From my previous post, I mentioned that I will blog on Bill Johnson’s message to the audience at Kingdom Invasion 2012 in Singapore. The message was about “Hosting the Presence of God” which he has a book on (with the same title).
Here is the gist of it (please note that bible quotes are from me):
The Holy Spirit is in all of us, as promised by God:
Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16, NKJV)
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. (1 Corinthians 6:19)
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38)
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5)
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of the Spirit who lives in you. (Romans 8:9-11)
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. (Galatians 2:20)
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22)
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being. (Ephesians 3:16)
However, this is different from having the Holy Spirit resting upon us. The former is for the individual’s sake but the latter is for ministry sake. When the Lord’s Spirit rests upon a person, there is an “atmospheric change” that takes place wherever that person goes. With that anointing, one is able to usher in a greater presence of God to the place or ministry he/she is in. So powerful was the Holy Spirit’s anointing on Peter that people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by (Acts 5:15).
It is thus important to recognise that power so as to guard its presence from leaving. All measurements in the Kingdom exist for us to pursue increase. With the Holy Spirit pictured as a dove perching on our shoulder, we should be mindful of our every movement so that it does not cause the dove to remove itself; we need to learn to host the presence of God.
- End of summary -
Because the main focus of the gathering was for healing, the message stopped short of details on how we can host the presence of God. So, I'm expecting to gain some insight on how to do so from Che Ahn's nightly conference this coming weekend. Will update on this.
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