The Holy Spirit in His manifestation of Power is available to all who believe

Throughout the history of God's people, God has always moved by imparting His Power on chosen individuals to carry out His Work.

In the Old Testament these people were kings and prophets that God specifically chose for a task, they were also judges like the case of Gideon, and Samson, and others that God chose, endowed with His Power selectively to carry out a heroic and superhuman task .

In the new administration of the churches, however, what we see is that God makes His gifts and the anointing of His Spirit available not only to those kings and prophets and judges but to all believers. And what Scripture tells us is that: "The anointing of God is for everyone who believes" as the apostle Peter says in his first sermon on the Day of Pentecost.

He says in verse 39 of chapter 2 of the Book of Acts: "For the promise is for you, and for your children, and for all who are far away, for as many as God our Lord will call." And that promise of which the Apostle Peter speaks is precisely the promise of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit in His Power, in His manifestation of Power is available to all who believe, to all believers, and the desire, the purpose of God is that all believers, by receiving Christ as their Lord and Savior, also receive the move of the Holy Spirit to be a servant, a servant, a useful instrument to the Lord in carrying out the Great Commission, and carrying out the assignments that the Spirit of God wants to give to that believer.

So we have to understand this: many believers and they live a weak and ineffective life because they lack that experience, that impartation, that Power of the Holy Spirit. And many churches do not teach believers how to enter into that blessing of the Holy Spirit-filled life. They are not given moments when the anointing of God is imparted to them, when they are entered into the Pentecostal experience. So these very faithful believers, very loving of the Lord, but they don't know what the powerful move of the Holy Spirit is in that dimension.

And I remember a passage, it comes to mind now in the 19th chapter of the Book of Acts, where Paul meets some believers in Ephesus who do not know about that Pentecostal dimension of the life filled with the Holy Spirit. They have known Christ but they don't even know the Holy Spirit. Then Paul meets them, Acts chapter 19 verses 1 and 2, says: "Paul came to Ephesus and finding certain disciples" that is, these people already believed in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, "and finding certain disciples he told them : Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? "

Look at the apostle Paul's question here. Paul is saying: I know that you believed but it does not necessarily mean that you received the Holy Spirit. What does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit? In the Old Testament, receiving the Holy Spirit is a code term that means: you received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you entered that Pentecostal dimension of Christian life. It is possible for one to have received Christ as Lord and Savior but not be baptized in the Holy Spirit, and it is possible to have the Holy Spirit, I believe, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God that enters a person when he believes in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but not having the Pentecostal experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They are two different things.

I know that can be scandalous for many, but there are many believers who have the Spirit of God within them, but do not have the Pentecostal experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And that's what Paul is asking of them: did you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit when you believed?

And look what they answer. They said, "We haven't even heard if there is a Holy Spirit." These believers had received a basic teaching of the Christian life but they had not been discipled because there were still no methods and systems to indoctrinate believers, but many believers simply passed someone by their town or their village, spoke to them of Christ as the Messiah They accepted that Christ was the Messiah and then those people kept walking, and they just had a very rudimentary understanding of the Christian life.

So Paul meets one of these believers and wants to take them to a higher level, he realizes perhaps from the way they act that they have not had that more powerful impartation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And they say to him: look Paul, we didn't even know that there is such a thing as the Holy Spirit, we only know that Jesus is the Messiah, that's all.

Paul then asks them: "In what then were you baptized? They said: in the baptism of John." What was the baptism of John? baptism in water. John said: I baptize in water but someone comes who baptizes in fire and the Holy Spirit. So they had only been baptized in the baptism of repentance of water but not in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Then Paul tells them: "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who would come after him, that is, in Jesus, the Christ." See? he is clarifying. There is a baptism in water, there is an experience of repentance of sins, that is very good, but that is not all that he is saying; we are in 19 Acts verses 5 and 6.

In verse 6 it says: "And Paul having laid his hands on them" because one of the ways to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit is through the impartation of the hands of someone who has had that experience in his life, "having laid hands on them the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied, and there were about twelve men for all. "

When the apostle Paul lays hands on them, they are filled with the Holy Spirit, they are baptized in the Holy Spirit and in this case they speak in tongues, they prophesy, what does it mean that they prophesied? They were speaking mysteries, they were worshiping the Lord, they were speaking under the anointing and inspiration of the Holy Spirit because they had been filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So that's the idea.

We have to be very careful because yes, we have the Spirit of God, we are saved, we have repented, we have received Christ as our Lord and Savior, but we lack that Pentecostal experience and we have to seek it, and ask the Lord to fill us . That is why this doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is so important and that is why I have been taking so long to discuss it with you.

I hope that we can continue to discuss this wonderful doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit later. May the Lord continue to bless you.