Mike Bickle shares insights as a shepherd regarding the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, emphasizing the importance of genuine experiences over learned behaviors. He reflects on his 40 years of observing human reactions to the Spirit's touch, noting that while many manifestations may not be authentic, the genuine ones are invaluable. Bickle encourages believers to connect with Jesus authentically, avoiding the pressure to replicate past experiences and instead focusing on the present moment with the Holy Spirit. He highlights the need for humility and sensitivity towards others in worship settings, ensuring that personal expressions do not hinder the collective experience of connecting with God.

I want to talk, give a perspective as a shepherd. I want to be helpful. That's my real desire to be helpful because there's so many in our midst here that are new with the move of the Holy Spirit and how the Spirit moves and how we're supposed to respond to the Holy Spirit. So, I'm speaking as a shepherd to be helpful. And as I look over the years, I see I'm a student of human behavior. I'm sure a lot of you are. I'm absolutely fascinated with why people do what they do. I love to study why people do what they do. Whenever I run into some of you on the base here and there, I give you a beware notice because I'll ask you 10 questions. They're not trick questions, but I'm just curious about what you think, feel, why you do what you do, why you don't do what you don't do. And so, I'm a student of human behavior. But again, I think most of you are. It's good to really be an anointed observer what the Lord's doing. Well, one of our major reasons, well, the major reason, but not the only reason for having meetings like this is so that people can connect to Jesus, right? That's the reason. So, we connect with his heart, and that pleases him, and he connects with our heart, and he touches us and touches our body. Give a little background, and I'm going to keep this brief because I want to go into a time of ministry after this. It was 40 years ago when I was in my first move of the Holy Spirit. I was 16 years old. I'm 56 now. 40 years ago. Go ahead. If you're a 20-year-old, say, boy, he's old. If you're a 60-year-old, you say, man, the kid's still young. Well, anyway, I was really awestruck. I was 16 years old, 40 years ago, 13 weeks in a row. They had meetings night after night, and I went to them night after night for 13 weeks. Not every night. And I got behind on my school and all that stuff, and people were falling into the power of the Spirit, and demons were coming out, and I was just, my eyes, I was in the Presbyterian church and going, I never heard of this. I was excited. It created a tremendous hunger. Well, since that 13-week period in the last 40 years, I've experienced so many different types of manifestations personally. I've said that last year to some of the students. They go, really? You don't look like the type. And I said, well, no, actually, I've had. I've had, I won't give you the whole list, but I've had times where the Lord's come on me, and I've laughed, and I could not stop. A few times it was really embarrassing, because I was in a situation where it would have been better if I could have stopped. I've had times where I was thrashing around and shaking violently. I've had times where I fell into the power of the Spirit. Times where I felt heat, tremendous heat, and wind, and about five or six others I'm not going to go into details on. Well, maybe sometime. No, that's not my point right now. My point right now is to give a perspective, to be helpful. Then in the last 40 years, I've been in, I was thinking it through. Now, by the way, I've had this talk about 10 times, the one I'm giving you now, over the last 20 years. So, it's a familiar subject for me to go over. But in the last 40 years, I've probably been in, I don't know for sure, I've never counted them, but several thousand, not hundreds, several thousand meetings where people were manifesting in one form or another. And in the last 40 years, I've prayed for, I've never counted, but probably 10, 20,000 people more who have, when I prayed for them, they fell into the power of the Spirit, they manifested in some way. My point being is that in the last 40 years, I've had a tremendous amount of exposure to all kinds of different angles on the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. And I'm really familiar with the basics. I say the word basics because I want to always be an aggressive learner. I'm still a child learning. Holy Spirit, there's so much more about you I don't know or I don't understand. And I want to learn from the youngest among us. But in terms of the basics and human reaction and human behavior, I feel like I have a, I'm comfortable that I have a grasp of the basics of what's happening. I'm real familiar with it. I'll give you three perspectives. Perspective number one, that when the Holy Spirit touches people in a genuine way, and I really value the genuine touch of the Holy Spirit. I mean, that's one reason IHOP exists, not the only reason. We want to see more of the authentic move of the Holy Spirit. I've been a defender of the authentic. I mean, for not the whole 40 years, because it was first 10, I was a little bit bewildered. I was excited, but a little bewildered by what was going on. But the last 30, I have been a very staunch defender. And I've lost a few friendships over it, because I know that I know the value of genuine manifestations. The real, again, I've