Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Power Walk Ministries' broadcast. We're so glad that you've tuned in to join us as Reverend Paul Cannings continues with the series titled, The Holy Spirit's Work in Me. Legalism can run rampant in our lives because we have the tendency to please God to attain His love, but He loved us first. Now He provides through His Holy Spirit the ability not to be in bondage, but to walk in freedom. Encouraging us to walk in this manner, here's Pastor Cannings with today's message, The Spirit is Not Religion.

Dr. Paul Cannings: Without the Spirit of God, it's impossible to walk with the Lord God. It is very clear by going to the Old Testament, great men of God, Moses, all the people you want to talk about, Deborah, go down the line of great people of the Bible accomplishing great things. But without the Spirit of God, they failed many times.

Abraham, go down the list, Jacob, David, great people of God. So without the Spirit of God, it's like a person has a beautiful car, but there's no battery. This just doesn't work without this. A person has the best tires that exist anywhere, but the car can't effectively drive. The Spirit of God is everything to our walk in Christ.

There's so much more we could do on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but today I want us to focus on two things, two institutions that are impossible to operate without the Holy Spirit. I'm purposefully using the word impossible to operate without the Holy Spirit, and that is marriage and the church. We could spend the whole week on that, but for the sake of this program, we're going to summarize it.

First, looking at Ephesians. Many times when we get to Ephesians and we read in chapter five that marriage is Christ and the church, we have to recognize that he's been talking about that the whole time. In chapter one of Ephesians, verse three through verse four, this is what he says. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places." Every spiritual blessing.

The question becomes, how in the world did that happen? Well, in Ephesians chapter two, he's going to tell us that we've been saved by faith, which is the gift of God. In verse eight, "For by grace ye have been saved through faith; that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." I can only get to that gift if I accept what the word of God says towards Christ.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. When I listen to the teachings attached to Jesus Christ, even if it doesn't make any sense because I am attached to Abraham and the Mosaic Law and all these different things, even if I just decide, "God, I don't fully get it, but I'm going to put my hope that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and I'm going to believe in that and expect that to be true."

He says that could only happen because the Bible says in John chapter six, verse 44, the Spirit of God draws me to Christ. When the Spirit of God draws me to Christ, then I start to get a grip on what the word of God is saying. When I accept that work that He's done in me, then he says in chapter three, verse 16, that he may grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man.

That's the only way, verse 17 of chapter three, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that he being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. So now we can really understand the word of God deeper. When we understand the word deeper, guess what happens? We become more like Him.

So by the time we get to husband and wife, he's saying in chapter five, and in chapter four he is saying the church is the way we get to this fullness of God through the process of discipleship and spiritual growth. By the time we get to this in verse 12, he says it's for the perfecting of the saints, people set their lives aside to do what God says. Saints. This is from the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Till we all come to the unity of the faith and to the knowledge of the Son of God unto the perfect man, unto the measure and the stature that belongs to Christ. So that we can get drunk with the Spirit, chapter five, verse 15 through verse 16. When we are now drunk with the Spirit and we're like Christ, guess what happens when we get married?

Because of the Spirit of God, we can become Christ and the church. He actually says because the Spirit is dominating the lives of the husband and wife so much, and they're able to walk in the Spirit and become in the fullness of God, the Spirit dwelling inside of them so that they now have the might of God. They now have the Spirit of God, so now they can understand the word of God.

Guess what takes place? He says that they now end up submitting to one another because they're following the influence of the Holy Spirit, like the church is under the headship of Christ. So the wife is to her husband because when she's growing spiritually as a single woman and she's walking with God as a single woman, she has the Spirit of God dominating her life.

She would know when the husband is Christ and when the husband is not, so she even knows who to marry. He knows who to marry because the Bible says seek a wife, not a woman. He knows who a wife is like because he's living in the fullness of God because the word of God has been illuminated in his mind. As a result of that, he's able to make those decisions.

Now he could be Christ to the kids when he's teaching his kids and instructing his kids as chapter six. When the devil now starts to try to impact the family, he can put on the armor, she can put on the armor because in chapter six, they're now living in the might of God, verse 10. So the Spirit of God is what makes the home a powerful place to live in.

When they are functioning in the home based on how God is influencing them, there's no way they could divorce because they're both in the Spirit, being convicted when there's sin, mourning, illumination when they need to understand the perplexities that relationships can create, finding strength. When one person is weak, the other person lifts the other person.

That's why the Bible is saying without the Spirit of God, marriage doesn't work. And that's huge. Why? Because He gave the woman to be the rib, she helps as the church. In Genesis chapter two, the Bible says yes, God put the man asleep. I don't need your opinion to manage this marriage because I said to you that I'm making you in My image.

