Baptism Of The Holy Spirit Is A Gift

If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” - Luke 11:13

Christianity was birthed in the Holy Spirit. Jesus our Lord taught it was essential to rely on and wait for the power of the Spirit. Sadly, we see many abuses of Spirit-led living in modern Christendom but this should make us all the more hungry for the true manifestation. We are impotent without the infilling power of the Spirit. When we have God in the midst everything changes. We will not be able to stay quiet, we will speak boldly for our Lord that bought us with such a great price. There is a vast difference between one that seeks for a Baptism of the Spirit simply for power and one that seeks to know the Lord intimately and desires to be His vessel, fully surrendered. One seeks God for what he can get, the other seeks Him for what he can give. There is a great need to see believers seeking God for God Himself and nothing else. Jesus Christ spoke of these whom God the Father seeks who will worship Him in Spirit and truth. One who worships God only out of a sense of obligation or reward is not a true worshipper.

One of the greatest reasons that God hesitates to pour out His Spirit on His Church is that we will not cherish the blessing. When someone has gone without food for many days a simple piece of bread is enjoyed immensely and cherished. In the same way God requires us to have a hunger for the things of God, and to pray and wait on Him. Such waiting and hungering after God produces in us a respect and value for the gift He is giving. The Holy Spirit is given by the grace of God, it is not earned by righteous deeds. Yet, God does require an obedient heart which desires God’s will and not its own. Some are just looking to get the power of the Spirit for their own purposes, their own kingdoms, their own ministries. So may we be renewed in our hunger and desire to wait before the Lord for this precious infilling of the Spirit of Christ. The true Baptism of the Spirit is given through personal abiding relationship with God. Being like a child before a Father and having that simple dependence and faith. God is always more willing to bless us than we can imagine. The evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is a spiritual boldness, a life of unselfish love and exaltation of the person of Jesus Christ.