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Acts 2: 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be
baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (NIV)
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How many Christians seem content with just “dipping a bit” into Jesus! God wants us to be fully immersed in Jesus; not sprinkled, not just a part of us dipped. When a person is immersed in water, you don’t even see the person much anymore - you mostly see the water. When we live as baptized into Christ, you don’t see so much of “me” anymore; you mostly see Jesus.* |
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Throughout the book of Acts, and elsewhere in
the New Testament, we see the gift of the Holy Spirit being bestowed upon
people in seemingly random manners. You can research it for yourself and see
that of course none of them really was random. God had his reasons in every
instance. But Peter’s Pentecost sermon seems to be the only place where we are
given the steps necessary to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit on demand:
Repent, and be baptized.
Why do we need the Holy Spirit? According to
Jesus, we need the Holy Spirit to fill Jesus' vacancy. Jesus was leaving the
planet physically but he was not abandoning his children. “I will not leave you
as orphans,” he said (John 14: 18). We may not fully understand it, but the
Holy Spirit is Jesus. Jesus is God. God isn’t three separate entities – there
are three separate entities that are God. Don’t overthink it!
The Holy Spirit has lots of duties to perform
in the life of the obedient believer. He comforts, teaches, reminds, testifies,
intercedes, directs, warns – to name a few. We can’t function as Spirit-filled
Christians if we aren’t Spirit-filled. There are those who would argue that God
is still in the business of randomly granting the gift of the Holy Spirit to
believers but I would have to disagree. Repent and be baptized in the name of
Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, Peter said, and you will receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit. Don’t overthink it!
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The Spirit is not in the fundamental nature of humans but is the supernatural gift of God, to be found in Christians only.* |
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