A Deeper Understanding of the Holy Spirit.

By Pastor Randall Tracy

We all want wisdom, power, and love. These things satisfy the seeds of greatness in all of us, and we all have seeds of greatness inside our souls. Being able to access unlimited knowledge and love gives us the satisfaction of living a full life.

Getting to know and actually have a relationship with God is the key to all of these desires being fulfilled. Having a relationship with God requires learning about Him, how He communicates, His desires, and who He actually is.

This book opens all those doors. It is an introduction to a friend of yours who deeply loves and admires you and will be there with you always.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490838618

Pastor Randall Tracy

Growing up in mainstream Christianity did not prepare me for a close walk with God. Twenty-three years ago, the Holy Spirit got my undivided attention abruptly. The statement He made was simple but has driven me to explore who He is and many other aspects about Him. Deeper and deeper He goes, watching and waiting for us to follow. I have counted myself as one who has pursued “the Pearl of Great Price,” and walked away from all I used to be to follow Him. In my younger days, I could not foresee a time when surfing and traveling were not a foremost part of my life; but then came the Lord and a true adventure lasting a lifetime. I have traveled and made friends across the whole world, but none so close or dear as the Holy Spirit of God. This book is an attempt to put a relationship into words. Growing up in church, I never knew what I was missing. Truly a friend who is closer than a brother, God Himself.

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SECOND INTRODUCTION 2015

It’s been a year now since the original book was published and I’ve had many lessons taught me since then. This current version will include many of those lessons.

The interesting thing about God’s word is the dynamic nature of it and our static understanding. God’s mind is so much further reaching than we understand and His Word has these far reaching concepts that we are trying to encompass with our limited abilities.

So here we go again with another ‘push’ trying to put God’s lessons on paper.

Thank you for allowing me the privilege of having another conversation about God our Savior and all He has done to reach us. His earnest desire is to have our companionship in Eternity to come.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD

T he Holy Spirit is referred to in Isaiah 11:2 as the Spirit of the Fear of the Lord. One major misconception is the equating of the Fear of the Lord with terror. God by no means wants us terrified of Him.

God by all means wants us close to Him and wants us to ‘walk’ closely with Him. God is love, 1 John 4:8, and wants to show us love. Understanding the magnitude of God will give you a holy fear, which we should understand as a very deep reverence.

God is the owner of the whole universe and the ruler of it. God set into motion all the physical laws in which we must live i.e. gravity, physics, mathematics, time, etc.

The God I am referring to is the God of the Holy Bible. Simply put, there is no other. Isaiah 43:10 states, Before Me there were no Gods formed, Nor shall there be after Me (NKJV). So God is the only One; anything or anyone else who claims to be God is an imposter and should be regarded as such.

To further clarify, 1John 5:7 states, There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one (NKJV). This is what is meant when the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is expressed, three in one. It doesn’t take a ‘massive leap of thought’ to understand that if you are missing one aspect of God then you miss the completeness of Him.

Walking with God is a communion of everyday life. When you get ‘born again’, you receive the Holy Spirit. God the Father and His Son Jesus is in heaven right now and will remain so until a different time dispensation.

Many people sing ‘since Jesus came into my heart’, but the truth is Jesus right now sitting at the right hand of the Father like Stephen proclaimed when he was being stoned to death in the Book of Acts in chapter 7 verse 54. Jesus lives in a glorified human body and cannot be in two places at the same time.

After His death, burial, and resurrection Jesus ascended to the Father for a brief period of time, then appeared to the Disciples for 40 days and communed with them, teaching things pertaining to Gods’ Kingdom.

In Acts Chapter 1, He explained to them that they would soon be Baptized in the Holy Spirit. After this Jesus ascended back to Heaven in front of them. Then in Acts 1:11 two angels explained to them, This same Jesus who was taken up from you into Heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into Heaven.

This Baptism of the Holy Spirit is currently focused on in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. It is taught that to receive this baptism you must first be born again and receive Jesus as your Savior.

To comprehend this we should first look at what Jesus was telling Nicodemus in John chapter three. Jesus first told him in 3:3, You must be born again to see the Kingdom of Heaven. Then Jesus also said, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of the water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. John 3:5.

