How to Receive the
Baptism of the Holy Spirit

I believe the number one reason why some Christians do not properly receive this gift when they try the above approach is because they have not been properly prepared to receive it.

To really receive this gift the first time you try asking and pressing in for it, you have to know exactly what it is you are receiving, and then you have to properly prepare yourself to receive it. Once those two things have been properly done, then it becomes very easy to receive this gift the first time you ask and press in for it. This is a gift that God wants all of His children to have, just like His gift of eternal salvation through His Son Jesus Christ.

I will first start off by explaining exactly what this gift is, and then I will show you how to properly prepare yourself to receive it. Once those two things have been done, I will then show you exactly how to receive it once you are ready for it.

What is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?

The first thing that you will need to know is exactly what this gift is. The Bible tells us that we will all receive the Holy Spirit at the moment of our salvation when we become saved and born again. The Bible also tells us that we are "sealed" with the Holy Spirit the minute we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

So if we have already received the Holy Spirit at the moment of our salvation, what is this "second" baptism of the Holy Spirit that the charismatics are talking about? The Bible tells us that there is only one baptism, one faith and one God.

To fully understand what is meant by the baptism of the Holy Spirit – you have to know what the difference is between your body, soul and spirit. The Bible tells us that we have three parts to our being – body, soul and spirit. Here is the verse specifically telling us this:

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

Your body is your physical flesh body. Your soul is located on the inside of your body. Your soul is who you really are. It is your total personality. Your soul is your mind, will, emotions and intellect. Your soul is spirit in form, which means it cannot be seen by any natural means. It is completely invisible to the naked eye.

On the inside of your soul is your spirit. The Bible refers to our spirit as being our "innermost being." I believe another word for our human spirit is "heart." When people refer to having had a broken heart in a broken romantic relationship, a broken heart is really a "wounded spirit."

I believe Jesus gives us a clue as to where our human spirits may be located at in our beings in the following verse. The New King James Version uses the word "heart", but the Original King James Version uses the word "belly."

"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart (BELLY) will flow rivers of living water. But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." (John 7:38)

When we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior at the moment of our salvation, the Holy Spirit comes and enters into our human spirits. Our spirits are baptized with His presence. This is the baptism that the Bible is talking about when it says that there is only one baptism.

However, what the charismatics are referring to is a second experience where the Holy Spirit now comes up and enters into your soul. Your spirit has been baptized with the Holy Spirit at the moment of your salvation, but God now wants to take it one step further. He now wants to baptize your soul with his Holy Spirit.

Another word that can be used for the "baptism" of the Holy Spirit where He will now enter your soul area is the "release" of the Holy Spirit into your soul. The Holy Spirit will release from your spirit to come up and enter into your soul.

I believe this is what Paul was referring to when he commands us to be "filled with the Spirit." If our spirits are already filled with the Holy Spirit at the moment of our salvation, what else needs to be filled up? It is our souls.

When you have received the second gift of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, you are now considered "Spirit-filled." Both your spirit and your soul are now filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus tells us in the above verse that out of our "belly" will flow rivers of living water, I believe that He may be telling us that our human spirits are located in our belly areas.

For those of you who have ever felt "heart pain" in a broken love relationship – if you will recall, the pain you were feeling was in your belly area. It feels like there is a knife on the inside of your belly area just tearing you up. Again, a broken heart is really a wounded spirit, and when your heart or spirit has been wounded or hurt, you will literally feel physical pain in your belly area.

1. The House Analogy

Another way to try to understand all of the above is what I call the house analogy. When you buy a house, you will get two things - the house and the front and back yards. The analogy is that your house is your soul and your front yard is your spirit.

When you receive God’s gift of salvation through accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit enters into your front and back yards, which is your human spirit. However, He now wants to go one step further and come into your actual house, which is your soul area. Why? Because this is where you really live at. You spend most of your time in the house as versus being outside in the front and back yards. Jesus says in the following verse:

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with Me." (Revelation 3:20)

I believe Jesus is not only telling us that He is literally going to come into our human spirits at the moment of our salvation with Him, but that He can also enter into our souls through the Holy Spirit. Even though Jesus is in heaven, He lives on the inside of us "through" the Holy Spirit.

