Three Things The Baptism With The Holy Spirit Produces In Your Life

In the last two posts, I have been discussing the baptism with the Holy Spirit. I continue that theme today!

Three things happen to the person who receives the baptism with the Holy Spirit. They receive boldness to witness, an increase in understanding of the word, and they receive a new way to pray!

Acts 1:8 reads: But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. The Greek word for power here is dunamis and from this word we get our English words dynamic, dynamite, and dynamo. There is inherent power produced within the believer when baptized with the Holy Spirit.

The day after I was Spirit baptized, I noticed a boldness that rose up within me that I had never experienced before. As a 17 year old, I was working in a grocery store the day after I received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and a girl asked for a cigarette. Well, I threw mine away the day before, and simply had no desire for them.  I started to tell her that I quit, but before I could speak the Holy Spirit from deep within me prodded me to tell her that Jesus set me free from smoking. When I told her that, she was so surprised that I thought she would fall in the floor! And then a joy rose up in me that I had never experienced before. Ever since then that boldness has risen up in me.

  

The second thing that you will notice after having received the baptism with the Holy Spirit is that a greater hunger for and understanding of the Word will come. 1 Corinthians 2:14 reads: But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. The Holy Spirit authored the Bible. He inspired men to write as they were moved by Him. When He comes into your life in fullness, He will take the Word and unfold its deeper meanings to your spirit.

It one thing to intellectually understand the Word, but it’s an awesome experience to suddenly gain the spiritual application of it when you read. I experienced this the day after I was Spirit baptized in 1976. As I read passages that I had known since childhood, suddenly the revelation of their spiritual application to me poured from the pages I read! It’s totally amazing.

 

The third thing that you receive with the Holy Spirit baptism is a new way to connect with God. Praying is in a whole new realm. It’s one thing to try to connect with the Father with mind to Spirit communication; that is, your mind seeking to make contact with Him who is the sum total of all knowledge! But it’s awesome to be able to contact the Father directly spirit to Spirit. When you pray in tongues after being Spirit baptized, you gain an ability to speak in tongues which is your human spirit making direct contact with the Father of spirits! 1 Corinthians 14:14 (Amplified) declares: For if I pray in an [unknown] tongue, my spirit [by the Holy Spirit within me] prays, but my mind is unproductive [it bears no fruit and helps nobody].

Things that were pent up in me for years were released as I prayed in the spirit or in other tongues. This is the perfect way to pray, because when you’re praying in tongues, you’re praying the perfect will of God for whatever you’re praying about!

 

Don’t neglect the precious gift of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Allow it to be a door that opens you to a new realm of spiritual experience and understanding as you receive boldness, illumination, and a new prayer language.

Why The Baptism With The Holy Spirit Changes You!

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).

 

The baptism with the Holy Spirit changes you. Let me explain why it should. The Greek word for baptize is baptizo. And this word simply means to immerse into something. When a person is baptized into water, the substance that they are baptized in or immersed in is water. The person’s relationship to water changes in that water completely surrounds the person baptized.

  

Well, then when a person is baptized with the Holy Spirit, what is the person immersed into? They are immersed into the Holy Spirit. I often use an illustration of a cup being filled with water, which is illustrative of a believer being born again and the Holy Spirit indwelling them. In the new birth, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in the believer. Then, I took the cup full of water and immersed it into a pitcher of water. The cup’s relationship with water changed. Not only did water fill the cup, but it surrounded it!

 

When you receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit literally encapsulates you, that is, he closes you in on all sides. Understand that the Jesus told the disciples that the Holy Spirit would come when He left the earth and would be to the disciples everything Jesus was to them. The main job of the Holy Spirit is to make Jesus real to us!

 

My life took a dramatic turn with the Holy Spirit baptism in 1976. When the Holy Spirit engulfed me with Himself that Sunday night at 7:20 P.M., I had an awareness of Jesus that I never had before. As I worked the next day, my thoughts were constantly on the Son of God! I found myself relating my experiences throughout the day to my relationship with Jesus in a very natural way. I thought of my relationship with Jesus all the time.

  

The Holy Spirit brings spiritual power and insight when He comes into your life. You have this spiritual power and insight with the new birth in a measure. But with the baptism with the Holy Spirit it is magnified many times over.

  

If you’ve baptized in the Holy Spirit, I encourage you to walk in the light of the experience. Nurture your relationship with the Holy Spirit daily by spending time in the Word and in prayer and meditation. His presence will get stronger if you do. And if you have not yet received this precious experience, cry out to the Father for it. They that hunger and thirst after righteousness will be fill. If any man thirsts let him come unto me and drink!  He promised to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him!

The Baptism With The Holy Spirit Will Transform Your Life!

And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now (Acts 1:4-5).