Being born of the water is simply being born of a human woman as water is present in the amniotic sac. Being born of the Spirit of God happens when a person accepts the sacrifice Jesus gave on the Cross of Calvary and asks God to come into their life. The Holy Spirit enters your spirit (will discuss more on this later) and brings you eternal life.

God made it so this would be an act of our own volition and does not violate our free will. This is the very simple version of being ‘Born Again’. This brings us to the place of ‘repenting’ of our sins against God and puts us in right standing with Him. From there we begin the process of entering into Gods’ Kingdom, in which we look to Him to coach us into righteousness which leads to holiness. See Romans 6.

Submitting our free wills to His rulership is the jumping off point. When we make a conscious effort to obey the rules he set forth and had them written in the Holy Bible, it is then we begin to walk with Him.

All of God’s Laws were written based on the love of Him, loving yourself, and loving other people. See Mark 12:30 and 12:31.

Understanding these basic precepts leads us back to the Fear of the Lord. God deserves our ultimate respect. His knowledge is so far superior to ours and capacity for thinking is so much greater than ours, our veneration is necessary.

If you had a conversation with Albert Einstein, one of the greatest minds of human existence, would you feel completely comfortable with calling him ‘Old Al’, and expecting him to feel endeared to you? If you had a conversation with your family Physician would you treat him as a drinking pal? If you were talking to a current king or president, would you belch in front of him and expect him to not be insulted?

The God, who created you deserves by His position of Final Authority to be treated with more respect than these humans who were created by Him and gave them their capacities.

If you were seated at dinner fellowshipping, or communing with a great minded person, you would listen and regard everything he said with great intent. This happened to me. One time an astrophysicist invited me to dinner and wanted to discuss ministry.

Not being very proficient at simple Algebra, and not having spent enormous hours defining how the Universe operates, I kept my words to a minimum. I understood this mans’ ability to comprehend Laws and Physics was much greater than mine, so I respected him and behaved accordingly.

So likewise in prayer, I understand who is by far the more intelligent and knowledgeable person in the conversation and treat God as such. Prayer is a communing/fellowship with God and His knowledge is respected during our conversations and my behavior is conducive to Him wanting to be near me and answer my questions.

James chapter 4:8 tells us, Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. We are the ones who instigate the drawing near. God the Holy Spirit waits quietly on us to seek Him. He will wait quietly for years until we decide to pray and seek Him.

The same verse also says, Cleanse your hands, sinners; and purify your hearts, you who are double minded. Meaning stop doing things listed as sin and concentrate on Him. To be double minded is to not fully accept that God exists and to not be listening to Him as though He were everything.

So to draw near God and have Him draw near us we need to consider His Laws and abide by them. This is how we give God the respect He looks for. If you don’t give Him this respect, He will not say anything to you.

God desires with intensity to speak to us and help us in this life so we can understand and be very productive. He desires to teach us the ways of love and giving.

To ignore Him is to cause ourselves much harm and to hurt others in the process. Many feel that their sin only effects themselves, nothing is further from the truth.

If we are selfish, we don’t assist others with their needs and this causes harm which could have been avoided. Many types of sin actively involves other humans and causes them harm also.

If we understand the Fear of the Lord we can have many good things like sanity, peace of mind, and see to fruition the purposes God has for your life. We can also expect His proximity to be closer to us.

Jesus told the Disciples twice to fear God. The second time was in Luke Chapter 12:4 and 5, And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear; Fear Him who after He has killed, has the power to cast into Hell; yes, I say to you, Fear Him.

Balancing this out, how do we exhibit the Fear Jesus insisted we show? A good starting point would be the prayer we call ‘The Lords’ Prayer.’ Jesus started it with Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Your Name. This point demonstrates verbally that He is the Father of all living things, and His Name is to be revered.

The second statement which should rivet your attention is, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth like it is in Heaven.

As children raised in church or Sunday School we have repeated these statements so many times we fail to see the gravity of them. The fact being you cannot honor anyone in leadership by ignoring their will.

If you are employed and are working under leadership, they demand you execute their will. This is why they in turn honor you by giving you money as pay. If you dishonor them by ignoring their wishes and commands, they will dishonor you by firing you and sending you home without money.

