have dreams, quit straining to have gifts of the spirit, like that.

That's not for guidance you, your spirit, if you'll pray in other tongues and pray in your understanding, if you'll sing in tongues.

I did a lot of singing in tongues, I still sing in tongues and you know it's wonderful to sing in other tongues.

That's what the Bible says to do.

When you do, you get edified, your spirit gets built up, it becomes dominant over your mind and over your flesh, and then God can then allow your spirit to transmit what it knows into your mind, so that your mind becomes aware of what your spirit already knows.

Praise God, and then your faith.

I tell you, when you start hearing from God like that, when I say hearing from God, say again, it kind of implies a voice.

Well, I'm not talking about a voice, I'm talking about a knowing.

I'm talking about picking up like a.

It just bubbles up and you suddenly you understand and know what it is you're seeking what you've been inquiring about.

He wants to answer you more and more this year than he ever has, because he's got specific ways that he wants us to walk in.

This time it's a critical, it's a strategic time.

I'm gonna quit saying critical and say strategic.

It's a strategic time for the church and a strategic time for you to look to your spirit and receive what he has for you, because he's communicating with you spirit to spirit.

Praise God.

So look to your spirit and you'll receive the guidance and the answers that you need.

Praise God, lift your hands and receive.

I trust that you got encouraged tonight.

I just come on, lord, we just thank you that we have supernatural equipment and, lord, as we put to work these principles, lord, you're causing our receivers to grow.

You know that's another thing.

You know, sometimes we don't receive what we need from God because we haven't heard really in our spirit what he has for us.

And so this is, you know.

I just believe God wants to put more, more money in your hands.

He wants to put more favor in your life.

He wants to insert more power into your life, more influence, more impact.

See, momentum is impact, it's influence, and so we're gonna get that as we look to our spirit.

Praise God, hallelujah, glory to God.

Amen.