So the Holy Spirit wants to help us to deepen our relationship connection with God, to face the issues of life, so we are able to express from our life, greater dimensions of being more productive, showing the love of God. That's the work of the Holy Spirit, so if you don't listen to what's going on inside you, you're missing God all the time. If the only time you're listening is Sundays, you're missing God most of your life. Every day the Holy Spirit is there to talk with you. Every day the Holy Spirit's there to show you stuff. Every day the Holy Spirit's there to show you where you went wrong, or where your motive was wrong, or whatever; to get you so that you stand up and you walk right. Every day when you wake up, He's already ready to empower you for the day; and if you're going to build a great and a powerful life, you can't do it by just trying to be a good person - it's impossible. If it was possible to live the Christian life just by being a good person, you'd have never needed the Holy Spirit in you. You need the Holy Spirit to give you the energy, oomph and drive and empowerment to do what the word of God says.
So if we're going to become powerful Christians, you can't have your life all covered up. You can't. You actually have to deal with stuff, so walking with God involves developing our spiritual life, and developing an inner life, that can carry that. Now here's an interesting thing. I've observed over the years, many mighty men of God do great and mighty things for God, so I realise you can develop your faith life, and see great things for God. I've seen people move in the spirit very powerfully, and I realise you can develop spiritual sensitivity, and how to flow with the gifts of God. But then I've also seen many great men fall - well that's a bit weird. If they're so close to God, and do all these things, how come they fell over? How come the wheels come off them? How come they fell over, and got involved in immorality? It's very simple, because to be able to walk with God, to be productive, is not just about developing the spiritual side of us. We must develop the character, our emotional area, the soul area. We must prosper in our soul as well.
So if your soul's a mess, even if you can prophecy, over the course of your life, you may be able to do miracles; your life will not produce great fruit, because the way you do life will undermine the ministry you have. It doesn't matter where we are in life, you can be so gifted in business, but I tell you if you get involved in adultery, man oh man that costs you big bucks. It'll cost you half, if not more, of everything you own; plus it'll also cost you reputation, cost you emotional damage, you'll wound yourself, all kinds of stuff. There's huge implications of not building a strong inner life, so we must be committed - so I'm on about this, I'm passionate about this, because I've been around a long time, and seen many, many great men of God, and they never finish their course well. All that went wrong was there was a brokenness, a coveredness. There were fig leaves in the soul, and they did not get whole; so the great call of God was undermined by the brokenness in their soul. Hence we need to develop a great inner life, and the Holy Spirit is one of the - He's the major asset we have - in being able to develop a great inner life.
If I'm going to walk in the spirit, be productive as a believer, I must become familiar with the working of the Holy Spirit. So let me give you a few simple keys on intimacy with the Holy Spirit. Intimacy is a feeling of being close, so if I wanted to find out how close you feel to God, it's very simple. I just put someone in front of you, and ask you to pray for them, bring a word from God for them; and immediately, if you are living a long way from God, you'll feel immediately uncomfortable. You'll become conscious of how far you are from God, when you have to bring something from God to a person. That's the thing that brings - that's why a lot of people don't want to minister to people. Next year we'll run four equipping seminars. If you'll come to all of those, you'll have a great range of skills, both the knowledge and the practical, on how to minister to people. But in order to walk that life, you've got to live a life open to God.