Bible Life Q and A - Is the Holy Spirit God or the power of God?

I'm glad you asked.  The Holy Spirit is God, all God and no less God than the one true God.  God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit makes up the godhead, but in no way are they independent of each other, nor are they three gods.  There is one God in the person of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is God in us.  The Holy Spirit comes to abide in our spirit when we are born again.  It is not true that you get a little bit of the Holy Spirit when you are born again and then more of the Holy Spirit when you are baptized in the Spirit or filled with the Spirit.  It is not true that if you speak in tongues that you have been endued with more of the Holy Spirit than someone who does not speak in tongues.  There is no correlation between the biblical record of speaking in tongues and receiving more of the Holy Spirit.

When you are born again all of the Holy Spirit comes to reside in you, not part of the Holy Spirit as if the Holy Spirit was separated by levels of holiness.  The levels of holiness that you hear about is in equal response to how much of ourselves we give to the Holy Spirit for use, not in how much of the Holy Spirit we receive for use.  When you have the Holy Spirit you have all of God in you.  But God the Holy Spirit also lives outside of you because God is at all places at the same time.  God the Holy Spirit can multi-task seamlessly. 

The Holy Spirit is not and cannot be used to bring about certain physical manifestation to show or reveal that someone has become more spiritual than someone else.  If anything, when someone gives more of themselves to God for use there is an inward growth of spiritual understanding that is manifested in behavior and choices, not in self aggrandizing external expressions of spiritual acumen.

All of the Holy Spirit is available all the time.  As we yield the Holy Spirit works in us, through us and by us.  If we yield more we are used more, but the Holy Spirit does the deciding as to how we are used and to what capacity.  "Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.  And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.  But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.  For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;  To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:  But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will."  You do not get to decide your gift, nor can any preacher or evangelist determine that everyone is equally represented by manifesting the same gift.  That is not scriptural.

The Holy Spirit is accessed in your inner man by faith, belief and trust.  Even though all of the Holy Spirit is available all the time for all the people, it is we who choose to yield less of ourselves than we are able.  Thus, we live a lessor life of sorts, because we hold back self from God and we attempt to operate apart from God's leading.  But don't let anyone try to sell you that you cannot live a holy life because you are human and humans can't live holy.  No.  It's because we don't want to live holy, not because we can't live holy that we live a lessor life than God's very best.  It's not because God has some invisible or intangible limit to holiness and you are driven by default to live without the power to overcome the world.  No way.  It's because you don't want to.

The Holy Spirit has power but the Holy Spirit is not the power of God

"And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."  Romans 5:5

"In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.  He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.  (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)"  John 7:37-39

"If ye love me, keep my commandments.  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.  I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.  John 14:15-18

"That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost."  Romans 15:16

"For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God."  1 Corinthians 2:11