The baptism of the Holy Spirit is essential for every believer. We are incapable of living in the liberty and abundance Christ Jesus came to give us without it. The Holy Spirit brings the needed radical life-change where our old nature is made new and we become the receivers and carriers of God’s love, joy, peace, and power in the world. The baptism of the Holy Spirit must be sought with a persistence by every believer until it is received.
We live in an era where many in the Church have set aside the need for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Some believe they don’t need it and depend instead upon their intellectual or other capacities. Some have been convinced the Holy Spirit is not active today, as if we need Him less today than Jesus and the first-generation church did. Others have been led to believe the activity of the Holy Spirit is not actually the Holy Spirit, but instead evil spirits and false lying signs from satan. This has led to a disempowered, impotent church. Many are satisfied with church this way, church without the presence and power of God, where people are dependent upon their own abilities, and minister from their own abilities.
I never want this.
We need the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We need to be filled with Him. We need our own Pentecost experience, and to keep having these experiences, and to keep being filled. Our personal spiritual life needs this, and all true spiritual ministry flows from this. We cannot truly serve Jesus without the Holy Spirit. We need the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Baptism means to be fully immersed, submerged, fully covered over, or overwhelmed. The Holy Spirit comes fully upon and into a person, overwhelming them, immersing them in Himself. It is a baptism of fire and spiritual power (Matt 3:11; Lu 3:16; Acts 1:8). When Paul wrote, “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:15), he used the Greek word πληροῦσθε which is properly defined: be fully filled, keep being filled, be filled increasingly and contiunally more. Baptism is not a one time event, the more we come before the Lord to seek Him and worship Him, the more we are filled.
This week, take time to read Acts 2. It is the testimony of the disciples gathered in the Upper Room after Jesus had ascended to Heaven. They waited and prayed, just as Jesus commanded them, “wait for the Promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4). The Promise came, the mighty Holy Spirit came and turned their world upside down.
He has been turning the world upside down ever since.