Just as Jesus is living on the inside of us and making contact with us through the Holy Spirit, we likewise can make direct contact with both Him and God the Father through the Holy Spirit. It is "by, in and through" the Holy Spirit that we have direct access to both God and Jesus who live and dwell in heaven. Here are several good Scripture verses proving the above points:

a)  This first verse tells us that the Holy Spirit literally lives on the inside of each of us.

"Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16)

b)  Now that we know that the Holy Spirit lives on the inside of each of us, and that both God and Jesus live in heaven - watch how we make direct contact with both God and Jesus in heaven, which is through the Holy Spirit:

• "For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father." (Ephesians 2:18)
   
• "And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us." (1 John 3:24)

These two verses specifically tell us that we can make direct contact with both God and Jesus who live in heaven "by the Spirit." The second verse tells us that Jesus literally lives and abides in us "by the Spirit."

2. The Telephone Cord Analogy

Another analogy to understand how we can make contact with God and Jesus in heaven through the Holy Spirit is what I call the telephone cord analogy. We can pick up a telephone and call someone 800 miles away. Even though that person is physically far away from us, we can still hear their voice as if they were only two inches from our ears. It's as if that person is literally in our actual presence.

It is the same way with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Even though God and Jesus dwell in heaven and do not live on this earth, we can still make contact with the both of Them through the Holy Spirit. It is by, in and through the Holy Spirit that we can make direct contact with the both of Them - the same way we can make direct contact and talk to someone else 800 miles away because of the telephone wires that will connect us to the person that we are talking to.

The Holy Spirit is like the "telephone wire" that enables us to connect to and make contact with both God and Jesus in heaven. We can talk directly to God and Jesus as a result of having the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us, and both God and Jesus can also talk directly to us through the Holy Spirit as well.

Once the Holy Spirit comes up and enters into your soul as a result of having received this gift – you will be able to hear God much better and much clearer because the Holy Spirit has now moved up into where you really live at - your soul. This is why this gift is so important and so vital for all Christians to have.

I will end this article with all of the incredible benefits and blessings that you can expect to receive if you decide you want to take the plunge and receive this gift. These benefits and blessings are powerful and life changing - and they will completely change and transform the quality of your life.

3. Final Note

In order to properly receive this gift, there is a five step process that you must go through as will be described below. Before I go into these five steps and exactly what they will entail, I would like to state one more thing before leading you into this gift.

In my opinion, this gift is the second greatest gift that you can receive this side of heaven. The first greatest gift is the gift of eternal salvation - where you accept and receive Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. There is no greater gift than this one. With this gift you are truly born again into the kingdom of God and you will go straight to heaven when you die and cross over. This gift gives you permanent eternal life.

However, I believe that receiving the baptism or release of the Holy Spirit to come into your soul is the second greatest gift that anyone can receive while living down here on this earth. Just stop and think for a minute what is really happening when you do receive this gift.

You receive the Holy Spirit into your human spirit when you get saved. However, this gift will now take you one step further. This gift will now allow the Holy Spirit to release from your spirit to come up and enter into your soul. Your soul is who you really are. The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Godhead. He is God and Lord Himself.

Once the Holy Spirit releases to come up into your soul, you are going to be as close to Him, God and Jesus as you possibly can get while living down here on this earth. Through the Holy Spirit, you will have direct access, a direct connection to both God and Jesus in heaven. This gift is just going to bring you that much closer to the Three of Them due to the fact that He will now be residing with you up in your soul area. You will be truly Spirit-filled when this happens.

For some Christians, this may be a bit too scary. Many Christians are afraid of God and they would prefer to keep Him at a safe distance. This gift is really only for the true seekers. This gift is only for the those who are willing to completely lay down and fully surrender every area of their lives over to God the Father for whatever His purposes and plans are going to be for you in this life.

