We are living in the era of the Holy Spirit. At the end of His ministry, Jesus said He would send the Holy Spirit to lead us into the truth that He came to reveal.

In John 7:38 Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit when He said, "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

The Holy Spirit has come and is releasing life-giving waters that lie deep within the one who will yield to Him. The Holy Spirit opens your eyes to see life from His perspective. The one who is yielded to the Holy Spirit will find himself taking on new interests and priorities in life.

Fruitfulness in life comes as a result of yielding to the Spirit. To yield means "to give up or to give yourself over." It is also "to open yourself with an open hand to receive from another."

Yielding to the Holy Spirit means that you give up your own ideas and efforts, and put yourself in His hand. You approach Him with an empty hand that is open and ready to receive from Him. It is impossible to grasp one thing when your hand is holding onto something else.

The Spirit With Us
There are different levels of relationship with the Holy Spirit, which are important to understand. The first relationship we will discuss is the Spirit with us. The fact that He is in the earth today gives every person the potential of a personal relationship with Him. He is available to all, but His availability does not mean there is automatically a relationship with Him.

Jesus said:

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever. Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him: for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
(John 14:16,17)

The disciples witnessed the influence of the Holy Spirit among them. However, they had not yet moved from an outer experience of His presence to His indwelling. They know Him outwardly, but soon He would come to dwell within them.

The Indwelling
This brings us to the second type of relationship we can experience with the Holy Spirit: His indwelling. The prophet Ezekiel spoke of this relationship:

Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
(Ezek. 36:25-27)

The desire of the Holy Spirit as described in Ezekiel was to make man His dwelling place. He would remove the stony heart and replace it with a heart that is tender and sensitive toward Him. This tenderhearted man would be alive to the Spirit, able to commune with God and enjoy His presence.

Receiving Power From The Holy Spirit
The third level of our relationship with the Holy Spirit is found in the book of Acts. "But you shall receive power—ability, efficiency and might—when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:8 AMP).

Jesus said the Holy Spirit would come upon you. As you yield to Him, His power increases as it moves through you. His ability, His efficiency, and His might all become yours. You are yielding and surrendering to Him.

The Holy Spirit begins to reveal His presence to you. He develops the fruitful. He creates sensitivity to His impulses, and as a result you rise to new dimensions of His power.


Source: Yielding To The Holy Spirit by Dennis Burke.
Excerpt permission granted by Dennis Burke Ministries