Commit these truths to heart:
Genesis 3:22; John 14:16, 17; John 17:3; 1 John 5:8; 1 Corinthians 2:4, 5; 2 Corinthians 13:14; 

Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God's intimate friendship blessed my house. - Job 29:4

Introduction

This is by no means a full study on the Person of the Holy Spirit—it is just an appetizer to whet your appetite for intimacy with Him. The Word of God, time spent with Him, and time spent with God chasers who know and love Him will grow you in the knowledge of our Precious Spirit of God. I have written this especially for those who have already asked Jesus into their hearts as personal Lord and Savior, believing that God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son, that whosever believes in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life (see John 3:16). But my heart is that you do know Jesus if you haven’t yet surrendered your life to Him, because once you do, Jesus has a gift waiting for you—the precious Holy Spirit! He will teach, counsel, lead, guide, and love on you as no other, and He will draw you into His radical fiery love. I have a great message about how to know Jesus on my ministry website, www.freshfireusa.com. As you grow in intimacy, mature in the Word, you will come to experience Him and the Holy Spirit will reveal Jesus to your heart, the heart of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father and their affection for you. You do know that God loves you, right?

Now, More Than Ever Before

Jesus said in Luke chapter 12 that it is the Father’s desire to give His children the Kingdom. If that was true then, how could it be different today? Actually, we should probably be moving in even greater levels of intimacy with the Father as we see the burgeoning and urgent need for demonstrations of the power of God so much more.

I have designed this teaching to spur you to intimacy, and to encourage you to seek to deepen your own personal relationship with God’s Radiant Glory. As you pursue friendship and spend time with Him, you will be able to recognize His presence, His voice, and His instruction, and will experience an increase in the release of Holy Spirit power and boldness in testifying of God’s love, and in ministering the gift and grace of salvation and healing to others. Jesus Himself said “And this is eternal life, that they may know [experience] Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3).

I believe that the Holy Spirit is urging us to believe and trust God for a deeper relationship than ever before that will see us pressing in and ahead in love with God to release the power of the Kingdom in the earth!

Growing in love with God by His Spirit is the most precious, exciting, refreshing, and exhilarating experience that I have ever known apart from the first blush love experience of salvation. Whoa, thank You Precious Lord! If this teaching compels you to dive deeper into the waters of grace through relationship and communion with the very Spirit of God, and experience all that, praise God! If because of that intimacy, you do experience a greater release of the power of God in your life and in ministry to others, Praise God and Amen!

He is my Best Friend and the Love of My Life and it is an honor to introduce Him to you as an intimate friend. Your friendship with Him may look a little different from mine, but trust that He will meet your heart’s yearnings in ways you cannot imagine, and He will never disappoint you. Treat Him well; be kind and gentle, and generous with your time. He is so precious.

The “US” Team

How would you describe your Christian life? Are you satisfied with it, or do you hunger for more in your relationship with God? Chances are if you have experienced the Person of the Holy Spirit, you will want more because each encounter only scrapes the surface of what we can encounter in the glory of God, no matter how much the Holy Spirit saturates us with His presence. Even more than you desire His presence, His heart yearns to commune with you and cries out, “Don’t go away—don’t be satisfied without My presence!”

The apostle Paul writes, “The [intimate fellowship] of the Holy Spirit be with you” (2 Cor. 13:14), and that’s precisely the key to an increasingly satisfying Spirit-filled life, a life hungry and desperate for encounters with and intimate knowledge of the Holy Spirit.

“And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one” (1 John 5:8).

The three that bear record in heaven are not three Gods, but three in One, and each are an expression of God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. To know God is to know there are three Persons in the Godhead. To know God is to know the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost. To know God is to understand that God is three Personalities, and in order to grasp His fullness, we have to have intimacy and communion, and relate to each one. Though they are the same in unity and purpose, and do everything in oneness, they are still three Persons. As Christians, we seek to know God the Father, and God the Son, but in seeking the Holy Spirit, we tend to seek only the power and infilling He offers and provides, and not the relationship. Through our time getting to know the Father, we learn through the Son, that He is not a God in heaven with a gavel hammering down judgment. Instead, we learn more of His character and come to know Him as Abba Daddy Father. We can come to know the Father even more intimately by coming to know the character and Person of the Holy Spirit as well. The Holy Spirit is no less significant than the Father or Jesus, He is equal to them, and we must know the fullness of the Holy Spirit as fully as we know the Father and Jesus. I know and love all of my children the same, yet each have different and separate personalities that I have to take the time to get to know. They each have distinct characteristics and ways of expressing themselves. So it is true in the Godhead, three Persons, each different, but all equal in power. One does nothing apart from the other.

Creation

All three Persons of the Godhead were involved in our creation. Genesis 1:26a reveals, “God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness’.” This infers that it wasn’t just the Father. If “God” said, then the Holy Spirit, the Father, and Jesus all decided at the same time, in effect, “Hey! Let’s make man in Our image.” Again, we have an account in Genesis 3:22, “Then the Lord God said, “Behold the man has become like one of Us.” Who’s us? Again, it is one God, but three Persons. It’s “Us.” In Genesis 11:7, the “Us,” the three-in-One are referenced again, “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language.”

It is teamwork. They were a team from the very beginning, and they are a team in our salvation. To explain, let me paraphrase what happened. The Father demanded payment for sin, and Jesus said, “I’ll pay for it” and the Holy Ghost said, “Not without me.” In effect, the Father said, “I miss the fellowship that I had with Adam and Eve. I miss being able to go down and walk in the cool of the day with them. I miss the intimacy and the glory that we shared. Do you know what? Now I am angry and My holy wrath demands justice on sin because the wages of sin is death. I need something to take the payment and the atonement for these people that I so desire to commune with. I have to have justice even at the same time I desire fellowship. But if I were to go to fellowship with them now, My fire would consume them.”

Then Jesus all of a sudden stands and says, “Father, I’ll go. Because I love You, Father, and because I see the aching of Your heart for Your people. Father, I will go to the earth. I will suffer, die, and become the atonement for all those so that they can be restored into the likeness and the image of Us, and have that intimacy with You that You miss.”

But the Holy Spirit interjects and says, “Uh-uh, uh-uh uh, You’re not going Jesus, unless I go too.” So the “Us” team have a conference and make the decision together to restore fellowship and bring us back to the place where we could taste of their glory. And, this same Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit who worked alongside the Father and Jesus in creating you, invites you to know Him beyond knowing His power.
I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of Truth …You know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. —John 14: 16, 17

Summary

Life is so full and busy for all of us, but the call of God toward intimacy also increases. Nothing trumps an intimate love relationship with God! He is jealous, yes, jealous for your affection (see Exodus 34:14), and does not want contenders for your heart! In Part Two, we will explore the Person of the Holy Spirit, and why He is so precious and vital to us. In the meantime, I challenge you to identify the contenders that vie for your affection, those little foxes that busy you away from God, and think of, even list on a piece of paper so that you won’t forget,  ways to construct your life to accommodate a passionate pursuit of fellowship with Him! Those who know His name will lean on and confidently put their trust in Him. The Lord will not forsake those who seek Him! (see Psalm 42:1).

Note from the Ministry Team: This is a multi-part teaching, and we invite you to visit our website often, or sign up to receive the remainder of this teaching by email. As always, know that we are praying for you, and particularly as you identify those things in your life that keep you from spending quality time with God. We love you, and we cherish you! Available in our resource center, Todd’s “Marinating…Pickling in God’s Presence” soaking CD, which is sure to take you into the glory and presence of God!