For those of you who do have this fear of God for whatever reason, I can tell you without any shadow of a doubt, that there is absolutely nothing to fear about either God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Once you really make direct contact with the three of Them, once you really feel Their perfect and unconditional love that They really have for you, any fears that you may have had in the past will completely melt away.

God will perfectly and gently handle you at your present level of spiritual development with Him if you decide that you do want to take this bold step and receive this gift. God will gradually work Himself and all of His ways into you so as not to overwhelm or scare you.

Remember - since God is totally perfect in His very nature and in all of His ways, this means you can completely and totally trust Him to perfectly handle you in your own personal relationship with Him. He has nothing but your best interests at heart.

How to Receive The Baptism of the Holy Spirit

To properly receive this gift, and to make sure that you really do receive it when first asking for it, there is a five step process that you must go through. If you properly prepare yourself by going through these five steps, then you will definitely receive this gift the first time you ask and press in for it. Here are the five specific steps.

1. Right Motive

The first thing you must have before asking God for this gift is the right motive. This one right here is where many Christians miss getting it the first time around.

Some people may want this gift because some of their friends may have just received it, or they want the gift of tongues or they want God’s power to be able to do their will rather than what God’s will is for their lives. In other words, they want this gift for their own selfish purposes rather than for what God wants to do with their lives.

The two main reasons that each Christian should want to have this gift for are the following:

• To be able to draw closer to God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in your own personal relationships with each of Them. The number one thing God wants from each one of us more than anything else is a one-on-one, intimate, personal relationship. Once you receive this gift, you will be able to draw that much closer to the Three of Them and They will then become much more active in your life.
  
  
• The second main reason that you will want this gift is so that you can have God's supernatural power flowing through you in order to accomplish whatever His will is for you in this life. This is where you can really enter into what is called the anointing. The anointing is the power of the Holy Spirit operating through you to accomplish whatever it is God wants you to do.

If God calls you to be a policeman, then He will anoint you with His power to be a great policeman. If God calls you to be a doctor, then He will anoint you with His power to be a great doctor.

In order for God’s anointing to really be able to properly flow through you, you have to receive this gift. You will have much more of God’s power operating through you if the Holy Spirit is residing up in your soul area rather than just down in your spirit.

Case in point was an evangelist by the name of Dwight Moody. Before Dwight Moody received this gift, he was just a "good" evangelist in getting people saved and led to the Lord. However, two older ladies at one of his meetings told him one time that he would get many more souls saved if he would receive this gift. They told him that he was lacking God’s full supernatural power – God’s full anointing when he was preaching.

After he found out what this gift was all about and then properly received it from the Lord, his ministry took off like a rocket! He led many more souls to the Lord than what he was doing before he had received this gift. I recall reading that after he had received this gift, he couldn’t believe the difference in his preaching and the results he started to get.

He said he was preaching the exact same messages that he had been preaching before he received this gift, but many more people would come up to the altar to get saved after he had received this gift as compared to how many were coming up before he received the gift. He said that the power of the Holy Spirit operating through his ministry dramatically increased after having received this gift. As a result, he ended up becoming one of the greatest evangelists of all time.

The difference was the anointing – and what got the anointing on his ministry was receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit!

Many Christians, after studying what this gift is all about, and realizing that God can release this kind of supernatural power in their lives, will seek after this gift for the wrong reasons. They will seek after this gift to get the power of God operating through them to use for their own selfish purposes.

Your first step is that you really have to examine yourself to make sure that your motives are right and pure. If they are not, then God will not release this gift to you. He will not allow His anointing to be tampered with or to be used for one’s own selfish purposes.

You have to want this gift because you want to be able to enter into a much deeper, personal relationship with God - and that you will need His power and anointing to be able to flow through you so that you can fully accomplish whatever it is He wants you to do for Him in this life.

God will be able to read right through your thoughts and motives on this. If you are not sincere, or you are seeking this gift for all of the wrong reasons, God will see right through your impure motives and withhold this gift from you until you can come to Him for the right reasons and the right motive. So the first step – the first requirement – is that you make sure that you properly examine your motives as to why you are seeking after this gift.

