Welcome to the In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, August 18th.

Who is the Holy Spirit and what exactly does he do?

If you don't know how to answer those questions, then today's podcast begins with an in-depth series

that will help you understand the crucial work of the Holy Spirit of God.

There is no subject in all the Bible around which there has been so much controversy,

so much divisiveness, and so much confusion as the subject of the Holy Spirit.

It has divided friends, families, and churches.

There are those on the one hand who feel like it's the only subject to talk about,

the Holy Spirit and his gifts and what he's doing, and how to get his power and how to get him.

On the other hand, there are those folks who totally ignorant of what the Holy Spirit is all about,

who won't know part of him because of excesses on the part of others. Both sides are wrong.

There is no way for a believer to live the Christian life happily, victoriously, not to serve God

in any fashion in a way that is pleasing to God apart from the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit in their life.

The failure to understand who he is and what he does is a disaster in the church.

In fact, one of the primary reasons there is so little power in the church,

so little power in the life of believers is because of our ignorance of who he is, what he

does, and how he operates in the life of the believer and the unbeliever light. Now, a lot of people

think about the Holy Spirit in terms of a power, of a force, something that is intangible,

and oftentimes you'll hear the emphasis on getting the

Holy Spirit or getting the power of the Holy Spirit as if the Spirit of God is something that we get

in order to use for ourselves. And oftentimes that is the conception that the Holy Spirit is something

we get, that is the power the Holy Spirit is something we get.

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