Releasing The Spirit

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (Jn. 7:38 NKJV)

Releasing the river of life through our lives is an important way to extend the Kingdom of God.  There are times that I do this purposefully in prayer and worship.  When Jesus spoke these words, He was talking about the Holy Spirit who would be given to believers on the Day of Pentecost.  Lately I have been practicing releasing the Holy Spirit into my life the same way that I would release the river of life.  When I do this, I am attempting to walk “in” the Holy Spirit as we are exhorted to do in the Scriptures.  “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” (Gal. 5:25 NASB).  There is a difference between living by the Spirit and walking by the Spirit.  Living by the Spirit refers to our new life in Christ.  We have been born again by the Spirit and have a new spiritual life in Christ.  To walk in the Spirit is to express this new creation life in our daily lives. 

The process of walking in the Spirit is essentially a posture of the heart maintained by faith and right thinking.  First, it is a position that we assume in our hearts by faith, in submission to Christ.  Because we have believed the gospel, the Holy Spirit lives inside of us.  To walk in the Spirit, we must recognize His presence and submit to Him as Lord.  We can develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit, but it is different than with the Father and the Son.  The three Persons of the Trinity have different personalities and different functions.  For example, the Father is the provider, the Son is the administrator, and the Spirit is the enabler.  There are more aspects to their roles but to have a relationship with each One, we need to understand their roles.  I talk to the Holy Spirit, but I only ask Him for help within what I understand to be His role.  For example, my prayers are directed to the Father, in the name of Jesus, but I pray with the help of the Holy Spirit.  I consciously lean on Him to help me to pray according to the will of the Father. 

There are many ways that we can walk in the Holy Spirit.  We can ask Him for help to worship.  I don’t know what it is like for others, but for me, when the anointing comes upon my worship, even my voice sounds different.  We can also rely on the Holy Spirit to minister, not just with spiritual gifts, but also with power.  To take authority in the name of Jesus is not a formula, it is a prophetic act.  When I do this, I release the Spirit in the words I command.  When I say I release the Spirit, I do not mean that I command the Holy Spirit; rather, I consciously believe He goes with my words to perform them.  This is how the Trinity works.  When God created the heavens and the earth, the Father decided what would be; the Son spoke it into existence; and the Spirit brooded over creation to bring God’s words to pass.  (See Gen. 1:1 and Jn. 1:1-3.)

Another practice that helps me to walk in the Spirit is the way I think.  This has to do with visualizing myself walking “in” the Holy Spirit.  When we are baptized in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit comes “upon” us (Acts 1:8), which is different from salvation when He come “in” us (Jn. 14:17).  When I minister under the anointing, I sense the Spirit “upon” me.  The way I think and pray as I minister is I try to see myself “in” Christ as He minister through me.  Recently, I have begun to practice this same thinking for “walking in the Spirit”.  In my time of devotions, I recognize the Holy Spirit’s presence inside me; then I consciously release Him into my life.  Again, I am not commanding the Holy Spirit, I am just opening my soul to Him, in the same way that I can open my heart to the Father and the Son for fellowship (Rev. 3:20).  I then try to see myself “in” Him as He surrounds me, and we walk together in my daily life.  To maintain this conscious practice of the presence of the Holy Spirit requires a constant prayerful attitude (1Thess. 5:17).

Walking in the Spirit this way may appear simple, but it is not so easy in practice.  It requires faith and surrender.  The hardest part is to surrender.  When I decide to release the Holy Spirit to take over my soul, I “feel” the resistance of my flesh.  In faith, I take a position of victory which is based on what God says, rather than on how I feel.  By faith, I consider myself dead to the power of sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:11).  My spirit is quite willing to obey the Lord, even if my flesh resists it (Matt. 26:41).  Identifying with the death and resurrection of Christ gives me the victory.  “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20).  I like how the NKJV and the NASB say “I live by faith in the Son of God.”

To release the Spirit, I must position myself submissively in Him, prayerfully “see” myself walking in Him, and maintain this position with an attitude of faith.  The benefit of walking with the Holy Spirit this way is the immediacy of His help.  He is ever-present and always available to help.  I only need to acknowledge Him and request His help.  Not only does He help inspire my daily activities, but He also directs my prayers, and He helps me to grow in the fruit of the Spirit.  As in any relationship, if I resist or grieve Him in any way, I must be quick to repent and commit again to obedience by faith.