Moving in the Spirit (2nd Edition)

By Phil Pringle

New edition launched in 2024!

These troubled times demand that we are fountains for the great power of God, not simply knowing about the truths of God, but personally experiencing them. Greater holy power in our lives means greater harvest for God. This book will help you be more effective in your walk with God by leading you into a closer relationship with the Holy Spirit, the person – not just to teach you about Him, but rather to bring you into connection with Him. It will impart to you – hunger, thirst and communion – with Him, the Holy Spirit, God Himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PaX Ministries
• Release date: May 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9789813300095

Book preview

Moving in the Spirit

Moving in the Spirit

PHIL PRINGLE

Moving in the Spirit by Phil Pringle

Published by PaX Ministries Pty Ltd ABN No: 97 003 162 392

Locked Bag No 8, Dee Why, 2099, Australia

Tel: [phone]

www.philpringle.com

Cover Art by Phil Pringle

Cover Design and Layout by Ashleigh Meyer, Bark & Bear.

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise - without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by Australian copyright law.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations are taken from The Living Bible, copyright ©1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved.

Words in capitals, in bold or in scripture quotations are the emphasis of the author.

The words him, his, he, or man are sometimes used generically to describe people of both genders.

Copyright 2006 by PaX Ministries Pty Ltd.

Second Edition: May 2024

All Rights Reserved

International Standard Book No (ISBN) 9798883018731 (paperback) 9789813300095 (eBook)

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1 Atmosphere and the Presence of God

2 The Holy Spirit

3 Faith and the Holy Spirit

4 Clothed in the Spirit

5 Seeing in the Spirit

6 The Gifts of the Spirit

7 Releasing the Spirit

8 Walking in the Spirit

9 The Anointing

10 Being Slain in the Spirit

11 Getting Baptised in the Spirit

Acknowledgments

I’m so thankful to God for the many hands helping me produce great little books like this one.

Theresa Thalacker, my brilliant EA, oversaw the entire journey of this material from start to finish. Thanks to Queen Chris, my bride, for picking up on all I missed in the edits when she did the final proofs.

Thanks also, Mary Gibb, for proofing the grammar and spelling.

Preface

The Holy Spirit is a person.

This book will make you more effective in ministry by leading you into a closer acquaintance with the Holy Spirit. My intention is to teach you about Him and connect you with Him.

Scripture is our yardstick for any spiritual experience teaching us about unseen realities.

The Holy Spirit is not just a ‘truth’ of Scripture or a subject to be studied. He is a person. Relating to the Holy Spirit is a personal experience where we encounter a person existing in a different dimension to ours.

He is God. Yes, the Holy Spirit is God Himself, invisible to our eyes. Here in the place of Jesus, He is here to help us, guiding, inspiring, imparting empowering us to serve God. Greater holy power in our lives brings greater harvests for God. You’ll discover more of the person of the Holy Spirit reading this book.

Introduction

Jesus was born supernaturally. He healed sickness supernaturally. He casted out demons supernaturally. He saw the future supernaturally. He rose from the dead supernaturally. His entire earthly life was supernatural.

Jesus is not the only person in Scripture to live a supernatural life. In fact, it’s difficult to find biblical heroes as strangers to the supernatural. From prophets to kings, from soldiers at war, to widows at home, from prisoners in jail to lepers in isolation, it seems no one was exempted from encounters with the supernatural power of God.

This present age of the Holy Spirit began on the Day of Pentecost, as recorded in Acts 2. The church was born in a tornado of spiritual phenomena. The first believers had no New Testament to read. They had the Old Testament but fresh revelation came to them from the Holy Spirit, the great friend of the young church. Today, the Spirit is revealed through the New Testament. However, much of the church still lives without knowing how to walk in His power.

The Holy Spirit, the great third member of the Godhead, is present here on earth right now. If we ignore Him, we sever ourselves from the one hope for humankind. Just as Christ was rejected here on earth, so too the Holy Spirit suffers rejection by the world today—especially the religious world.

People are desperate for supernatural, spiritual answers. Movies about supernatural phenomena such as ghosts, children who can fly through the air, or the afterlife make up more than fifty percent of our modern day entertainment diet because the appetite for such things is so strong. Beings from outer space with special powers visit the earth. They heal, fly, disappear and ‘call home’. The search for mystics is strong. Children work magic, demons make statues come alive and trees walk. The rise of the New Age movement and other popular modes of spirituality indicates that the church has not satisfied this widespread hunger for spiritual reality. But the message of Scripture is clear: we are meant to be adequate, competent ministers of the Holy Spirit and His power.