  

We live in a day when many believers are shying away from the power of God manifested through the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away (2 Timothy 3:5). If there’s ever been a time that we need the power of God it’s today!

  

Jesus told the disciples not to leave Jerusalem until they were clothed with the power that comes in being baptized with the Holy Spirit. I sometimes illustrate it this way. What would you rather do; plow a field with a large tractor or with a mule? If you’re cutting a board, which is easier; using a handsaw or a skill saw? Would you rather wash dishes by hand or use a dishwasher? Cutting grass with a push mower is not nearly as easy as with a riding mower! You’d want to wash clothes in a washing machine instead of with a scrub board wouldn’t you?

  

The baptism with the Holy Spirit brings with it new power to live for God! That’s because the baptism with the Holy Spirit relates you to the Holy Spirit in such a more intimate way. It opens you up to spiritual fellowship with Jesus in a way no experience can!

 

The disciples first received this experience in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost. Several years later, believers in Samaria received in Acts 8. Then 10 years later in Acts 10 some Gentile believers received it. And then 20 years after Pentecost some believers in Ephesus received this awesome experience in Acts 19. All of these believer spoke with other tongues when they received. And if you receive the same experience now, you should expect to speak in other tongues too!

  

I received the baptism with the Holy Spirit in 1976 and my life was radically transformed. I’ve walked in the light of this experience now for almost 39 years. I simply could not imagine living without this intimacy with the Father and with Jesus that comes with the Holy Spirit baptism.

  

If you have not yet received this experience, cry out to the Father in hunger for it! If you have received, then walk daily in the light of it. Don’t neglect such great a give from Jesus. He wants your life to be overflowing with His Life, His love, His ability, His peace, joy, and rest. And the baptism with the Holy Spirit is the catalyst to begin the process that will take you there!

Obedience To The Word Of God Creates An Atmosphere For Miracles

Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in. And the Lord said to Joshua: "See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him (Joshua 6:1-5).

Obedience creates an atmosphere for miracles! Sometimes the Father asks us to do things that seem crazy to the mind. Here He told Joshua that He had given Jericho into his hands while the walls were still up. Then the instructions seemed to take a strange twist. March around the city once a day for six days. They may have wondered, so what good is that going to do?

Then the Lord instructed Joshua to have the Israelites march around the walls on the seventh day and while they marched to let the priests blow their trumpets. I’m sure to their minds this seemed ridiculous. But the Israelites and Joshua knew that God’s ways are higher than ours and that obedience and faith combined open circumstances to the power of the Almighty! The walls fell down flat! It was unlikely, but it happened!

  

Elijah told a widow to bake him some bread from her last morsel of flour and last drop of oil and her flour and oil supply would not run out during a severe famine. It happened!

Elisha told the captain of the Syrian army to go bath in the dirty water of the Jordan River seven times and he would be healed of leprosy. It was such a foolish command that he didn’t want to do it. But after being convinced that it was worth a try by his servants, he took the seven baths and was totally healed!

 

Moses held a stick over the Red Sea and it parted. He struck a rock with a stick and water came out of it. Jesus fed thousand with a little boy’s lunch. The fisherman Peter defied fisherman logic and at Jesus’ request threw His nets into the water in a place that he thought had no fish and he caught a net breaking amount! Jesus rubbed mud in a man’s eyes and his sight was restored.

Obedience creates the atmosphere for miracles. So go ahead and obey God! Love the unlovable. Reward good for evil. Bring your tithes and offerings into the storehouse. Give and it will be given to you. Take the lowest place. Believe that you receive answered prayer while nothing seems to change. Lay hands on the sick.

 

When you obediently practice the Word, it opens your life up to the power of God! What He’s done before, He can do again. He’s not partial. He watches over His Word to make it good!

We're Being Changed From The Inside Out!

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).

Once we’re born again, God wants us to be conformed to the image of His Son. This word conformed is the Greek word ‎summorphoo‎, which means to bring to the same form with. The root of this word is morphe which means an outward expression of an inward essence or nature. God wants us to take what He placed on the inside of us and let it show up in our daily lifestyle as we interact with life!

In the New Birth, our spirits are made new creatures in Christ. Old things pass away; all things become new. And what should take place is that what has been placed on the inside should begin to show up in our daily behavior. Years ago we sang a song, “I’ve got something on the inside working on the outside…” That’s the idea here.

Paul prayed for the Galatians believers, My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you (Galatians 4:19). This word formed in this verse is the Greek word morphe which again means an outward expression of an inner nature. He was praying that the New Birth experience would begin to show up on the outside in the daily lives of these believers.

Paul travailed in prayer for these believers. Travail is intense prayer. It denotes agony and tears much like a woman giving birth to a child. So instead of complaining about the lack of Christ likeness we may see in others, we should pray as Paul did that Christ may be formed in them, that what is on the inside may begin to be seen on the outside.

