In our recent Holy Spirit Rallies, I have sensed a strong prompting as I am preaching to spend time asking the question “Do you have an experience or a relationship with the Holy Spirit?”. I believe that this is one of the most important questions that I can ask believers today.
Here is what I find to be true. Many people today might be able to provide a date and occasion telling when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit. For some, their being baptized in the Holy Spirit might have been at a crusade or revival service back in xxxx. For others, this download from heaven might have happened when they were a child or youth attending a children’s or youth camp. No matter the occasion or year, my question to you would ask if your baptism in the Holy Spirit was an isolated instance that appears way back in the ancient pages of your life’s story or was it the beginning of a daily, fresh, ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit? For many, sadly the answer would tell that it was an isolated, one-time experience.
Let me give a scriptural foundation for this question. What would the world be like today if the outpouring of the Holy Spirit recorded in Acts 2 was just an incredible, miraculous, history-making event? If this was the case, there would be no need for Acts 3 and Acts 4 and Acts 5 and…. It would have been what I call the “Las Vegas” baptism – what happened in the upper room stayed in the upper room. But we read that the sending of the promise of the Father was the beginning relationship with the Holy Spirit and not a (to borrow from Looney Tunes’ Porky Pig) “That’s all folks!”, once-and-for-all experience. The upper room baptism was the beginning of a daily walk with the Holy Spirit that enabled them to radically impact the world.
Just one more observation. Have you ever noticed that this ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit is always mentioned in the present tense in the New Testament? Just to share a few examples…Jude 20 tells us “Building up…”. I get excited every time that I read in 1 Corinthians 14:2,4 “He that speaketh…”. Romans 8:26 reveals that the Holy Spirit “helpeth our infirmities.” This relationship is a right-now, present-day, hand-in-hand, side-by-side communion.
I am so dependent upon this ongoing relationship. To borrow a quote from Kathryn Kuhlman “Believe me, without the power of the Holy Ghost I am sunk”. (Benny Hinn’s Kathryn Kuhlman: Her Spiritual Legacy and Its Impact on My Life). Be filled and benefit from a daily relationship with the Holy Spirit!
Amen!! Everyday fellowship with wonderful Holy Spirit