David Diga Hernandez - How to Keep the Fire of the Holy Spirit Burning

This word will help the believer who is struggling. This word will help the believer who is strong. This word will also help the believer who was once doing well spiritually and then fell away and is wondering how to get back to that place where they were on fire for the Lord. When we say that someone is on fire for God, what we mean is that they are living a life surrendered and that they are burning like a light. They are burning with passion for the things of God. They are walking in holiness; they are living clean, living as a Christian should. Really, when we say someone is on fire for the Lord, we are describing the Christian life.

First, we must understand that by doing the spiritual basics, you can avoid spiritual crises. Imagine I go to the doctor, and I’m not eating, I’m not sleeping, and I’m not exercising. I go to the doctor and say, «Doc, I feel terrible; something just feels wrong with my body, something feels off. My mind isn’t sharp, my body’s fatigued, I’m achy, I’m in pain, I’m weak; I don’t understand what’s going on.» The first few questions the doctor is going to ask me, if he’s a good doctor, are about the basics. Why? Because he wants to rule out the simple things first. «How’s your sleep? How’s your diet? Do you exercise?»

Why do they ask these questions up front? Because they want to see if you’re doing the basics. If you’re not doing the basics, that’s going to automatically lead to many problems. So before they jump to, «You need surgery,» before they jump to, «It could be this disease or that disease, ” or before they can say, „Here’s the medication we think you should take,“ they have to first assess and see if you are doing the basics. The same is true with our spiritual lives. If you do the basics, you can avoid spiritual crises.

You would be amazed at how many of what you think are major spiritual issues would be resolved in a matter of weeks if you simply did the spiritual basics. You’d be astonished; you’d be amazed. You would go, „Oh my goodness, was it that simple?“ Simple? Yes. Easy? Not always. You would be amazed at how many things would cease to become issues if you simply did the basics. But often, we try to blame demons for what is actually a lack of discipline. Wow. Often, we try to blame spiritual dynamics for what really is just disobedience on our part. „Lay hands on me and make me obedient to God. Lay hands on me and make me disciplined. Lay hands on me so I can do the right things.“ We want the quick fix. We want to have the chills in some worship service. We want to have that special oil poured over our head. We want to have hands laid on us and instantly experience everything we should already be experiencing by practicing the basics.

But even if you did obtain breakthrough in that way—which, again, I believe in; I believe there’s a place for that—but even if you did experience it and then went back to living your life as you did before, without implementing the spiritual basics, guess what? You would find yourself in the same situation again, which is why we repeat these cycles of chaos. We repeat these cycles of bondage, these cycles of immaturity, these cycles of confusion. We go from event to event, conference to conference, live stream to live stream, YouTube channel to YouTube channel, book to book, all while never changing our behavior, hoping that someone else will do the spiritual work for us.

Wow. You can avoid spiritual crises if you do the spiritual basics. So, let’s look at number one. This one’s key: Live a lifestyle of repentance; that’s number one. Sin stops the influence of the Spirit in your life. Take, for example, Samson, who was seduced by Delilah. If you look at that narrative, you’ll find that he was seduced in phases. He gave up the secret to his strength in phases, little by little. As Delilah pressed him for his weakness—she wanted to know what makes you strong so I can make you weak—as she pressed in to know his answers, she got closer and closer to the truth. Go read the narrative; it incrementally happened to where he was destroyed.

Finally, he got up and didn’t realize that that supernatural strength had left his body. He didn’t know that the Lord had left him. When the Scripture says the Lord left him, it is talking about the power upon him. Remember, the Holy Spirit doesn’t leave the believer from within, but that influence can be diminished upon our lives, and that’s what happened with Samson; incrementally he was taken away. Temptation is not an event; it’s a process.

You fell into sin on Friday because Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday you were looking at things, listening to things, and being around people, doing all sorts of things you should not have been doing. Those things accumulated into a crescendo of falling into temptation, and that’s how you found yourself in that situation again. You allowed the temptation to overtake you incrementally, little by little. That’s how the enemy lures you in. He’ll give you a little taste of something that maybe doesn’t seem like it has heavy consequences, and he’s training you to give in to temptation for the big thing.

Think about this now: He trains you in the little things, but you don’t realize the big hook is coming. He trains you to take the bait, but you don’t know when the real temptation will strike.