• God’s direction often comes in the form of peace; when we pray in the Spirit and have peace about something, the Holy Spirit is bearing witness with our spirits and telling us to move forward.

• Praying in tongues refreshes, rejuvenates, and builds up our entire being. Take time to pray in the language of the Spirit every day!

Chapter 6 - Q & A

Q&A

The following content was adapted from a live Q&A session with John and Lisa Bevere. This session is available in audio and video format as part of the Messenger Series on The Holy Spirit: An Introduction.

Lisa: You discussed that some churches have become so focused on developing atmosphere that they neglect the presence of the Holy Spirit. Many churches want to know how they can invite the Holy Spirit’s presence again—without bringing back “weird” or unnecessarily long services. How can they do that?

John: Simply ask. As I said before, the Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He leaves it to us to initiate.

Many times, when I am ministering in churches and people come forward to receive salvation, I will say, “Holy Spirit, please touch them.” It only takes a few minutes before His presence manifests and people all over the sanctuary begin to weep. I always like that, because the Bible talks about tasting the heavenly gift (see Hebrews 6:1-6), and I find that people are a lot less likely to backslide if they have tasted the heavenly gift—that manifestation of the Spirit’s presence.

Once I was in a large church that had transitioned away from some of the forms or manifestations that might remind us of the older charismatic services. In one of the meetings, the Spirit of God manifested His presence. People were weeping all over the sanctuary; God’s presence was so tangible. The Lord told me, “Now it’s time to tell them to give thanks and praise God.” I did so and then closed the service. Afterward, the pastor said, “Wow! I was thinking, Now we’re going to go another hour. We’re going to have weird stuff going on, like what used to happen.” He said, “I love how God led you. When you said that God had finished what He was doing, I could actually feel it, like He had accomplished His purpose. That’s when you said, ‘Let’s close the service.’” I have seen the Spirit of God’s manifest presence come in for even two minutes and impact people so deeply.

Lisa: John and I had this conversation recently. Sometimes we only have thirty-five minutes to preach in a service, but the truth is that they are our thirty-five minutes. And so instead of preaching for thirty-five minutes—

John: Preach thirty.