seen, and I've had it happen to me, but I've seen people thrashed around, and I've seen people thrown against walls and across rooms. And I've seen a lot of fake, but I've seen a lot of real. The real's worth it. I will allow the fake, I don't want the fake on the platform, because I don't want to promote the fake, but I'll allow the fake in the room, because I so believe in the genuine. I've had people say that over the years, you know, they said, you know, you know, I've had students, you know, some of this seems fake. I go, it is. They go, what? I go, most of it's fake. Go, what do you mean? I said, I've been watching this 40 years. Most places that I've been, the majority of the manifestations are not caused by the Holy Spirit. They go, really? But I said, but the problem is, it's not all fake, and the genuine is in our midst. And I will allow a whole lot of hamburger helper to allow the genuine take place. I said, I won't promote it, but I will allow it, because the genuine is so important to the kingdom of God. But that always throws off people if they're young and new at this. They go, it is fake. I go, yeah. I go, just, you know, don't be so open-minded. Your brains fall out. You can understand that the real and the genuine and the fake all exist together in one setting, and it's that way everywhere. There's nothing unique here. It's not any different here than anywhere. It's that way everywhere. I've been in revival, renewal, Holy Spirit settings in many countries. It's the same people or people, folk or folk, no matter who, no matter what, no matter where. Well, perspective number one, when the Holy Spirit touches you, and it really is genuine, you may laugh. I mean, and it's real. You may fall. You may shake. You may scream. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, it's a precious and a genuine moment. But here's what happens to some people, not everybody, and they do this for several reasons. They think that if the Holy Spirit touches them one week and they laugh, they are supposed to laugh every single meeting that somebody says come Holy Spirit for the next three, four, five months until they wear out. Most people kind of only do it three, four, five months. I've watched this again 40 years. They kind of do it for a few months, and then they kind of go, okay, did that. And I, and my thing is don't, don't get there. I've seen a lot of folks that were really into it, then they get cynical, and I go, no, but when the Spirit touches you, then express it, but don't do the same expression when He's not touching you for the next four months. I said it's a learned behavior that you don't need to do. It's like, you know, if I met somebody, if I met you first time, and hi, you know, what's your name? You tell me your name, and you crack a joke, and it's really funny, and I mean, and I break out laughing, and you enjoy it, and I enjoy it, and so the next hundred times I meet you, I just break out laughing. And you go, uh, you know, I'm really trying to tell you something, and I'm laughing. I go, no, you really liked it when I left that first time you met, when you, you know, it's, yeah, but I got other things to say, and don't laugh every time I talk to you, just when it really is genuine. I think you get the picture. I talked to some of the students in the last week or two, because, again, when I make it out from behind my little cave, and here and there, and I mean, granted, I'm cheating, sort of. I got up, my prayer station is up on the platform, and you're down there sitting next to people who are touching you on both sides, and groaning, and moaning, and you're like this. I'm up there drinking coffee, and three screens in my computer, and it's cheating, granted, but I do come out occasionally, and when I do, I ask lots of questions. So, I was asking some students in the last week, and I said, hey, what's happening in your heart, and what are you doing, and what aren't you doing, and why? Again, they're not trick questions. They're genuine questions, and I heard this a time or two. One person said, because they were just really laughing, or a lot of go, how come you're laughing? What are you feeling? I said, well, actually nothing. I said, okay, that's fair. There's nothing wrong with laughing. I said, why are you laughing? They said, well, a couple weeks ago, the Lord touched me, and I laughed, and I thought I was supposed to every time we gathered, because I want to honor the Lord. I said, you don't have to. They go, really? Well, they're real new at this. I go, no, no. They go, wow. I thought somebody told me we had to. You don't have to. Now, other people, when the Lord touches them one way, they really respond, shake, yell, scream, fall, laugh, roll, whatever. They'll do it the next three, or four, or five months at every meeting, and they actually know they're not supposed to, but they feel a little peer pressure, and I want to urge you not to yield to that peer pressure, because someone goes, well, I saw you anointed last week. Does that mean you're not anointed this week? No, no. I'm still anointed. Watch. Don't do that, because the Lord touching you is about you and the Lord. It's not about you and your friends thinking you're anointed. Don't do that. Well, some people, they think they're supposed to. Other people, they feel pressure to, because they don't want to be anointed on Monday, and next Monday, be unanointed. Others, they think, hey, this is just a real cool way where a lot of people look at me. I've never had people look at me before. This is like