David Diga Hernandez - The Ministry of the Holy Spirit - Part 2

I like to say that there’s not something special about me; there’s someone special about me—the presence of the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit is what makes the difference in my life. His presence and His power make me distinct and unique. I become someone who brings about the will of God on the earth, a vessel through whom the power of God can flow and touch the world around me. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit that makes all the difference. If you’re weak in faith, if you’re dry in spirit, if your prayer life is dying, or if your devotion to the Word is waning, then the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit are your answers to your problems. You need the power of the Spirit; you need His presence. His presence is like a mighty rushing river, and His power is like fire within your being. When you have the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, you don’t get tired; you have consistent, eternal, divine energy. You begin to do things from the source of His power rather than from the source of your own strength. When you have the presence of the Holy Spirit, everything about you is changed and transformed. You become God’s glory on the earth. You create an atmosphere that generates heavenly divine appointments wherever you go, and this person, the Holy Spirit, has a vast ministry.

Now, in part one, I mentioned several points about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and those points were as follows: number one, He helps us to pray; number two, He helps us to understand the Word; number three, He helps us to live holy lives; and number four, He helps us to worship. So, I want to continue now with part two of this message by listing three more distinct aspects of His ministry. Now, He performs the miraculous through us; He is the miracle-working Spirit. He convicts us of sin, and He gives us faith. These three things I want to cover by first going to Galatians chapter 3, and I’m going to read to you verse number 5. Now, I have to give you the full context here; this is not talking specifically about how the Holy Spirit works miracles. Instead, that’s a point the writer of Galatians makes in passing as he articulates his main point, which is about the law. But let’s read it anyway, as I want to show you just what we can glean about the truth regarding the Holy Spirit from this verse. Verse number 5 says, «I ask you again: Does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law?» Of course not; it is because you believe the message you heard about Christ. So this is a rhetorical question, and this is primarily talking about the law, but again, in passing, we see this truth about the Holy Spirit—that He is the one whom God sends to work miracles among us. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 12, the scripture talks about the gifts of the Spirit—those gifts include the gift of healing, with one of them being the working of miracles and various other gifts that are listed. But the main point I am making here is that the Holy Spirit is the one who gives us the power to do miracles.

Now, a miracle is different than a healing. A healing is something that would occur naturally over time. For example, if I pray for someone’s broken bone to be healed and it heals quickly or instantly, that is a miraculous healing; it is miraculous because it happens so quickly. A miracle, on the other hand, is something that would not have happened on its own. These are divine appointments with impossible odds and coincidences that create divine appointments for us. This refers to turning water into wine, walking on water, and the sun standing still. This is what the miraculous is—those very unique miracles that occur. I know of preachers who have seen food multiplied; I know of preachers who have witnessed powerful manifestations of God’s power within church services—things that defy logic, so to speak. But the miracle-working power of God ultimately produces multiple manifestations of His power, and this is the work of the Holy Spirit in you; He causes miracles to take place.

Number two, He convicts us of sin. In John chapter 16, verse 8, the scripture tells us about the Holy Spirit’s work in the earth on a global scale. It says, «And when He comes, He will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment.» Now, oftentimes, we say, «Well, that’s the world, not the church, » but sometimes when the scripture talks about the world, it literally refers to the entire human population. Here, that’s what it’s talking about—the entire human population. The Holy Spirit convicts us not just of sin but also of God’s righteousness and of the coming judgment. What does conviction mean? It basically means He gives us strong beliefs; He embeds in us very real, intense, and internal knowings that we would not otherwise have without Him. So, He puts these, I would say, pieces of divine revelation and heavenly knowledge within our minds and in our hearts, and He continues to press on those truths, causing us to respond to them eventually.

So, when it says He convicts us of sin, it means that when we sin, He confronts that again and again and again until there is repentance. When it talks about God’s righteousness, it means He’s calling us not just to leave sin but to model after Christ’s righteousness. Then, He will continue to pursue that.