BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

2 4 : B V O V natural knowledge but also knowledge of the Spirit. Jesus spoke of this in verse 13 when He said, "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come" (NKJV). Aren't we glad the Holy Spirit tells us "things to come"? Praise God! He not only gives us corporate, prophetic words about the days ahead, but He also tells us things that are coming into our individual lives. He wants to show us what to avoid and what to embrace. That same verse in The Passion Translation reads, "But when the truth- giving Spirit comes, he will unveil the reality of every truth within you. He won't speak on his own, but only what he hears from the Father, and he will reveal prophetically to you what is to come." Consider the Holy Spirit's work within every believer: healing, wisdom, miracles and energy. Those works are in us. We are responsible for giving the Holy Spirit access by paying attention to Him and following His lead, especially when it comes to carnal thinking, bad habits and even past mistakes. We can trust that He will lead us into God-given plans that are beyond what we can do on our own. The Holy Spirit Helps Our Weaknesses None of us wants to admit our weaknesses, but we all have them. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit helps us with those too. Romans 8:26 says, "Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For' we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but' the Spirit Himself makes intercession' for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" (NKJV). God has given us help for any weakness, whether it's in our house, our family, our relationships, our body, our ministry or our mindset. The word helps in the original Greek is actually the combination and joining together of three di"erent words that give us a lot of insight as to what help is like and how the Holy Spirit does help us. The first means "to be in harmony," which signifies that the Holy Spirit is in harmony with us and requires us to be in harmony with Him to receive help. The second word means "to seize, grasp or take hold of aggressively." Help is available because we not only harmonize with God, but He harmonizes with us too. The third means "to be against that weakness." In other words, we can't excuse it. The Holy Spirit is against our weakness, not to shame us but to deliver us. He unites with us against our weakness. We must unite with Him too. We can't excuse it by thinking, That's just how I am. This is one more area in which God wants to help us, so we can get free from anything that blocks the Spirit of God from moving in our lives. The Spirit gives us hope that things don't have to stay the same. We don't have to stay stuck in the mire or live below God's best for us. The Holy Spirit's Help Isn't Automatic The bottom line is that the Holy Spirit has come to help. But His help is not automatic. We have to say, "Holy Spirit, I need You." That's not a one-time prayer, either; it's a regular request. We must recognize that we need His help and influence continually in every area of our lives. I thank God that the Holy Spirit came into me, rested upon me and, even after I was saved, revealed the e"ects trauma had on me. He healed it and rooted it out of my life when I asked for it. I allowed Him to show me the source of my weakness and rewire my brain. The result? Freedom. Sweet, sweet freedom! The ministry of the Holy Spirit is real and available. Allowing Him to give me the God kind of help has made a huge di"erence, and I want the same thing for you. Right now, take a moment to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal Himself to you in a real and meaningful way. Ask Him to reveal the Truth to you, to be your Helper. He is ready to do what only He can do! i Dennis and his wife, Vikki, are co-founders of Dennis Burke Ministries in Arlington, Texas. For more information please visit dennisburke.org

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