If you can honestly say that you really want this gift for the above right reasons, then you are now ready for step two.

2. Decide If You Really Want It

Once you have examined your motives, and you know that you can approach God with the right reasons and right motives for wanting this gift – then the next step is to decide if you really want this gift.

This may sound a bit redundant, but it isn’t. This gift is only for those who want to go all out for God. It is only for those who are willing to put the pedal to the metal for God.

If God is going to allow the Holy Spirit to release up into your soul area, then He is going to want you to do something with it. God has a specific call, a specific purpose, and a specific plan for each person’s life. If God allows the Holy Spirit to release up into your soul area, then you are going to have God’s power available to you to do what He wants you to do with your life.

If you are not willing to be used by God for whatever He wants to use you for in this life, then His anointing is just going to be wasted and He will more than likely withhold this gift from you. Again, this is another reason why God may not release this gift the first time someone asks for it. This person does not really understand the ramifications and responsibility that comes from receiving this gift.

If you are not willing to go all out for the Lord in this life, then you will be wasting both your time and His time asking for this gift. Many Christians, after really realizing the responsibility and ramifications that come with this gift, really do decide not to press in for it because they know they cannot give God a full and unconditional commitment to fully serve Him.

Some Christians are also afraid to get to close to God in their own personal relationships with Him. This kind of unhealthy fear will also prevent you from being able to receive this gift.

These first two steps – having the right motive and really wanting this gift – will be the main determining factors as to whether or not you will receive this gift when you try asking for it the first time. If your motives are not right, or if you are not sure that you really want this gift and the responsibility and ramifications that will go with it, then chances are, you will not receive it.

This is why many people do not initially receive this gift when they first go up for it at the altar calls at their church. They have not been properly prepared as to what this gift is really all about, nor have they been properly prepared as to what God will expect from them if He should release this gift to them.

If you decide that your motives are right and pure, and that you really do want this gift and are willing to accept the responsibility and ramifications that will come with it - then you are now ready for step three.

3. The Full Surrender

Once you realize what this gift entails and that you will have to be willing to fully submit and fully surrender to whatever God’s will and plan is for your life – then the next step is to take that big leap and fully surrender everything over to God the Father. What God wants from you are four things:

• your body
• your soul
• your spirit
• your entire life

He wants all three parts to your being – body, soul and spirit. If you notice in the above verse at the top of this article – 1 Thessalonians 5:23 – God wants to sanctify you completely – spirit, soul and body.

The fourth thing that God will want from you is your entire life – and this will literally include everything. It will include who you will marry if you are single, what your call or calls are going to be and what jobs you will be taking in this life.

In the Bible Basics section of our site, we have another article titled "The Full Surrender." In this article I give you all of the powerful Scripture verses proving and showing to you that this is something that God the Father really wants from each and everyone of us.

If you are not willing to make a full and complete surrender of your body, soul, spirit and your entire life over to the Lord – then He will probably not allow this gift to be released to you. The full surrender prayer will be included in the final step where you will pray and ask God to release this gift to you.

If you can now say that you really do want to receive this gift and that you have no fear in receiving it - and that you will be willing to fully surrender every aspect of your life over to God the Father, then you are now ready for step four.

4. The Full Cleansing

Before asking God to allow this gift to be released in you, I feel every Christian should be willing to go through what I call a full cleansing. What this entails is that you simply confess any sins that you may have that have not already been confessed and forgiven under the Blood of Jesus.

For those of you with a Catholic background, it would be like going to confession before receiving communion. Imagine if you got a message from God the Father and He told you that He was going to send Jesus down to visit you at your house on a specific date. What would be the first thing that you would want to do? You would want to clean your house from top to bottom. Everything would be properly dusted, the carpets vacuumed, everything put away in a nice and neat orderly fashion, etc. Why? Because you would want Jesus coming into a "clean house" to visit you.

