God’s Will = The Holy Spirit
You have been involved with the Holy Spirit since you first heard the good news that Jesus took your place and bore the penalty for your sins.
It was the Holy Spirit, through The WORD, who made the truth that Jesus was raised from the dead a reality in your heart. First Corinthians 12:3 states that no man can even say Jesus is LORD except by the Holy Ghost.
Jesus came to make it possible for man to receive the nature of God—eternal life (John 10:10). Jesus could not get a man born again while He was on the earth. He had the power to forgive sins, but there could be no new creatures until Jesus paid the sin price at Calvary and became the firstborn from the dead.
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you…. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you (John 16:7, 12-15).
Jesus told the men who walked by His side for three years that it was more profitable for them if He went away and sent the Holy Spirit to them.
It is the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit that makes you a new creature. When you make Jesus LORD over your life, the Holy Spirit comes upon you and overshadows you, just as He did Mary when there was conceived in her a “holy thing” (Luke 1:35).
Spiritual death is then eradicated from your spirit. You are born again into a new life—a new spirit. You are literally born of God. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God” (1 John 3:2). “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1). God becomes your Father by spiritual birth.
The miracle of the new birth should never become commonplace to you. It is not a theological idea, but a fact. The Holy Spirit personally carries out this miracle when you make Jesus Christ your LORD. He takes a sin-ridden, selfish man and recreates his spirit in God’s image. This change in a man’s nature is a great, miraculous and supernatural event in the realm of the spirit. This is why all of heaven rejoices (Luke 15:7, 10).
The Spirit Within
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is not only to impart the nature of God to the spirit of man, but also to live in the new creature and to reveal to him the exact knowledge of God. The Spirit within enables the new creature to walk in newness of life. He gives us this life, and He also sustains it.
Ezekiel says, “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 an 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” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
After you make Jesus your LORD, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside you. Jesus told the disciples: “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” (John 14:15-17). The Holy Spirit had been working with the disciples and they had been preaching, healing the sick and casting out devils. He had been with them and working with them, but Jesus said when the Holy Spirit came to stay with them forever, He would live on the inside of them. He told them, “Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John 20:21-22).
After Jesus had been raised from the dead, He appeared to the disciples and they were born again as Jesus breathed the life of God into them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (Compare with Genesis 2:7.) Eternal life came into them. They could not have been born again until after Jesus paid the price for sin.
As they received the life of God, the Spirit who gave that life began to dwell in them.
The Spirit Upon
From that moment, the disciples were changed. They were no longer troubled, afraid or sad. Luke’s account lets us know of the change: “And it came to pass, while he BLESSED them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen” (Luke 24:51-53).
Where there had been sadness, now there was great joy—a fruit of the spirit. Where there was fear and confusion, now there was continual praise and blessing of God. And, they were obedient. They went to Jerusalem to wait for yet another wonderful event to come that Jesus had promised before He was carried into heaven—the enduement of power from on high.
Jesus had told them, “And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (verse 49).
Acts 1:4-5, 8 says:
And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.… But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
He said they were to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and receive power! They had already received the Holy Spirit within. Now, Jesus was instructing them what to do to receive the power of God upon them. Acts 10:38 says Jesus was anointed with the Holy Ghost and power, and now the disciples were to receive that same power.
In our everyday language, He said, “Don’t leave town without it!” This enduement of power was necessary to carry out the work Jesus set before them. (See Mark 16:15-20; Matthew 28:18-20.) Nothing has changed. The Body of Christ today is still under the same mandate.
Jesus taught the disciples about this in John 14. He talked to them about the Holy Spirit and said, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works…. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (verses 10, 12).
They were to continue to do the same works Jesus Himself had been doing, with His power and Anointing that had come on them and the Church on the Day of Pentecost. (See Acts 2:1-21, 5:12-16, 10:38; Matthew 3:16-17; Luke 4:18-21; John 14:10.)
The Holy Spirit is still assigned to the Church to help us fulfill our commission. Didn’t Jesus say He would abide with us forever? (See John 14:16.)
