If You Want to See REVIVAL Knowing the Wonderful Holy Ghost I am certain there are many books written on the Wonderful Person of the Holy Ghost which you will find more helpful and insightful than what I am offering here. It is however my first hand testimony of my own experience and I offer it as such. I would encourage you to seek out any other books or teachings which can help you know the Blessed Third Person of the Godhead. Who He is and what He does seems to be one of the best kept secrets in the church. I think this speaks volumes to the levels of maturity we see in our churches today. I had been a born again, tongue talker for at least nine years, perhaps longer, before I actually knew the Holy Spirit as a real Person and not just some mystical Third Person of the Trinity. During a prayer meeting a friend of mine, who is more familiar with the Holy Ghost than anyone I know, told us that we had offended the Holy Spirit! It really struck me at that moment that I did not know this Holy Spirit who could be offended like any other person. Within a few days of my becoming aware of my ignorance of the Holy Spirit I came across an old Benny Hinn tape on which he was teaching about the Person of the Holy Spirit.I don't remember all that he taught about Him but I do remember watching the tape a couple of times. During this last time I believe Pastor Benny gave the equivalent of an altar call to know the Holy Ghost. I don't really remember what was going on on the tape, I do remember what I was experiencing in my living room! I remember extending my hand and inviting the Holy Spirit to make Himself known to me. I know He embraced me and I laughed and cried and laughed and cried again. My impresssion was that this was far more intense than I remember when I was born again. It was at that moment that I realized how I had mistreated this wonderful Person and how I had ignored Him for so many years. I thought about how I would behave if my absolute, very best friend whom I hadn't seen for a long time, were to stop by my house for a visit. I thought about how excited I would be, how I would offer them the very best food and beverage I had available, offer them the best chair in the house etc. etc. I realized that I had never treated the Holy Spirit anything like that at all. My focus was always on Jesus (and that is how it should be, in fact the Holy Spirit does not testify of Himself, but He testifies about Jesus), who in fact is sitting on the right hand of the Majesty on High. It is God the Holy Spirit who is in the earth and I had been ignoring Him for years due to my ignorance and misunderstanding. You see, I had always been able to identify with Jesus my Lord for although He is God, He became a flesh and blood man just like me. God, my Father although a bit more distant was still a person I could identify with. However, God the Holy Ghost was someone I just couldn't wrap my little brain around somehow. So rather than try to learn what I could, I simply ignored Him except for the few times when I included Him in some song I would sing. I just really had no terms of reference whatsoever when it came to relating to the Holy Ghost as a Person. It still is my understanding that He does testify and show us Jesus and He does not speak of Himself. But what I never really understood until I started to study the Bible is that He is the Manifest Presence and Power of God Almighty, Who holds everything together with the Power of His Word. It is the same Holy Ghost who knocks me over Who is holding the entire universe together!!!! To me, that is far beyond my ability to comprehend, but I know it to be true. How you come to know the Holy Ghost is strictly between you and Him; my experience may not even remotely resemble yours and that is how it should be. After all, it is up to Him, how He will reveal Himself to you. The one thing I am reasonably certain of is that you have to ask Him to make Himself known to you and like most things of the Kingdom we do have to ask in order to receive! There will be no mistaking when He does make Himself known and from then on it is a continual discipline and growing situation like other things of the kingdom. How well we get to know Him will depend on how much time we spend with Him. I still have great difficulty in hearing what the Holy Ghost is saying. I have heard some say, that He speaks softly so that we will have to take the time to listen and pay attention. Although I don't always know what He is saying, I am never in doubt when He makes Himself known. I certainly don't wonder if that's a devil or not. I think that each of us will have a unique experience with the Holy Ghost and we will get to know Him in different ways and that He will communicate with each of us differently. I believe our relationships with Him are meant to be very personal and because of their very nature we will not share them with anyone else regardless of how good friends we are. I will however, express some of the things I have come to know about Him and how I relate to Him from my own experience. Firstly, once I came to know Him as a PERSON I began to think about Him completely differently, I still need to grow miles and miles in this area and I don't profess anything approaching perfection yet. One day as I was going about my business, perhaps reading a newspaper, or watching T.V. or maybe I was doing something really 'spiritual', I realized how ignorant I was being to the Holy Ghost! Here I am carrying on about my important business completely ignoring the Holy Spirit! If any mere mortal person had been in my presence I would have been giving them my undivided attention and would be engaging them in conversation, however, I was not extending the same basic courtesy to the Holy Spirit! How He puts up with me is far beyond me, I would have left long ago if someone treated me as I have treated Him. I am saying this about my behaviour since I came to know Him, not when I did not know Him. If someone I could see and touch came into my house, I would immediately stop everything and give them my undivided attention. I shudder to think how many times the Holy Spirit probably was trying to get my attention and I simply ignored Him. I know Him to be a true gentleman and have never had Him interrupt me...ever. I have had strong unctions to pray, which I recognize and respond to, however, I know there have been times when perhaps the Holy Ghost was simply whispering "come aside and fellowship with Me", and I ignored Him. Imagine!!!! I have come to know He won't disturb me if I would sooner read the newspaper, watch television or engage in a host of other meaningful activities. I also know He will not disturb us if we insist on doing church our way! We may say 'come Holy Spirit' and yet not be familiar enough with Him to know Him when He does come. Perhaps He comes by making someone laugh or cry...... do we know it is Him for sure? When we invite Him to come do we insist that He show up between the singing and the reading of the announcements? I could go on and on but I hope by now I am making a point here. That point is this.... we must give our churches and our church services and everything within us back to the Holy Ghost, if we ever hope to see the Glory of God in the church in our time. The starting point for all of this is getting to know Him as the wonderful Third Person of the Trinity.     I really believe much could be accomplished throughout the land if Pastors and Ministers everywhere would simply vacate the pulpit and invite the Holy Spirit to come into our assembly and make Himself known and show us what church is supposed to be all about. After all, it really, truly is HIS Church and we have kept it from Him for far too long.