The same analogy can now be used with the Holy Spirit. Since this gift is receiving the presence of the Holy Spirit up into your soul area – the first thing you are going to want to do is to make sure that you have a "clean house" for Him to come up into. Your soul is your house. So how do you clean your soul up in order to properly receive His presence up into your soul? By fully confessing every known sin that you haven’t already confessed yet. You want a "clean slate" in order to really be able to receive Him up into your soul.

There are two parts to properly do this and they are as follows:

1.  The first thing that you will want to do is take about 2-7 days to really do this right. Get a pen and piece of paper and write down any sin that you still have lingering on you that you know that has not been fully confessed before God the Father to receive His forgiveness for. Once you write down everything you can think of, then ask God to show you any other sins that you may have in you that you may not be aware of that may be sins in His sight.

Many of us have hidden sins that we are not fully aware of that really need to be confessed and washed clean under the Blood of Jesus. You may be holding unforgiveness towards someone and God is viewing this as a sin, but you are not. You are not aware that this is a sin in His sight.

Be sensitive to any sins that the Holy Spirit may bring up to your mind’s attention over the course of about 2-7 days. Give God that long to reveal any hidden sins that you may have in you that you may not be aware of.

After you have written down everything that you feel is a sin in His sight, then simply go to God in prayer and confess each one of these sins as a sin, and then accept His full forgiveness for each of these sins. Here is a sample prayer that you can use to make sure that you do this right:

"Father,

I now come before You to fully confess my sins of (the name of each of your sins). I fully admit that what I have done was wrong and sinful in Your sight. Father, in Jesus name, I now ask that you please forgive me and wash away all of my sins by the blood that Your Son Jesus has personally shed for me on the cross. I ask by the power of the Holy Spirit that you give me the power not to do any of these specific sins ever again.

Father, I now believe that I have been fully forgiven and that my sins will no longer be remembered by You.

Thank you Father.
Thank you Jesus."

Here is the Scripture verse backing up the above prayer and confession:

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

Notice that we have to first confess our sins directly to Him before He will forgive us on each of our sins.

2.  The next and final step is to then deal with any type of heavier sin that you may have in your past. And here is where I need to give each of you a major warning.

Any previous "heavier" sins such as alcohol or drug abuse, any involvement in the occult, any involvement in a cult or false religion, or any involvement in a homosexual lifestyle – these types of sins must not only be confessed – but they must also be renounced before God the Father.

When you fully renounce something before God the Father, you are telling Him that you will never, ever go back to that activity again. All of these heavier sins have one major thing in common – they are all major door openers to the dark side – to Satan’s realm where he and his demons roam.

Some people will get demons attached to them as a result of engaging in one or more of the above activities. If you do not confess and renounce these types of activities before God the Father – then the demons who may have attached themselves to you as a result of engaging in one of these activities still have a legal right to stay attached to you.

If you do not confess and renounce these types of heavier sins before God the Father, then what could possibly happen is that a demon will enter into your soul area when you ask for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit rather than the Holy Spirit entering up into your soul area.

There have been documented cases of this happening, all because the person was not properly prepared before trying to receive this gift! And once that demon or demons enter into your soul area, then you are going to have to get them cast out of you by way of an actual deliverance!

So make sure that if you have had any past involvement in any of the above mentioned activities, that you both confess and renounce that sin before God the Father, and then go ahead and speak out loud to any demons that may have become attached to you to now leave you in the name of Jesus Christ - since their legal right has now been taken away from them with you confessing and renouncing this heavier sin before God the Father.

Here is a sample prayer and how to properly do this:

1.  "Father, I now come before You to fully confess my involvement in (name the sin activity) as a sin. In addition to confessing it as a sin, I now wish to fully renounce my involvement in (name the sin). Father, in the name of Jesus, I now fully renounce my involvement in (name the sin) and I promise and vow to you that I will never, ever return back to it again."

Now you will need to speak directly to any demons that may have become attached to you as a result of engaging in this past activity. This next part needs to be said out loud since demons cannot read your mind or thoughts.

