David Diga Hernandez - 4 Simple Keys to Becoming the Holy Spirit's Friend

I wanna show you a biblical truth that literally transformed my life. It’s found in 2 Corinthians 13:14. «May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all». The fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the communion of the Holy Spirit, friendship with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a person, and He walks with you, and He loves you, and He knows you, and He prays for you, and He’s the key to the empowered Christian life. When you walk in friendship with the Holy Spirit, you walk in God’s presence and power. When you walk as a friend of the Holy Spirit, you’re a carrier of God’s glory. Wherever you go, the atmosphere changes. You don’t have to chase atmospheres. You become an atmosphere. Demons tremble, sickness loses its hold when you walk as a friend of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is a wonderful friend to us, faithful, loving, patient, kind, gracious, merciful. How can we be a good friend to Him? I wanna show you. We must understand that there is no one more misunderstood on earth than the person of the Holy Spirit. He’s often rejected by people who He’s only trying to help.

So if you wanna be a friend of the Holy Spirit, number one, you must embrace Him. You must have understanding. Don’t be suspicious of Him. Embrace who He is. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, «But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the spirit means». He’s very misunderstood, but He’s not just for what we would call the Pentecostal or the Charismatic. He’s for everyone who calls Jesus Lord. The Holy Spirit wants a friendship with you. The Holy Spirit wants to permeate every aspect of your life. The Holy Spirit wants to accompany you in every moment of every day. You can walk in that 24/7 awareness of His presence, but you must learn to embrace Him. Don’t make excuses for Him. Don’t be embarrassed of Him. Embrace Him. Learn to understand who He is. Don’t be suspicious and push Him aside. Don’t treat Him like He’s a liability or someone who you can’t exactly trust with your life. Let Him do whatever He wants to do in your life. Give Him full reign. So many people are freaked out when you start talking about the Holy Spirit because certain images come to mind. They think of chaos or craziness or people acting weird, but the Holy Spirit isn’t like that. He’s classy, He’s elegant, He’s regal, He’s heavenly. So number one, you wanna be a friend of the Holy Spirit, you must have understanding, you must embrace Him.

Number two, you must have reverence. Ephesians 4:30 says, «And do not bring sorrow „to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, He has identified you as His own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption“. You wanna be a friend of the Holy Spirit, you must reverence Him, obey Him. The Holy Spirit has feelings. He is a person, after all. It’s possible that you can hurt the Holy Spirit by the way you behave. What you think, where you go, what you do, all of that can hurt Him. How are you living your life? Are you living in obedience to the Word of God? Are you living with sensitivity to who He is? In the world, they have this phrase. They say, to each his own, and what they mean by that is everyone can be right. Everyone can live their own truth, even though there’s only one truth. Everyone can do as they please and we shouldn’t judge each other. Everyone can decide for themselves what is right. Now, as Christians, we understand that that saying, to each his own, is unbiblical. But do you realize that Christians have their own version of this? No, we don’t say to each his own. Rather, we say, „Well, I’m not convicted about it“. But the question is this, since when was it about your convictions and not the Holy Spirit’s convictions? Since when do we live by our own standards instead of the Holy Spirit’s standards? I’m not afraid of demonic beings. If you walk in the glory of God, you walk in power, you’re living holy, you’re walking as you should, they can have no influence or place in your life. I don’t fear demonic beings, and I don’t fear man. I admit, there was a time when the opinions of people really ruled me and I was afraid to upset certain people, people who I loved, people who I cared about, people who I respected, but I’m not really afraid of people anymore. I don’t fear man in the way I used to. So I don’t fear demonic beings. I don’t fear man. What I do fear is grieving the precious Holy Spirit. I fear hurting Him by my own behavior. We must live by His standard, not ours. We must walk with reverence toward the precious Holy Spirit. So to become a friend of the Holy Spirit, number one, you need understanding. Number two, you need reverence.