Since I'm making you My image, the only way this works is if you let My image rule. The Spirit is everything for a marriage. I tell people all the time, you get married, the first thing you want to do is just go enjoy each other. But the first thing you do is to stay involved in your spiritual growth. That's your salvation, because from that comes love, joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, long-suffering, all the things you want for your marriage to be. It's right there.

The church can't operate without Him. He would literally say to Peter when he's telling Peter that this revelation is going to be the cornerstone of how the church operates, he's saying to Peter that the only reason that you could say in Matthew chapter 16 that I'm the Christ, the Son of the living God, is because God told you that.

We can't even have leaders operate in the church without the Holy Spirit. Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made you overseers to feed the church of God, which He had purchased by His own blood. You don't own it. I don't care how much money you give to the church, you don't own it. Christ died for it.

It's like going to a woman and saying, "Because I've been around your family, these kids are now my kids." What? You tell that to a mother who loves her kids, you've lost your mind. God is saying, "What are you doing coming up into My church that I died for? I bought you with a price. I paid for this church with My blood, died, rose from the grave, and you now want, because you have a title and you give money, that you own how this church operates?"

You can't function in this church on your own reasoning, your own logic, your own way of looking at the Bible. That's exactly what happened in the temple, and I stopped talking to the folks in the temple because leadership structures I never asked them to do, they now got Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, all these people. I never gave them those structures. They created their own structures.

They come into the temple and they're talking in the outer courts, a twelve-year-old boy sitting out there, Jesus. They got it going on, but they nailed Him to the cross because there was no Spirit that manifested itself to cause them to be like Peter and say, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Leaders can't be leaders unless they take on the ministry of the Holy Spirit genuinely.

So they're drunk with the Spirit of God in all the different levels, and the church will not function. That's why when he starts up the church, guess what he brings to the church in the book of Acts? He brings the Holy Spirit to the leaders. It's because of their leadership of the Holy Spirit in their lives, Ananias and Sapphira can't lie to God.

It's because of the Spirit of God powerfully moving in their lives, the Spirit of God could not be resisted in Acts chapter seven, verse 51. Because of the Spirit of God functioning in the church powerfully, they had to obey God in Acts chapter 10 because the Spirit of God was dominating the local church. People were getting saved and growing in numbers day by day because they were worshipping God in the Spirit.

Not just carrying out a worship service that everybody's feeling spirited because they're jumping up and down and all this stuff. The church at Sardis had a pumping, bumping worship, and He says, "Your deeds do not represent Me." You're the popping church in Sardis, but I don't even know you. We tend to think that's what it is when folks jump up and down at football games, basketball games.

People jump up and down when they're happy with alcohol. It's how the Spirit of God takes me to a fruit of the Spirit with joy, illumination, and character that comes out like Jesus the Christ. We can live in the book of Acts and talk about the Holy Spirit. We can come back to this and do this all through the book of Acts.

But without the Spirit of God, there is no church, just like without a battery there is no car. Without air, there is no tire that's worth driving a car on. If we can't breathe, no matter how healthy our organs are, there is no life. The Holy Spirit is everything to the life of a church.

The way to bring Him to church is for us to walk in the Spirit, to love each other based on the Spirit, and to let God make us drunk with the Spirit so we don't even act like ourselves no more. Because we no longer live, it is Christ that lives in us. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): That was Pastor Paul Cannings teaching us that the Holy Spirit strengthens us in our inner being to face whatever comes our way. Church attendance is not a ritual but a response to our love for God. Now, to purchase this series or any Power Walk Ministries resource, call us at 281-260-7402 or log on to powerwalkministries.org. You can also contact us if you have questions about what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and how to walk in the freedom that He offers through His Holy Spirit.

Dr. Paul Cannings: I am so excited about April the 23rd through the 25th because it is a conference with lots of notes, great teachers, well-educated, well-prepared, do what they're teaching in their churches. You cannot miss this conference. Come April the 23rd through the 25th at Living Word Fellowship Church at 7350 T.C. Jester Boulevard. Come and be blessed. The conference is the way forward. How can we be productive despite the challenges ministries can experience? You go to powerwalkministries.org and you will get all the information you need. Get in early so you can get those special prices. Look forward to seeing you.

Guest (Male): That number again is 281-260-7402 or log on to powerwalkministries.org. If you wish to write us, our mailing address is Power Walk Ministries, Post Office Box 920517, Houston, Texas, 77092. We'd love to hear from you. And if you live in the Houston area or you're planning a visit, please join Reverend Cannings at Living Word Fellowship Church this Sunday. For church location and service times, visit lwfellowshipchurch.org. And now as we leave you, remember, we're saved by God's grace and through faith in His word, not by our good behavior or works. These are an outflow of the Holy Spirit working in and through us.