The Nature of the Spirit

The Holy Spirit is likened in Scripture to oil (1 John 2:27), fire (Acts 2:3), wind (John 3:8), rivers of water (John 7:37), and a dove (Matthew 3:16). These metaphors reveal what He is like. He is soothing, liberating, and lubricating like oil. He sets our personalities free. He enthuses and motivates us with visions and dreams greater than ourselves. Zeal for God burns like fire from the Holy Spirit. He is also like a cleansing, refreshing wind. The dove-like aspect of His personality reveals a gentle nature, pure and harmless. The Spirit, like a dove, does not settle on uncleanness or restlessness. As a river of water He is shown to be thirst quenching, refreshing, and cleansing. The Holy Spirit is a living, conscious being with character and personality. He is God.

Spirit Power

In some traditional charismatic circles, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is associated with a great deal of noise. But don’t confuse noise with power. The power of Christ doesn’t depend on the power of man. Rather, the opposite is true: the power of God relies upon the powerlessness of man. Our power and exertion shut down the power of the Holy Spirit. Of course we must be confident and enthusiastic; but we must also be aware of the Holy Spirit attempting to work with us. A quiet attitude of worship can release the moving of the Spirit just as much as an atmosphere of high sounding praise. Irreverence blocks the moving of the Spirit. Jesus Himself had difficulties performing miracles in places where He was denied honour (Mark 6:5).

Ministers of Life

Supernatural occurrences are not an end in themselves; they are a means to an end. God doesn’t supply supernatural events just to satisfy people’s curiosity. He has purpose in mind. Whether He’s liberating three million Israelites from Egypt, or supplying wine for a wedding, God displays His character by demonstrations of power. Supernatural events are essential for fulfilling God’s purposes. Our calling cannot be accomplished without the power of the Spirit.

The Old Testament occasionally refers to ‘schools of prophets’. Students were selected by the current prophet and were trained in prophecy. Similarly in our colleges today we spend time training our students in the ways of the Spirit. We need more ministers able to move with the Spirit for the church. We need to teach more than just knowledge about what God did once upon a time. We need an army of men and women today who can move in the power of the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:6

‘…who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.’

If you are a Christian then you are a minister—and an able minister at that because you are a minister of the Spirit. Not a minister of the letter because ‘the letter kills’, but a minister of the Spirit for ‘the Spirit gives life’.

The significance of the difference between these two can be seen by a comparison of events in the books of Exodus and Acts respectively. Moses descends from Mount Sinai after six weeks with God. He carries two stone tablets engraved with the Law of God—handwritten by God Himself. Arriving back at the camp, he discovers that the people have backslidden while he has been up the mountain. Three thousand people died for their sins that day under judgment from God (Exodus 32:28). In contrast, after the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus’ disciples in an upper room at Pentecost, three thousand people receive life (Acts 2:41)—new life! They’re born again of the Spirit.

The Law of the Old Testament brought death. But Paul says you are not a minister of the Old Testament. You are not a minister of the Law (‘the letter’). No, you are a minister of life, a minister of the Spirit.

Prayer

In writing this material, my hope is that you gain an understanding of how to minister in the Spirit, that you discover your purpose as a New Testament believer. But beyond simply gaining understanding, I’m also hoping that you will experience the things we talk about. You are about to learn the incredible ways of the Holy Spirit. This book will reveal possibilities—ways and means that are available to us. But the real secret to discovering the Holy Spirit is found on our own. Solo. In prayer.

Prayer is communing with the Spirit. Without prayer, we remain ignorant of the Holy Spirit. Paul commends us to the ‘fellowship of the Holy Spirit’ (2 Corinthians 13:14). This means developing a relationship with Him. The Holy Spirit is here with us now in the stead of Jesus. The only difference is that the Spirit is invisible. He doesn’t have His own earthly body as Jesus did. But He does have you and me. If we are yielded to Him, He lives through us.

Star Wars has nothing on the restless struggle between flesh and spirit (‘the spirit is willing, but the flesh…’). Flesh wars against the Spirit and the Spirit against flesh. We tend to ‘feed’ the flesh rather than our spiritual nature because the flesh instantly gratifies. Our flesh, however, is hostile to God. In feeding the flesh we strengthen areas that are hostile to God. But the more we fellowship with the Spirit and live in the Spirit, the less we ‘fulfill the lusts of the flesh’ (Galatians 5:16).

Just to be able to get alone and pray can be an enormous struggle. Satan opposes prayer with all hell. He knows it is the secret to a believer’s power. Prayer is like Samson’s hair, where Delilah can be any seduction that distracts us from the source of power. Even when we’re in prayer, to pray ‘in the Spirit’ takes a major effort. We become assailed with anxieties, new ideas, distractions of all kinds. Satan will attempt anything, anything at all, to keep us from effective prayer. But if we continue praying with persistence we eventually break through. We sense God and our relationship with Christ becomes dynamic—imbued with power.

While we are in prayer we ‘sensitise’ ourselves to the Spirit. We learn to ‘feel’ God, to be aware of Him. We see the