THE HOLY SPIRIT AND HIS GIFTS 3
Good morning dear reader. I believe you had an amazing and peaceful night rest. I welcome you to a beautiful and fantastic Thursday. Today will be looking at the part 3 of this very educative, powerful, revelatory series. Please I urge you to go read the part 1 and 2 of this series, so you will understand better where we are coming from and follow us. Plus we have covered a lot of ground which I think will be a blessing to you.
15
15
KJV:If ye love me, keep my commandments.
KJV:And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
KJV: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.
KJV:I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. John 14:15-18
Well in our last two series we treated the name translations of the Holy Spirit to help us understand the personality of the Holy Spirit and appreciate Christ for giving Him to us as a gift. This morning I want to mainly treat on how one can receive the Holy Spirit. I have read alot of books on how you can be baptized with the Holy Spirit, receive His gifts, be empowered and become a terror to the kingdom of darkness and all that. And I truly commend the authors of these wonderful books. You see, as a kid I saw my dad preach and teach God's word and I envied that. I wanted to be able to do that. I yearned to be able to do that. Not just preaching but doing it so well that it strikes a cord in the hearts of men. Then I also noticed that when I woke up in the middle of the night I always heard my dad pray ( and he still does by the way) but he was praying in this strange language. I knew it wasn't my native tongue but I also desired it. So one day I asked him to teach me how to pray at night and in that foreign tongue. He told me he was able to do so because of the Holy Spirit. From that time I desired the Holy Spirit. I was eight years old when I got baptized with evidence of speaking in tongues. I was happy but I didn't see other gifts manifest and I wanted to know why. I wanted to be able to heal people, prophecy etc like I had read in the acts of apostles. Then I got to JSS 3, my c.r.s teacher told us that if we wanted to receive the Holy Spirit and be endued with power from above we should fast for three days because that is what she did that gave her the encounter. Trust me, been hungry for that encounter I did the fast. But painfully nothing of that sort happened. I cried and felt God didn't want me to have those gifts and I even began to the despise the gift of speaking in tongues and slowly my spiritual life began to dwindle. Thank God who in is merciful love decided to bring me to himself again.
I just want to point out some thing, I wish those of us who are entrusted with the teaching or preaching of the truths of the gospel avoid. Do not make the personal way God uses to train you a doctrine to people. Thereby making them feel like if they don't do them, they are worthy enough to be sons of God. Take for instance because God has told you that you should fast twice a week. Then you come to the pulpit and tell your congregation that if you don't fast twice a week you won't grow up spiritually. Well sir that is so not true. That is the way God has chosen to train you, He is training me differently. Don't put people under unnecessary burdens.
Now over to steps to follow to receiving the Holy Spirit. Please this isn't a doctrine, I hope to show you clearly from scriptures the right procedures to receiving the Holy Spirit.
1. Be truly born again:
To receive the Holy Spirit, the first requirement is for us to be born again. John 15:1-6. Without becoming a child of God, cleansed from your sins, repositioned to become the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus, you just can't receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God can't dwell in a filthy temple. So if you are reading this and you have not genuinely given your life to Christ then I encourage you to. You won't regret that you did. If you are reading this and you have desired to be baptised by the Holy Spirit and you meet this criteria then you have passed stage one. Congrats. But if you don't then I think you know what to do.
2. Hunger or truly desire Him:
Well I don't know how to explain that. But every christian I know who has been baptized with the Holy Spirit had genuinely hungered for Him. I daresay some were even obsessed about receiving Him. It came their number one prayer point, desire, essence of living. We have been taught that the apostles stayed in the upper room because they were afraid of been killed by the Israelites but take another look at scripture, Acts 1:15-26, the disciples may have been afraid yes but that wasn't all the reason. They were waiting for a promise and they were sure Jesus would fulfill and they proved that by picking another apostle to replace Judas Iscariot before the baptism. They were obsessed about receiving Him, they spent days and night praying and waiting. You too need to really hunger for Him. I still remember how much I desired to be baptised and filled with the the Holy Spirit.
3. Believe you will receive what you asked for:
I have heard some persons say some very funny things. After they have been prayed upon and been baptized by the Holy Spirit and he gives them utterance, they are afraid to break out in tongues because they think its an evil spirit that maybe speaking through them or they have become possessed with a demon. Matt 7:7-11. God won't give you an evil spirit if you ask for His spirit. He is not a wicked God.
4. You do not have to tarry :
Well this is a bone of contention for many Christians. They believe they have to fast and pray for 18 months or 3 days like my c.r.s teacher in the secondary school. But the truth is this. The Holy Spirit was sent on the say of Pentecost. God isn't going to send Him again because He is not caged. Look at acts 2:1-4 and acts 4:23-31. Do you see the difference. The apostles had to tarry to receive Him because that was the first time He was to be sent to empower and dwell in man (Acts 2:1-4). In acts 4:23-31, they needed strength and empowerment, they didn't need to tarry again, they only had to open up to receive him. He has been sent already. You just need to be saved, desire Him, believe you will receive Him and not another. Then expect Him immediately. If it wasn't true the house of Cornelius would have had to tarry before receiving the Holy Spirit. But mehn, theirs is a story of its own. One minute they were unsaved, the next they were saved, next thing they believed what apostle peter was teaching and bam bam, they were filled with the Holy Ghost, every single one of them.
No stress, no hustle.
If you will believe this. Then I pray for you who hasn't received this wonderful gift yet. This very minute be filled with the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in other tongues in Jesus name. Amen.