cool. I mean, 10 or 20 people are watching me all the time. I've never had an audience, so it's a way to draw some attention to the self, and others, they're genuinely go, I don't know. I'm just thinking if I throw the kite up in the air and run, maybe I'll catch the wind again, you know, so I'll just manifest, and maybe it'll come, you know. I'm not trying to fake anyone out. I'm not trying to get attention. I'm not under pressure. I'm running with the kite. It's not, the wind's not coming, but it might. That isn't the way to do it either. So what ends up happening accidentally, they don't mean this, for one of five different reasons, they're manifesting, they're laughing, shaking, whoa-ing, screaming. I don't really, I've done them all. I haven't really done the whoa, because I don't really think that's a manifestation. That's just kind of fun. I mean, I've done the whoa a few times, but not by the Holy Spirit, because it was fun. You know, a whoa, we high-five each other, and so I don't put the whoa under a manifestation category. I put that under high-fiving and jiving around category. That's fun, and it's fun, but you don't want to whoa the guy next to you out of the room, and I was talking to some people, and you know, they had a whoa right next to them, and I said, because I'm a question guy, I go, how do you feel? They go, it's horrifying. I have so many burdens on my life right now. I have so many things. I come to the meeting, crawling to get to the meeting, and I'm sitting next to a screamer all meeting. I just, I want to cry, because I need to touch God bad. I said, won't you tell the whoa-er to stop whoa-ing? They go, can I? Of course you can. You say, I love that you're whoa-ing, but could you whoa later? I'm really hurting. Some people go, no, I quit the spirit. I go, it's not the Holy Spirit. It's fun. That's all it is. It's just fun. They don't mind not having fun for a minute if you're hurting. You can't be hurting every single meeting. I mean, give them a break. Well, what happens is that the Holy Spirit touches people one day, and they do the same thing for three, four, five months. Again, typically, it only lasts three, four months. I've observed this, again, 40 years. Most people won't stay with it that long, and then they just kind of, it phases out. But what it ends up, it becomes a religious form. It's a learned behavior that doesn't take the Holy Spirit to do it. And you can learn it in about one meeting. I mean, you can learn shake, laugh, whoa, cry, spin, fall within one meeting. You can see your buddies do it and do it the next meeting, no Holy Spirit. It's really easy to learn. Well, I've come up with a principle that I've said for 20 years. I've defended manifestations for 30, but it took me 10 to come up with this principle, and I've said it's strong for 20 years, this principle. First 10 years, I wouldn't share, and this bugs people when I say this, but I believe it liberates a lot of people too. It really does liberate a lot of people, but it bugs a lot of people, and so I'll live with it because I think it's more helpful than it is hurtful, is that in the last 20 years, I have concluded in manifestation meetings all over the world. Again, I've been to several thousand of them, a couple thousand at least, that 80% of them are not real, but 20% of them are. Some people go, what? 80%? That's horrifying. If you say that, people will be afraid of opening themselves to the Holy Spirit. I go, no. What happens when people hear that? I've said that in different countries around the world. I've got applauses for it because people go, wow, if somebody's got enough discernment to see what's really happening, maybe there's hope to keep pressing in, but if I have to believe all this, I can't believe any of it. I go, you don't have to believe it all. You can enjoy it without believing all of it because you see some of it, and I know the Holy Spirit not that well, but well enough to know this. He's really good at touching people. People said, no, if you say that 80%, people will be afraid. I go, oh, he's really good at touching afraid people. That's one of his expertise. He gets through no problem. Matter of fact, almost everyone that gets touched the first time, they're scared to death. He does it millions of times. He's good at it. I go, don't worry about it. The Holy Spirit's good. They'll get through it. Well, in the, I came up with term and it's, I mean, I don't mean this disrespectful, but I want to put it in perspective. I call it the auto manifestors. They manifest automatic pilot. The minute you get the right setting, they got to be in the right setting, but the minute the setting's right, auto manifest. And when you've got the auto screamers, not so many, but the minute the right phrase is said, they automatically do it. Holy spirit, no Holy spirit. Okay. Perspective. Number two, that's perspective. One perspective. Number two. Now this is to the auto manifestors and the auto screamers. It really distracts your ability to connect with God. I've said this to young people. They go, ah, I go, why are you doing that? Well, I don't know, you know, five different reasons. I go, if you don't do that, you'll actually connect more. I know that when he touched you some months ago, you did that. The very thing that released you to do that some months ago is the very thing hindering you from connecting with the spirit. It's like you're on the, on the phone and you have a static on the line and the Holy spirit saying, I'm not talking about funny right now. I'm talking