God is much more than a human Employer. God has called every human to receive Jesus’ sacrifice and to live lives that honor Him. If we don’t the repercussions will be worse than words can describe.

So Fearing the Lord should be well understood as a necessity, as His knowledge, power, authority, wealth, and His vastness of being demands the respect coupled with the knowledge of possible consequences.

WHO IS THE HOLY SPIRIT?

W e have already established the Holy Spirit as part of God. He was the One Jesus spoke of when He said, Never the less I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. John chapter 16:7.

Jesus spoke of the Helper who would come if He (Jesus) went away. Jesus ‘went away’ by going to Heaven, then sent the Holy Spirit to us to guide us into all truth. One of His names is the Spirit of Truth.

When people talk of the Holy Spirit, many times they miss the fact that He is a Person and not a mystical concept, or a feeling in the atmosphere. He is not an emotion. He is not a spiritual mist.

He is God, a part of the Godhead as Paul mentioned in Colossians and a several other times. He exists in more dimensions than we do.

As human beings, we exist in the physical and spiritual realms. The physical realm consists of length, width, depth, and time. Our human spirit dwells in the spirit realm and is not our primary functional person right now.

The Holy Spirit exists in the spirit realm and manifests power to the physical realm. He is not limited to being in one place at a time. He is the inventor of time and the master of it.

He is not a dove, even though some of the Gospel accounts were translated saying He was. Luke’s Gospel account was probably the most accurate. Luke was a Physician by trade and his attention to detail is more reliable. Luke Chapter 3:22 says, And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him.

In other words, as a dove descends quietly and peacefully, with purpose the Holy Spirit went to Jesus and entered into Jesus’ physical being. Then we see in Luke chapter 4 that Jesus was then filled with the Holy Spirit and led by the Holy Spirit.

The Bible says the Holy Spirit has a mind in Romans 8:27. The Bible says He has a will in 1 Corinthians 12:11. He has emotions Romans 15:30 and Galatians 5:22. Further in scripture we see that He can be insulted, grieved, sorrowful, and resisted. In Romans 15:30 He loves. In Acts 16:10 He leads. In 1 Corinthians 2:10 He searches the human mind. In Acts 16: 6-7 He forbids.

These are all attributes which sentient beings have. He wants to be consulted over the aspects of our lives we don’t understand. Sometimes we think we understand things occurring in our lives and don’t seek His counsel, and frequently we are injured or suffer loss because of this.

When studying God we find the names He gave for us to refer to Him with, defines attributes of His purposes and qualities. God’s most referred to name is YHWH, which we pronounce Jehovah. This has been the Latinization of the Hebrew which actually sounds like ‘yud hay vav hay’. This name simply means ‘I AM’, describing Him as the living God.

You see in the scripture names for Him like Jehovah Jireh, which translates to ‘God Who Provides.’ You also see names like Jehovah Tsidkenu which translates ‘the Lord is our righteousness.’

These are aspects of Gods’ person He wants you to recognize. There are many more, so for times’ sake let’s look at just a few of the names of the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah referred to Him as the Spirit of Knowledge, Might, Counsel, Wisdom, Understanding, and Fear of the Lord in chapter 11:2.

Jesus called Him ‘the Spirit of Your Father’ in Matthew 10:20. In John 14:10 Jesus said, The words I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.

This is an intriguing statement as we saw early in the Gospels the Holy Spirit lighting on Jesus when he was baptized by John in the Jordan River.

Jesus also called Him the Spirit of Truth in John 16:13.

When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Philippi he referred to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Jesus Christ, chapter 1:19.

The Apostle Peter related to Him as the Spirit of Christ (1 Peter 1:11), and the Spirit of Glory (1 Peter 4:14).

In Hebrew the name is Ruach HaKodesh which translates into Spirit of Holiness. There are many papers written on this, but the easy version goes like this; God the Holy Spirit is of the same substance and life character as The Father and The Son. Jesus told the Disciples, He who has seen Me, has seen The Father. John 14:9

How is that possible? Let’s look further at John 14:10. Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.

Notice Jesus said he Father was dwelling in Him. We know from previous discussion that Jesus had the Holy Spirit dwelling in Him since His baptism in the Jordan River. Simple extrapolation from this is that the Spirit of the