Number three, you need to trust Him. Depend upon Him. In Romans 8:11, the Bible says this: „The Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, He will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you“. Notice that it was the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus took a trust fall backwards into the grave and trusted that the Holy Spirit would catch Him. If Jesus relied upon the Holy Spirit, so should we. If Jesus needed the Holy Spirit, how much more do we? If Jesus trusted the Holy Spirit, so can we. We must learn to trust Him, depend upon Him. Before Jesus even began in ministry, He was baptized and the Holy Spirit came upon Him in Matthew 3. We need the Holy Spirit, not just in our ministries, not just in our projects, but also in our very lives, in our careers, in our relationships, in our mindsets. The Holy Spirit must be involved in everything. We must trust Him in that, we must depend upon Him. Dependency on the Holy Spirit is a powerful way to live. I don’t wanna live dependent upon my own power. I don’t wanna live dependent upon my own ability because then I can only go as far as I can take myself. But when I live a life dependent upon the person of the Holy Spirit, then I can go further than I ever imagined. I can go further in one day with the Holy Spirit then I can in a lifetime without Him. That dependency on the Holy Spirit is so crucial to your friendship with the Holy Spirit. We have to stop pushing Him out as if we know better. We have to stop ignoring Him as if we have it under control. Do you know how we ignore Him? We ignore Him when we neglect the Word. We ignore Him when we neglect prayer. When we neglect prayer, we’re saying to the Holy Spirit, „I don’t need you today“. Think about that. When you neglect prayer and you begin your day and you go on without it, you’re pointing your finger right in the Holy Spirit’s face and you’re saying, „I don’t need you today“. When you neglect the Word, you’re pointing your finger right in the Holy Spirit’s face and you’re saying, „I don’t care what you have to say. I don’t care about your opinion. I can rely on my own opinion. I can trust my own understanding. I can trust in my own wisdom“. That is what prayerlessness is. That is what a lack of the Word of God is. It’s a lack of dependency on the person of the Holy Spirit. When we pray, when we read the Word, when we call for His help when we’re tempted, when we call on Him for His wisdom, when we ask Him for guidance and consultation, we are actively depending upon Him. Prayer is the activity of depending on the Holy Spirit, and if I don’t pray, if I don’t read the Word, if I don’t involve Him, I’m not depending on Him. If I’m not praying, I’m not depending on Him. If I’m not reading the Word, I’m not depending on Him. I think many of us would be surprised at how uninvolved the Holy Spirit actually is in our ministries, not just in our lives, but also in our ministries. I know I emphasized your life there a moment ago, but now I wanna emphasize your ministry. Some people lack so much of the influence of the Holy Spirit that were He completely remove Himself from the equation, they wouldn’t even know it. Some people are so reliant upon systems, so reliant upon their own wisdom, so reliant upon what they think is relevant for reaching the culture that if the Holy Spirit were to completely remove Himself from the equation, they wouldn’t even notice it. Why? Because what you begin in the flesh has to be sustained by the flesh. Only what begins in the Spirit can be sustained by the Spirit. Yet we neglect Him, not just in our lives, not just in our relationships, not just in our businesses, in our families, we also neglect Him, sadly, in our ministries, and we don’t even recognize it. We have structure and systems, but no Spirit. Methods, but no miracles. Where is the influence of the Holy Spirit in your ministry? When was the last time you consulted Him on a ministry decision? When was the last time He corrected a path that you chose? Ask yourself, „Am I truly depending upon Him“? Because if you’re gonna be a friend of the Holy Spirit, you can’t compartmentalize your life. You can’t say, „Oh, He can only have influence „in this part, but not in this part“. Or, „He can have influence in my life, but in the ministry, I’m gonna use my strategy“. Or even the reverse of that. Some people say, „You can have influence in the ministry, but not in my life“. We must allow Him. We must allow the Holy Spirit to do as only He can do, because if we try to do it in our own strength, we’re limited. We must learn to depend upon the Holy Spirit. Don’t be afraid of His direction. Some people don’t wanna consult with Him because they’re afraid of what He might say. They’re afraid that maybe their program wasn’t the way to do it. They’re afraid that maybe their doctrine wasn’t biblical. They’re afraid that maybe their method or approach wasn’t the Holy Spirit all along. Well, wouldn’t you wanna know it so that you can move on from it? Ask the Holy Spirit to have influence in your life. Depend upon Him. Trust Him.

Finally, number four, communication with the Holy Spirit. The Bible says this in Psalm 139. I’m gonna read verses 7 through 10. „I can never escape from your Spirit. I can never get away from your presence. If I go up to Heaven, you are there. If I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me and your strength will support me“. Number four is communication. Awareness of Him. The Holy Spirit is the everywhereness of God, the omnipresence of God. When I’m aware of the fact that the Holy Spirit is with me in everything that I do, then I begin to communicate with Him more often. Think about the fact that the Holy Spirit goes with us wherever we go. In good times, in bad times, in struggle, in triumph, the Holy Spirit is present. And now think about the fact that many of us move throughout our day without ever stopping to acknowledge the presence of the Holy Spirit. How would you feel if you spent the whole day with a loved one and they didn’t acknowledge you? Well, we kinda do that to people today. We’re on our phones, having dinner with someone on the phone, meeting at someone’s house on the phone, riding in the car together on the phone. It’s a bad habit, and we must break it, not just with each other, but with the Holy Spirit as well. How do you feel when you’re ignored? How do you feel when you’re not included? How do you feel when no one talks to you or acknowledges you, the ones you love, the ones you want to hear from, the ones you want to speak with? Well, how do you think the Holy Spirit feels? We go throughout the entire day. He’s right there with us. We don’t even give Him so much as a glance in the Spirit. We don’t even give ourselves a pause to acknowledge Him. If the pace of your life is too fast to allow you to acknowledge the presence of the Holy Spirit, then the pace of your life is too fast. We must learn to slow down, to be more aware of Him. You see, the omnipresence of God is the everywhereness of God. The Holy Spirit is that. But the manifest presence of God is when it becomes tangible, that presence. Now, the omnipresence of God is God’s awareness of everything. So then God’s omnipresence is Him being aware of me. His manifest presence is me being aware of Him. And you can walk not just in that omnipresence of God, you can walk in the manifest presence of God where you sense Him near, not always physically, not always emotionally, but in the Spirit, you can sense Him near. You can sense Him walking with you. You can hear Him speaking to you. In everything that you do, everywhere that you go, the influence of the Holy Spirit can be there if only you would learn to slow down, be aware of Him, and communicate. That still small voice that we often ignore. And sometimes looking back on a situation, we realize, oh my goodness, that was the Holy Spirit speaking to me. Oh my goodness, I completely ignored Him. And only in hindsight do we recognize that He was speaking to us. If you wanna avoid that, then you must learn number four, communication, being aware of His presence. So, you wanna be a friend of the Holy Spirit? You need, number one, understanding, two, reverence, three, trust, four, communication.