Repent, and be baptized every one of you in
the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive
the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:38
This week we have been talking
about sin and truth. We have learned
that we can avoid the truth by redefining it and we can twist things enough to
make our sin relative to our life so that we can justify it. However we are deprived of God’s forgiveness
when that happens. God wants us to acknowledge
our sin and ask forgiveness. That is the
first step in the process of ridding our lives of sin. After we have repented and asked forgiveness,
the bible tells us that we will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Today we are going to take a look at the need
to receive the Holy Spirit.
The Need for the Gift of God’s Spirit
What does it mean to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit? Is this a promise of being baptized in the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, being empowered by the Spirit, or being indwelt by the Spirit
What does it mean to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit? Is this a promise of being baptized in the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, being empowered by the Spirit, or being indwelt by the Spirit
The longer I meditate on those
alternatives the less I see reasons in the text to choose between them. My answer would be simply this: From the day
of your repentance and your identification with Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit
will be at work in your life as a gift.
If you truly repent and publicly profess the name of Jesus Christ
through baptism, the Holy Spirit will be given to you and will make a difference
in your life. From that day on you will have the Holy Spirit.
These are the two great needs that
we all have:
1. The
first is to be forgiven-to have all the violations and offenses and
transgressions and disobedience and sins cancelled out. Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be
as white as snow! Isaiah 1:18.
2. The
second need is to have God Himself come into our lives where sin once reigned.
We need a personal relationship with God through his Spirit. We need wisdom and
guidance and love and joy and peace and patience and goodness and self-control.
And we need extraordinary power for the task of local and world evangelization.
We need the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Scripture to Claim:
However, you are not in the flesh but in
the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not
have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, the body is dead because
of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus
from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also
give life to your mortal bodies [b]through His Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:9-11
