The power of the Holy Spirit is always available.  We are the ones who quench this fire (1 Thess. 5:19). The power of God overcomes fear. Paul was encouraging Timothy that the gift that was in him through Paul’s laying of hands would keep him. disciples were crushed.  God is Love, and His love is the source of all human love. Fear is a spirit and it wants to take control of us. In 1 John 4:18 it states that “fear has torment.”  It troubles us, humiliates us, and accuses us.  Webster defines fear as “the instinctive emotion aroused by impending or seeming danger, pain or evil.”  If you feel fear trying to take over, we must respond with the power of God.  Begin to pray in the Spirit and let His power in you drive out fear.  Next, God says for us to love.  Fear enter through the portal of our mind and tells us how bad things will be.  We are to cast down every imagination, and not focus on something negative.  We must begin to speak the Word because it will cause your mind to focus not on our fears, but the Word of God. As we confess the word (faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God) it will drop also from your mind and into your heart. Satan challenges what you believe.  But God gives us Power – Power of possibility; Power of Prayer; and Power of Vision.  The power of the Holy Spirit can help us overcome our fear of what some might say or do to us, so that we can continue to do God’s work. Over the past weeks we have discussed the promise of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, and the purpose of the Holy Spirit. Today we want to focus on the Power of the Holy Spirit.  Let us examine His Power through: (1) The Worth of the Holy Spirit; (2) The Work of the Holy Spirit; (3) The Water of the Holy Spirit

A.  The Worth of the Holy Spirit:  The Holy Spirit is invaluable to us. Christ says, “you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”  We do not have the strength to do well without divine help. The Holy comes to help us.   Because He is the one who takes what is Christ (all the riches of His glory) and transfers it to us  He is the conduit (pipe) conveys to us all the blessing of God to us who believe.  All that the Father has belongs to Jesus.  The Holy Spirit was not given until Jesus was glorified. It is not that the Holy Spirit was not in existence, for He is eternal and self-existent, being most truly God, but he was not yet in fellowship with man to the full extent in which he is now.  The operations of the Holy Spirit are of incomparable value.  Jesus said it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.  The presence of Christ was inestimable value to his disciples, and yet it was more valuable for them to receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

B.  The Work of the Holy Spirit:  The work of the Holy Spirit is to is to convict the world of guilt regarding sin.  Romans 5:8 it states that “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  He now invites us to surrender our life to him and receive his forgiveness.  In Ps 103:10 it states “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. The Lord pictures His infinite mercy, uses the infinite height of the heavens as the appropriate simile even before it was known by modern concepts of astronomy (Ps 103:11-12).  His second illustration stating that as “far as the east is from the west” He removes our transgressions.  The Resurrection points to the divine power that gives new life and to our own future in eternity.  Without the resurrection Good Friday would not be good or complete.  Our only hope would be this life (1 Cor. 15:19).  God’s love is so extraordinary.  While we were still sinners, God sent his Son, Jesus, who gave his life for us (Rom. 5:8).  We can experience the ultimate spiritual renewal by accepting a relationship with Christ and joining the community of believers, his “bride. Our salvation comes by trusting Jesus Christ; there is nothing we can do to earn it.  God accepts us because of what Christ has done on our behalf.  He indicates that his love never comes to an end.  The Holy Spirit: (1) uses the Word to work in the heart of man. (Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God): (2) works to conform us to the likeness of Jesus Christ; works to bring glory to Jesus Christ; reveals Christ’s work to us bringing us wisdom and knowledge; and gives us power and gifts to live this Christian life. “We have this treasurer in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”  “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:7-9)

C.   The Water of the Holy Spirit:   In the book of John 7:37-39 (NIV) Jesus says, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and He that believes on me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.  By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.  Up to that time the Spirit had not been given since Jesus had not been glorified.”  At the time you receive the Holy Spirit you receive a powerful force in you.  “Out of his belly” – that is from his heart and soul.  The rivers do not flow out of his mouth; the promised power is not oratory.  We have had plenty of words, flood of words; but this is heart work.  The source of the rivers is found in the inner life.  It is any inward work at its fountainhead.  It is not a work of talent and ability, show glitter, and glare.  It is altogether an inward work.  The flood is to come out of the man’s inmost self, out of the bowels and essential being of the man.  Out of him shall flow rivers of water – not just a river.  It is an abundant spring.  There are rivers of living water flowing out of the living man in all directions.  It may be the spirit of life, which comes forth out of you.  No, it is not just a trickling brook, or even a few tiny drops?  There is a no pumping required, machinery or hydraulics.  This does not come to us by exciting and stirring up.  It comes when we yield ourselves to the infilling of the Holy Spirit now flows continually out of our lives. The sun cannot dry it up because it comes from within.  It is perpetual. It flows in the spring, summer, fall and winter.  Christ wants us to have this “Living Water” of the Holy Spirit