about your heart. Stop laughing and listen to me. I have things to say to you. So I encourage people dial down and if they stay in the hyper mode, they actually will receive so much less. So I've, I've told young people, not just young people, young and old alike, but mostly the young, because it's our group is mostly young people and mostly young people. It's the first time they've ever experienced it. And so they're not, they don't know what they're supposed to do. And they really care about what they're supposed to do. And I say, if you won't just, just be genuine and what happens, express it because we value greatly the genuine. I said, you actually, if you're, if you're not in that auto manifest auto yell mode, you'll actually connect more. So as a shepherd, I'm trying to help you. You can go for months after you've been touched by the spirit and the spirit not touch you again because you won't be quiet. He's trying to talk to you. I'm going to talk about you. There's only a few like that around. There's really, the number's really, really small, but I have as a shepherd, I care. I'm not saying this correctively. I'm saying it as a person fighting for their destiny in God. We are so desperate to touch Jesus that we want to touch him. And we can end up with a manifestation culture without the Holy spirit, even being in our midst. I don't want a manifestation culture. I want a Holy spirit culture. And they are not the same. By the way, I was telling somebody, I said, well, I'm going to mention this. I just decided to just, uh, about an hour ago, a half hour, you know, just before the meeting. And that's why I jotted down a few notes. I could do this fast, but I'm doing it slow. But, but, uh, I said, I'm going to, I'm going to just address this a family side chat. I've done this about 10 times in the last 20 years. I mean, it's the same, it's the same thing. I just haven't done it for a year or two. So I thought I'd think it through. And, uh, they said, Oh, that's going to shut down the healing. I go, no, no, genuineness doesn't offend the Holy spirit. It attracts him. Holy spirit's not offended by genuineness. I go removing some of the hamburger helper. It doesn't shut anything down. He's the Holy spirit's name is the spirit of truth. He's true. He's not the spirit of hype. He's the spirit of truth, not the spirit of counterfeit, the spirit of truth. That's what he is. I go, he's not shut down when we magnify Jesus in truth. So that's the second perspective that if the very thing that made you manifest in a genuine way for the next two or three months, if you continue in the outward form, the religious form, you actually will have static on the phone line. And the very thing that helped you a few months ago will actually be in the way of you connecting with the spirit now. And I've found, as I've said that to people, that seems very simple, but the light goes on. Some go, wow, that's like really deep. I go, not so deep. It's not so deep perspective. Three. My final perspective is that having a manifestation culture or the auto manifest, the auto screamers, it distracts the people next to you. Now that's as important to me as a shepherd as it distracting you. I, my first point is it distracts you. The second I'm talking to that particular person and there will only a few in every group, but it one screamer that will scream for an hour, a hundred people all around them are held hostage for an hour of them screaming hostage. They come in. They're not that good at connecting. Anyway, they got lots of burdens, lots of problems, a good share of guilt, some compromise, some fretting, some worrying, and some genuine passion for Jesus. They called their way to the meeting and they're thinking, I got to touch Jesus, please. And the two people on each side are at a different mode. And they're saying, please, I have to touch Jesus. And so I appeal for this Christian virtue that we all esteem love and humility. We actually care about the guy next to us. They're desperate. None of us connect that well. And we come to meetings. This meeting has to count. Now, some of you, you have to come because it's a requirement in your class, but others, I mean, and you're desperate as well and you love Jesus, but something, I don't know, but some are here because they go, this is really my last chance. I mean, I'm in a season where if I don't connect, it's bad. And I want this to be an environment of connecting with God. I mean, genuine connecting with God, the same principles with tongues, meaning I really value speaking in tongues in my individual life, my personal devotional prayer life. I set my heart 30 years ago to pray in tongues an hour a day. I haven't done it every day, but I've done it many days. And when I pray in tongues, 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says, I pray to God and I pray to myself. When I pray in tongues, I pray in tongues constantly in our prayer meetings, but not one person next to me has ever heard a peep out of me because they don't need to for me to connect with God in it. But some people, when they pray in tongues, everyone around them, some, it's only a 30 person epicenter, others, it's a 300 epicenter. And I say, don't do that. Think of the 30 or the 300. They're trying to touch God for real. And I could tell you 30 years later, having done it, not an hour every day, but an hour, many, many, many days. And I pray in the spirit when I'm out in the marketplace and when I'm with people at board meetings and not one person knows I'm doing it because I can