2.  "I now come against any and all demonic spirits that may have become attached to me - either on the inside of me or on the outside of me as a result of my engaging in (name the activity). I have now fully confessed and fully renounced my involvement in (name the sin) to God the Father and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

My past transgressions in this activity have now been fully forgiven under the blood of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You no longer have any more legal rights to stay attached to me in any way, shape or form. My sin has now been fully forgiven and washed completely away by the blood of Jesus Christ.

I now plead the blood of Jesus Christ against each and every one of you. All of your legal rights have now been completely broken and taken away. You no longer have any more legal rights to stay attached to me.

Demons, I now command you, in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to leave me right now and forever more - and you are to never, ever come back on me again. I repeat, each and everyone of you is to leave me right now in the name of Jesus Christ! Go now - in the name of Jesus Christ!"

If you have drawn any demons in on you as a result of any participation in any of the above activities – then the above confession, renouncement and engaging directly with the demons should take care of the problem.

One final note – when I say any involvement in the occult, I mean any involvement whatsoever. If you have played with a ouija board even one time, if you have gone to a fortuneteller even one time, if you have been hypnotized even so much as one time – you need to go ahead and go through the above cleansing just to make absolutely positively sure that you are clean and free of any demonic spirits before asking for this gift. It is much better to be safe than sorry on this.

I am going to go ahead and list some of the occult activities that will need to be confessed and renounced before God if you do want to press in for this gift. Any involvement in any of these activities need to be fully confessed and fully renounced before attempting to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. These activities are as follows:

1. Fortunetelling of any kind
2. Tarot Cards
3. Ouija Boards
4. Séances and any involvements with mediums or spiritists
5. Astrology and any form of horoscopes
6. I Ching
7. Hypnotism
8. Transcendental or any type of far eastern meditation
9. Witchcraft
10. Satanism
11. Voodoo
12. Channeling of any kind
13. Astro projection
14. ESP
15. Dungeons and Dragons
16. Any New Age techniques or activities
17. Necromancy

If you are willing to pass all of the above four steps - then you are now ready to receive the baptism or release of the Holy Spirit to enter up into your soul.

If your motives are right and pure, if you have decided that you really want this gift, if you are willing to make a full and complete surrender of your body, soul, spirit and turn your entire life over to God the Father and are willing to properly go through the above cleansing process in order for the Holy Spirit to have a clean house in which to enter into – you are now really ready to receive this gift and it will now become very easy for you to do so. The hard part is now over.

I really feel that the reason many do not receive this gift when trying to get it quickly at a church service is that they simply have not been properly prepared to receive it. The above four steps will properly prepare you to receive this gift if you are honest with yourself when you complete these four steps.

5. Prayer to Receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit

If you have successfully completed steps 1-4, then the only thing left to do is simply to go to God the Father in prayer and ask Him to allow the Holy Spirit to release up into your soul. It really is that simple. You do not have to go into any type of major travailing or prevailing trying to get God to release this gift to you.

Any travailing or prevailing would have been done in steps 1-4 where you had to make a personal decision with yourself as to who is going to run your life – you or God. You may have also wrestled with the Lord on going through the cleansing process in reference to some past or hidden sins that He wanted you to confess as sins in order for your house to be clean enough to allow the Holy Spirit to enter into your soul.

If you have successfully passed those steps on the full surrender, having the right motives and allowing God to clean you up on the inside with any sins that He wanted confessed, forgiven and washed completely clean under the Blood of His Son, then the hard part is now over. This gift will then be released to you by way of just a simple prayer and request to God the Father. Simply ask Him in a prayer request and you will receive this gift. This gift is then accepted by simple faith and belief.

Here is a simple basic way that you can word your prayer to God the Father to receive this most glorious gift. Notice in the prayer that you are agreeing to make a full and complete surrender of your entire life over to Him.

"Father,

I believe that I am truly saved and born again. I believe that all of my sins have now been fully forgiven and washed clean under the Blood of Your Son, Jesus Christ.

