Is Your Tank Full? Series

IS YOUR TANK FULL?

There are 2 important events that take place in the bible concerning the

life of a Christian. The first, of course is the death of Christ for our sins and His

resurrection after 3 days in the grave. But many people may not realize what the

second event is. We concentrate so much on Christ’s sacrifice on the cross,

and His triumph over death for our sins, that we may not realize the importance

of this second event. Now I’m not trying to downgrade the importance of the

sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf, because without this glorious gift from

God, the second event would never have taken place. Christ died for us so that

we can have eternal life. He was nailed to a cross, and shed his blood for our

sins so that we may have eternal life. When we ask Jesus into our lives, and

ask for forgiveness for our sins, we are born into the body of Christ, becoming

one with our Lord. This is the joy that we have as believers, but without the

second event, the second gift from God, this joy would never do any good. The

second event, or gift, is the coming of the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, we

would be useless as Christians. It is both the sacrifice at the cross and the

coming of the Holy Spirit that defines our lives as Christians. The Methodist

church recognizes this. The symbol for our churches is the cross and the flame.

You cannot have one without the other. Yet as important as the Spirit is, He is

one of the most misunderstood beings of the trinity. Often we don’t even

associate the spirit as a being, or person like we do with the Father and Jesus.

To many, the work, the person and the ministry of the Holy Spirit are a mystery.

He has been referred to “IT” and the Holy Ghost. The other 2 members of the

trinity are much easier to understand. We have little problem relating to God,

our heavenly father. It is easy to understand the concept of a father since all of

us have had one. He is the person in charge, making the important decisions.

He is the one who cares for his family and provides for them. Jesus is not

difficult to identify with, because He was human. He had a mother and father,

just like we do. He was a flesh and blood person just as we are. And His

sacrifice for us draws us close to Him and gives us a special bond. But what

about the Holy Spirit? For a long time, I envisioned the Holy Spirit, or Holy

Ghost as we used to call him, as some mystical “thing” that I knew little about

and thought that only existed after Christ ascended into heaven. But the Spirit is

God, just as much as Jesus is and the Father is. A.W. Tozer in his book “The

counselor” says this: “Spell this out in capital letters: THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A

PERSON, He is not enthusiasm. He is not courage. He is not energy, He is not

the personification of all good qualities, like Jack Frost is the personification of

cold weather. Actually, the Holy spirit is not the personification of

anything........He has individuality. He is one being and not another. He has will

and intelligence, He has hearing, He has knowledge and sympathy and ability

to love and see and think. He can hear, speak, desire, grieve and rejoice. He is

a person.”

The Holy Spirit has always been present. From the beginning of time He

has existed. Both the Hebrew word for Spirit “roo’akh” and the Greek word

“pnyoo-mah” both mean breath. When we read Genesis 1:2-”And the Spirit of

God was hovering over the waters” Genesis 2:6 “....And breathed into his

nostrils the breath of life.” And hundreds of other passages concerning the

breath and Spirit of God. the Spirit of God and the breath of God are one in the

same. The 2 words are interchangeable. The Holy Spirit was a part of creation.

Adam became a living being because of the Holy Spirit. He has been around

forever. But until Christ came and died for us, He did not dwell within people.

We read throughout the old testament about persons who “were suddenly filled

with the Spirit”. In 1 Kings 18:46 we read about Elijah having the power of the

Lord come upon him and out running Ahab and his chariot. And in Judges 15:14

the bibles tells of the Spirit of the Lord coming on Samson in power, and how he

killed 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey. The difference between the old

testament people and those who receive the spirit today is that in the old