Received?

 “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” he asked them. “No,” they replied, “we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”  Acts 19:2....."Holy Spirit, I desperately need Your touch, Your voice, Your power. Fill me." Chris Tiegreen

Have you ever been asked the above question? If you have, how do you answer? If you haven't, then I have another; do you really understand what it is to receive and live in the fullness of the Holy Spirit?

The Person of the Holy Spirit has been misunderstood, ignored, forgotten, feared, and debated at great length by every segment of the professing church. Francis Chan wrote a book a few years back entitled, "Forgotten God," which dealt with the greatly diminished role of the Spirit has become in His church....and the great damage suffered by His church as a result.

Paul had come upon a group of believers in the city of Ephesus. This is key. They were believers. They had believed in Christ for salvation. He was present in their hearts and lives. Still, Paul asked them if they had received the fullness of His Holy Spirit since they had come to Christ. Their reply was that they didn't even know of the Spirit. I think their reply shows the state of much of the present day church in the west. We have believed in Jesus, but we walk and live in the power of our own strength and not His. We have never received, by faith, the fullness of His Spirit. His Spirit may be present in our lives, but not in His fullness, not in His power. And our lives reflect it by our up and down spiritual lives and the presence of so much weakness and defeat in our lives. The men, who Paul called disciples of Christ, had received the water baptism of the new life in Christ, but had never experienced the baptism of His Holy Spirit. In essence, what happened to the 120 in the Upper Room at Pentecost and to Paul after his experience on the Damascus Road, had never happened with them. They had not even heard of the Spirit. I expect that many if not all of us have, but are we, are you, living as if you haven't? Have you received and are you living in the fullness of His Holy Spirit since you first believed.....or not? What is the true vitality of your spiritual life?

In the walk of faith, there will come a time when we realize that try as we may, we just can't seem to live up to the call of Christ upon us to live a holy life. We want to and we try to, but we keep falling short. We're defeated more than we're victorious. What is happening is that the Father is showing us our need for the fullness of His Spirit to permeate every area of our heart and life. To be baptized in the fullness of His Holy Spirit. We know our need, and we seek His fullness in response to it. It is a desire that grows ever more powerful, and we cannot leave off until He responds by pouring out His Spirit upon and into us. We come to the place of praying a prayer like the one Tiegreen breathes in the above quote. We want desperately to be filled with His life and power, hearing His voice, and walking in His victory. We don't just want it, we must have Him. All of Him in all of His life. Are you at that place?

Today's writing barely scratches the surface of all the ways of His Spirit. I simply encourage you to entertain and dwell upon the question of whether you have received His Holy Spirit in power and are you walking in and living out the power of Pentecost? May you seek, desperately, for both the answer and His fullness. He will be faithful to answer and to pour out upon you as you do. He has been so since Pentecost. He will be so now.

Blessings,
Pastor O