ABUNDANT LIFE MINISTRIES

(From February 22, 2010)
The Power Within
John 14:17 declares, “The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” Wow…what a promise! I recently wrote an article about Obed-Edom that taught us that we are the temple of God, we are the literal dwelling place of the Spirit of the living God. The verse we just read confirms this fact. Jesus is speaking of the Holy Spirit and He said that the Holy Spirit will dwell WITH you and be IN you. I love the distinction here that say’s the Spirit of God will not only be with you on earth, with you on your job, with you while your ministering to a hurting person…but He will be IN you!

So, how do we get the Spirit of God IN us? Quite simply put, it is when you are saved, converted, born again. It is at this point that you become a new creation and the Spirit of God comes to dwell. This is an awesome and mind-blowing opportunity, but I am here to tell you today that there is more to be experienced! “More,” you may ask? Yes, more. Let me take you to John 20:21-22, this is after the death and subsequent resurrection of Jesus. Up until this point the disciples had not been able to experience the New Testament salvation that you and I are living in today, because Christ had yet to die for their sins, nor had He gotten the keys to death, hell, and the grave. While Christ spent His last few days on earth before He ascended to heaven to take His throne on the right hand of God, He spent time preparing His disciples. This passage shows the moment the disciples experienced salvation (like you and I), and indwelling of the Spirit of God, "So Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent me, I also send you." And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”

As I said before this is awesome, to receive the Spirit of God in your life, but Jesus said (paraphrased), “this is not enough.” Listen to this next interaction Jesus had with the same disciples (remember, Jesus has already breathed on them and they received the Holy Spirit) Acts 1:4-5 - "And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which, He said, "you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now". Do you see that? Jesus commanded them to go and wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is where you move from the INDWELLING of the Spirit of God in your life, to the INFILLING of the Spirit of God! This is when you go from powerless to powerful, this is when you go from not making a difference to be a witness in all the earth (Acts 1:8 - "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth").

I want to end this letter today bringing some clarity to being “baptized” with the Holy Spirit. We associate the word “baptized” with the experience we share in where we are submerged under water for a moment, then raised back up again a second later, representing us dying to our old self, our sin, and being raised up or born again, and made brand new. It is an awesome declaration of our commitment to Christ. We get our word “baptize from the word “baptizo” which means, “to immerse, to submerge, to overwhelm, to saturate.” The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C. It is a recipe for making pickles and is helpful because it uses both words. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be 'dipped' (bapto) into boiling water and then 'baptised' (baptizo) in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables in a solution. But the first (bapto) is temporary. The second (baptizo), the act of baptising the vegetable, produces a permanent change. Whew! Check that out! Once the cucumber is baptized (baptizo) in the vinegar it will forever be changed, it is now a pickle. Once the cucumber becomes a pickle, it can never again be mistaken for a cucumber, you don’t put cucumbers on your burger or hotdog, you put pickles on them. The entire makeup of the vegetable is changed once it is baptized in the vinegar, it can never go back again to its original state! This illustration shows us how we have the opportunity to be completely changed from the inside out. We won’t just appear different on the exterior but even more then that, we will be different from the inside. We will be full of the fruit of the Spirit, we will abound in love, we will walk with authority, we will experience miracles on a regular basis, our life will have meaning, our life will impact those around us, we will undoubtedly become NEW. Now do you see why Jesus made it clear we are to be baptized (baptizo) in the Holy Spirit? We are to be soaked in, submerged in, immerse ourselves in, and to be saturated in Him. When we do this we will never again be the same, it will be no more “church as usual” but “church UNusual” because we will get back to the ways of the early church that are found in the book of Acts.

I believe this is the reason so many people that come to the altar and give their heart to Christ end up either turning away again, or live, for the most part, ineffective Christian lives, because they have not been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Body of Christ, it’s time to recognize we need to be baptized in the power and life changing ways of the Holy Spirit!