I hope you have been blessed by today's write-up. Read, be blessed, comment and share to your friends on any social media in your country. Join us again on Saturday as we continue the part 4 of this series. Like our Facebook page Espiritus Koinonia. The world is dire need of the word of God. Help us spread this Word. Have a splendid day. Shalom!
Well in our last two series we treated the name translations of the Holy Spirit to help us understand the personality of the Holy Spirit and appreciate Christ for giving Him to us as a gift. This morning I want to mainly treat on how one can receive the Holy Spirit. I have read alot of books on how you can be baptized with the Holy Spirit, receive His gifts, be empowered and become a terror to the kingdom of darkness and all that. And I truly commend the authors of these wonderful books. You see, as a kid I saw my dad preach and teach God's word and I envied that. I wanted to be able to do that. I yearned to be able to do that. Not just preaching but doing it so well that it strikes a cord in the hearts of men. Then I also noticed that when I woke up in the middle of the night I always heard my dad pray ( and he still does by the way) but he was praying in this strange language. I knew it wasn't my native tongue but I also desired it. So one day I asked him to teach me how to pray at night and in that foreign tongue. He told me he was able to do so because of the Holy Spirit. From that time I desired the Holy Spirit. I was eight years old when I got baptized with evidence of speaking in tongues. I was happy but I didn't see other gifts manifest and I wanted to know why. I wanted to be able to heal people, prophecy etc like I had read in the acts of apostles. Then I got to JSS 3, my c.r.s teacher told us that if we wanted to receive the Holy Spirit and be endued with power from above we should fast for three days because that is what she did that gave her the encounter. Trust me, been hungry for that encounter I did the fast. But painfully nothing of that sort happened. I cried and felt God didn't want me to have those gifts and I even began to the despise the gift of speaking in tongues and slowly my spiritual life began to dwindle. Thank God who in is merciful love decided to bring me to himself again.
I just want to point out some thing, I wish those of us who are entrusted with the teaching or preaching of the truths of the gospel avoid. Do not make the personal way God uses to train you a doctrine to people. Thereby making them feel like if they don't do them, they are worthy enough to be sons of God. Take for instance because God has told you that you should fast twice a week. Then you come to the pulpit and tell your congregation that if you don't fast twice a week you won't grow up spiritually. Well sir that is so not true. That is the way God has chosen to train you, He is training me differently. Don't put people under unnecessary burdens.
Now over to steps to follow to receiving the Holy Spirit. Please this isn't a doctrine, I hope to show you clearly from scriptures the right procedures to receiving the Holy Spirit.
1. Be truly born again:
To receive the Holy Spirit, the first requirement is for us to be born again. John 15:1-6. Without becoming a child of God, cleansed from your sins, repositioned to become the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus, you just can't receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God can't dwell in a filthy temple. So if you are reading this and you have not genuinely given your life to Christ then I encourage you to. You won't regret that you did. If you are reading this and you have desired to be baptised by the Holy Spirit and you meet this criteria then you have passed stage one. Congrats. But if you don't then I think you know what to do.
2. Hunger or truly desire Him:
Well I don't know how to explain that. But every christian I know who has been baptized with the Holy Spirit had genuinely hungered for Him. I daresay some were even obsessed about receiving Him. It came their number one prayer point, desire, essence of living. We have been taught that the apostles stayed in the upper room because they were afraid of been killed by the Israelites but take another look at scripture, Acts 1:15-26, the disciples may have been afraid yes but that wasn't all the reason. They were waiting for a promise and they were sure Jesus would fulfill and they proved that by picking another apostle to replace Judas Iscariot before the baptism. They were obsessed about receiving Him, they spent days and night praying and waiting. You too need to really hunger for Him. I still remember how much I desired to be baptised and filled with the the Holy Spirit.
3. Believe you will receive what you asked for:
I have heard some persons say some very funny things. After they have been prayed upon and been baptized by the Holy Spirit and he gives them utterance, they are afraid to break out in tongues because they think its an evil spirit that maybe speaking through them or they have become possessed with a demon. Matt 7:7-11. God won't give you an evil spirit if you ask for His spirit. He is not a wicked God.
4. You do not have to tarry :
Well this is a bone of contention for many Christians. They believe they have to fast and pray for 18 months or 3 days like my c.r.s teacher in the secondary school. But the truth is this. The Holy Spirit was sent on the say of Pentecost. God isn't going to send Him again because He is not caged. Look at acts 2:1-4 and acts 4:23-31. Do you see the difference. The apostles had to tarry to receive Him because that was the first time He was to be sent to empower and dwell in man (Acts 2:1-4). In acts 4:23-31, they needed strength and empowerment, they didn't need to tarry again, they only had to open up to receive him. He has been sent already. You just need to be saved, desire Him, believe you will receive Him and not another. Then expect Him immediately. If it wasn't true the house of Cornelius would have had to tarry before receiving the Holy Spirit. But mehn, theirs is a story of its own. One minute they were unsaved, the next they were saved, next thing they believed what apostle peter was teaching and bam bam, they were filled with the Holy Ghost, every single one of them.
No stress, no hustle.
If you will believe this. Then I pray for you who hasn't received this wonderful gift yet. This very minute be filled with the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in other tongues in Jesus name. Amen.
I hope you have been blessed by today's write-up. Read, be blessed, comment and share to your friends on any social media in your country. Join us again on Saturday as we continue the part 4 of this series. Like our Facebook page Espiritus Koinonia. The world is dire need of the word of God. Help us spread this Word. Have a splendid day. Shalom!
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