do to myself and then I can touch God. And I want to give you that valuable, uh, uh, exhortation to do it often, but do it in a way that has love in it. That doesn't bring the people next to you in, in hostage. I mean, really, they can't get free of it because they're so bothered anyway by their own life and their own problems. And they just, I've just seen over the years, they just get exasperated. And the poor guy, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He didn't even get it. That the eight, 10, 20 people around them are just can't connect because of him. And I've told different ones over the years. And some of them were horrified. They go, you're kidding. Why didn't anybody tell me this? It's like, I have a piece of egg on my face and not one person tells me, I go, well, they're afraid you're going to get mad or they're afraid they're going to look unannointed or they're afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid. I don't know. But tell people stuff like that. If people are bugging you, be nice and say, this is really distracting me. And I'm really desperate. Just give me a few minutes and then do what you want after I go. So here's our values. Five, 10 seconds on each one. Here's our values. Number one, we want to connect with Jesus value one. I don't mean the values of our whole mission space, but I'm talking about a meeting. Number two, really important. Genuine us. We want what's genuine. We want what the Holy Spirit believes. I don't want to do stuff that I can fake you out, but I can't fake the Holy Spirit out. We want what he believes that when it's after the meeting, we're saying the Holy Spirit touched me. The Holy Spirit says, yeah, I did. A lot of times somebody says the Holy Spirit touched me and Holy Spirit says, that's not true. I don't believe that. We want it genuine because he's, we want truth. Isn't that right? We want truth. We don't want hype. We don't want fake. We don't manufacture. We want genuine. Next one value. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves. We want to draw attention to Jesus. And we want an environment where people can touch God because they're desperate to touch him. Now again, that one time the Holy Spirit's on you and you're going to make a mess of things. And that's cool because it's that one time it's one here, one there, but when you've done it 10 meetings in a row, you're on the auto manifest club, whether you've joined it or not on purpose. But I want the Holy Spirit to touch people and throw people across the room, do bizarre things. But if it does it 10 times in a row, they're in the club, they really are. Someone says, how do you know? I don't know everything. I don't know very much, but I've been watching this carefully for 40 years in several thousand, couple thousand meetings. And I prayed for 10, 20, 30,000 that have manifested. A lot of them fake and a lot of them real. And I don't care as long as we don't promote the fake. I don't care if the fake happens. And as long as it doesn't distract people from Jesus value for, we want Liberty. I will bear reproach and the embarrassment to the religious world of anything that's bizarre as long as the Holy Spirit believes he did it. I don't want bizarre that the Holy Spirit didn't do, but if it's the Holy Spirit, I will defend it till the end. I don't care what the religious community thinks about it. Number five, kind of the same as drawing to yourself, sensitive to people. We want to constantly, we can engage with the most humble being in the world, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, the father, we can engage with humility himself while dwelling in humility. We don't have to throw off love and humility to engage with love and humility. Amen. So let's stand and no, this doesn't hurt the healing anointing. This doesn't hurt the, someone said, Oh, let's just shut everything down. No, it's shut 30 people down, but it's not shutting down 1500. Matter of fact, the 1500 going praise God. Somebody finally said something. Any thoughts? I love this. I remember when I first came to Bible school some years ago and I was how many years ago, just for fun, 14, 15, 12 years ago. Okay. So I came to Bible school and I was at that time in my life, you know, 19 years old and I was asking God, I wanted it to be real. You know what I mean? I was like, I hope God interacts with human beings like that. I wanted the prophetic. I wanted the manifestations. I was, I was so hungry for interaction with God. But by the time I got finished with my first year of Bible school, I was such a cynic. I was skeptical. I was on the verge of saying none of it's real. I don't believe any of it and going in the complete opposite direction because of the, because of the fake. So I heard Mike say this a while ago, the whole 80% is fake and the 20% we're talking like 10 or 12 years ago. Yeah. And it actually, it actually increased my faith. It didn't shut me down because then I, it wasn't all or nothing. And at that point in my life, I was in an all or nothing mode. It's either real or it's not real. So I love that you just did that because it isn't all or nothing. And the Lord has touched me over the years and a few, a few times with, uh, manifestations of the Holy spirit. No, you, I'm not going to tell your secrets, but you've had a couple of real wild ones. I have Alan knows, I know Marcy knows we can say them. Oh, the blackmail. But I love, I love this. I love it. She's a secret manifesto. No, in her closet for real, a closet manifesto. She is for real. Go ahead.