Jesus said that it was not Him, but the Father in Him, who did the works. When He said, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you” (Acts 1:8), they knew what He meant!
The Greek word dunamis, translated power, means “ability and might.” When you receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, you receive the ability of God to do His work in the earth. The Spirit within us is for fruit bearing—for our own personal lives (Galatians 5:22-23). Jesus talked about this in John 4:14. He called it: “…a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” But the Spirit upon is for service. He described it in John 7:38-39 as rivers of living water. The well is for your own life, and the rivers flowing out of you are for others.
The dictionary says a witness is “evidence” or “confirmation.” This power of the Holy Spirit living in you can transform your life into evidence for the world that Jesus has been raised from the dead and is alive today. Jesus said, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me…” (Acts 1:8).
The traditions and doctrines of men have robbed many believers of this power to be a witness, with evidence that Jesus has been raised from the dead. The world is not only supposed to hear words but see proof that Jesus is alive today. As new converts, we should be taught to receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit—the enduement of power to reveal Jesus to lost humanity.
Many believe that the Holy Spirit is automatically received at the time of salvation, and that’s all there is. It is certainly true that if you are born again, the Holy Spirit has come to live in you and endeavors to work in your life. I had been born again and the Holy Spirit lived inside me, but the power Jesus spoke of was not evident in my life until after I received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. I wanted to do right, follow God and be a strong Christian, but outwardly, I didn’t change much until after I received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues. The combination of the power of God on me and The WORD of God in my heart began to change weakness to victory. As I learned truth from God’s WORD and acted on it, the Spirit of God upon me enabled me to overcome in my own life and to help others overcome.
Learn to continually pray this prayer for yourself:
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our LORD Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant [me], according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in [my] inner man; that Christ may dwell in [my] heart by faith; that [I], being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that [I] might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that [I] ask or think, according to the power that worketh in [me], unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen (Ephesians 3:14-21).
According to the power that works in us! His unlimited ability to work in your life is according to the power working in you. God designed that His Spirit abide continually inside your spirit and come on you in power to carry out His work.
Frequently, in the early Church, people were born again and received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit at the same time. In Acts 8, however, we can see clearly that there are two different experiences. It tells us that in Samaria, Philip preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus. Verse 12 says they believed, and both men and women were baptized. These people were believers.
Later, Peter and John came to pray for these same believers, that they might receive the Holy Ghost. “(For as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of The LORD Jesus.) Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost” (verses 16-17).
The term “received the Holy Ghost” is also correct in speaking about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit because later, Paul asked the men at Ephesus, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost” (Acts 19:2).
These men had been baptized into John’s baptism. Paul told them that John said to believe on Jesus. “When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of The LORD Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied” (verses 5-6). In this instance, they were baptized in water, and then Paul laid hands on them to receive the Holy Ghost.
From these instances, we can see that the apostles laid their hands on men who were already believers to receive the Holy Spirit. These scriptures reveal that this enduement of power called the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not the same experience as the new birth. In this instance, it came as hands were laid on them.
However, on the Day of Pentecost, at the house of Cornelius, the Spirit of God fell on those who were present, and they began to speak in other tongues. Hands were not laid on them. They received the new birth and the enduement of power simultaneously.
You receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit by faith in the same way you receive Jesus as LORD (Galatians 3:14). Christians should be taught to believe for and receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. The disciples in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost had been taught about receiving the Holy Spirit by the Master (John 14-16; Luke 24:49; Acts 1).
The entrance of God’s WORD gives light or understanding (Psalm 119:130). The disciples knew they were waiting for the Holy Spirit to baptize them with His power, and they were expecting it, just as Jesus told them.
We receive THE BLESSING from God by believing what we hear from Him. That is faith. For example, healing belonged to you the moment you were born into God’s family, but if you never get into The WORD and see that divine health is yours, you will continue to be sick.
To walk the faith walk and be pleasing to God, His WORD must be the authority in your life—not what men or tradition says!
