TOPIC:‌“Somebody You Can't Live Without”

                  by Rev. Dr Reg Dunlap

 

TEXT:‌Luke 11:11-13

 

‌‌“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how

much more shall your heavenly Father give, the Holy Spirit to them that ask

him” (Luke 11:13).

 

‌I want to begin this message with a fundamental fact that each one of you should realize if you do not already. The fact is this: Every Christian has the Holy Spirit living within them. To be a Christian without the Spirit of God is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. For as the Apostle Paul declared to the believers at Rome: “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Romans 8:9).

 

‌What is not clear to many believers, sad to confess, is that there is a vast difference between the Holy Spirit being PRESENT in the life and being PREEMINENT in the life. They know about His ABIDING in their lives while scores of them know very little about His ABOUNDING in their lives. One of the most tragic things in the evangelical church of today is that we have so little New Testament teaching on the indwelling, inworking and infilling of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian. They have not been clearly taught how they may have the fullness and power of God's Spirit within them, and through such fullness and power may live victorious and fruitful lives.

 

‌It is my purpose in this message to answer some of the problems Christians have regarding the work and Person of the Holy Spirit. Let's begin our quest.

 

I.

 

‌Think, to begin with, of the DIFFICULT PROBLEM that must be probed. In verse 13 of our text we read these words: “Give, the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.”

 

‌At this point in our message we must notice the significance of the word “ask.” There is a problem here that must be thoroughly examined. In this present dispensation of the Holy Spirit we need to realize that as believers we are not to ask for the GIFT of the Holy Spirit as stated here in verse 13 for this prayer has already been answered at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came to indwell the life of every believer. This is precisely what Jesus had in mind when He declared: “And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever…for He dwells with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:16, 17).

 

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