All of us are the process of being conformed to the image of Jesus. What’s on the inside is rising up to be seen on the outside! Anger is giving way to patience; irritability is giving way to peace; angst is giving way to rest; self-centeredness is giving way to putting others first; instability is being replaced by a stable, Word of God based faith; unforgiveness, bitterness, and resentment are being replaced by love, etc.

Instead of seeing the obvious flaws and being upset with others and their lack of “spirituality” today, let’s pray for each other today that this process of change from inside to outside would be completed in one another! We’re morphing!

                     

Prayer Determines How Much God Can Work In Life!

Pray at all times (on every occasion, in every season) in the Spirit, with all [manner of] prayer and entreaty. To that end keep alert and watch with strong purpose and perseverance, interceding in behalf of all the saints (God's consecrated people) (Ephesians 6:18-20 - Amplified).

  

Religious ideas block the importance of prayer. The ones I’m speaking of are the ones that tell you that God is in control of everything. And yes, in His sovereignty He is in control of the full scope of things from beginning to the end. But for now, because of Adam’s failure, he has ceded control to us. Adam’s dominion (Genesis 1:26) was given to Satan when Adam failed. Satan became the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4; John 14:30; 1 John 5:19), which means for a limited time in the scope of eternity, Satan has a legal right to steal, kill, and destroy on earth.

  

Due to Adam’s disobedience and subsequent transfer of legal, God-given authority to Satan, God must obtain legal permission through prayer to invade our circumstances. It’s obvious that God’s will is not being carried out in much of life. It’s not His will that divorces occur, that children are abused, that people are maimed or killed in wrecks and disasters, that wars ravage a nation, that churches split, that people are murdered, that crooks steal, etc.

 

Prayer is our invitation from the Father to once again invade our circumstances and bring change. Prayer is us using our legal authority in Christ to invoke God’s help in the intricacies of life. Prayer is giving God legal permission to work in a situation or individual. Without our asking in prayer, God is hindered in providing help.

 

So don’t buy into the religious notion that God is in charge of everything, so just let it happen! In prayer ask for His aid and help in every circumstance you encounter! We are laborers together with God!

 

Because praying in faith and praying in the spirit are such powerful weapons, the enemy seeks to keep the saints from praying. He usually does this by making them so busy that they just don’t fit prayer into their schedule. Don’t buy into this! Make time to pray!

 

I’ll leave you with some random quotes from E.M. Bounds book The Weapon of Prayer, pages 7 -12:

He rules the world as He rules the church, through prayer.

When the church is in the condition of prayer, God’s cause always flourishes, and His kingdom on earth always triumphs.

When the church fails to pray, God’s cause decays, and evil of every kind prevails.

God works through the prayers of His people, and when they fail Him at this point, decline and deadness follow.

Praying saints are God’s agents for carrying on His saving and providential work on earth. If His agents fail Him, neglecting to pray, then His work fails.

Praying agents of the Most High are always forerunners of spiritual prosperity.

How we estimate and place prayer is how we estimate and place God.

To give prayer a secondary place is to make God secondary in life’s affairs.

When Satan can keep us too busy to stop and pray, he has effectively disarmed us!

Some Insight Into Jesus' Words "Take My Yoke Upon You"

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest  ( relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.  For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good — not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne (Matt 11:28-30 - Amplified)

  

We are yoked with Jesus! When I’m in Ethiopia traveling south from Addis, I see oxen yoked together plowing in a field. Or we’re passing through a small town and I see donkeys yoked together pulling a cart. The yoke connects the oxen or donkeys by the neck and evenly distributes the load they are pulling.

  

The main deal is that the yoke will only work well if the oxen or the donkeys that are yoked walk in step with each other. If one stops, it hinders the other and they don’t get very far.

 

To be yoked with Jesus means that He is helping me with my load. If I fail to walk in sync with Him then I causing undue stress and I’m not taking advantage of the help He’s offering. He has much more power and ability than I do, so He brings to the yoke process the majority of strength. If I’ll just walk with Him by being a doer of the Word, then He carries the load and I have a carefree stroll walking along beside Him.

  

If I was yoked to a person weak and smaller than me, then I would be helping them carry their load! But every day, Jesus wants to be yoked with me as I work, as I relate to family, as I deal with finances, as I deal with children, as I minister. This produces a rest for me because someone else is helping with most of the task I’m involved with all day long! And the someone yoked to me is so much bigger than me!

 

Don’t resist the yoke that Jesus offers you today! His yoke is easy, and He will lighten the load. Act on His Word, speak the Word, fellowship with Him in prayer, and enjoy the stroll!