I now, by an act of my free will, turn my entire life over to You. I now place my body, my soul, my spirit and my entire life into Your hands. I now ask that You place and enter me into Your perfect will for my life.

Father, I now want to go one step further. I now want to receive the Baptism of your Holy Spirit – the release of your Holy Spirit to come up and enter into my soul from my spirit.

Father, in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, I now ask that you allow the Holy Spirit to enter into my soul. Father, from this moment on, by an act of strong faith and belief, I am going to believe that the Holy Spirit has now entered into my soul – regardless of whether or not I feel anything.

Thank you Father.
Thank you Jesus."

What completes this prayer request is your faith and belief that God has now granted it. If you have passed steps 1-4, then there is no reason for God to withhold this gift from you and you can now start walking believing that the Holy Spirit has now entered into your soul.

What you will need to do now is to start to establish a direct, personal, one-on-one relationship with the Holy Spirit Himself just like you have with God and Jesus. Seek to establish a Father-child relationship with God the Father and a best friend relationship with both Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

The apostle Paul tells us that we can enter into a personal relationship direct with the Holy Spirit Himself. Here are two good verses giving us this revelation:

• "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all." (2 Corinthians 13:14)
  
  
• "Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit …" (Philippians 2:1)

These two words above –"fellowship and communion" – tell us that we can enter into a personal relationship direct with the Holy Spirit Himself!

The word "communion" means to have a direct partnership with someone, to share with someone, to have fellowship with someone. These two words spell one thing - personal relationship!

What will really kick this gift into full operation is for you to start to establish a direct, one-on-one, personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. Simply start talking to Him like you would a best friend. He is right there on the inside of you.

What is the Evidence of Having Received
the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?

When you first receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, one of three things may happen:

1) The Gift of Tongues

Some of you may get the gift of tongues right off the bat. If you do, that is great. You have just been given a powerful prayer gift from God and you can now start to use this gift in your prayer life.

However, I want to state one thing about the gift of tongues in reference to the gift of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There are many charismatic churches that teach that the gift of tongues is the only evidence of having received this gift. In other words, if you have not received the gift of tongues, then you have not received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

I personally believe that this teaching is really, really wrong. The Bible specifically says that the gift of tongues is one of the 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit and that each of these gifts - including the gift of tongues - are manifestations as God wills, not as we will! In other words, some people get the gift of tongues and others do not!

Here is what the Bible says about the 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit which includes the gift of tongues. 1 Corinthians 12:4 goes into each of the nine gifts. At the end of this verse, it then reads as follows:

"But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills."

This verse tells us that God gives each of these gifts to who He wills – not as we will. We can seek after these gifts and ask God for them – but God will be the One to decide who gets what. Some people have a mental block or fear about receiving the gift of tongues. God is not going to hold someone back from receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit just because someone is not really ready to receive the gift of tongues.

I know plenty of Spirit-filled people who do not have the gift of tongues. Charismatics like to draw this conclusion from the story of Pentecost. When the apostles first received the Holy Spirit in the upper room, they came out speaking in other tongues. But just because they came out speaking in tongues the first time they received the Holy Spirit does not mean that God was setting a specific pattern that the gift of tongues was the initial evidence of having received the Holy Spirit.

Scripture has to be interpreted in light of other Scripture. If their conclusion is correct, then it does not line up with the above verse on the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit – where each of the 9 gifts are given as how God wills, not as we will – which will include the gift of tongues. The gift of tongues is not listed as an exception to this statement.

I have read many stories of how some people thought that they had not received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit – all because they had not received the gift of tongues – when in fact they had already received it. This kind of false teaching can really mess with your mind if you are seeking after the Baptism of the Holy Spirit expecting to receive the gift of tongues as the initial evidence of having received this gift.

2) Some Kind of Manifestation

Some may receive an actual inner manifestation from the Lord when first receiving this gift. Some will actually feel the presence of the Holy Spirit on the inside of them. He will actually manifest His presence on the inside of their souls when He first comes up.

If this should happen to you, what you will literally feel is God’s love for you. Depending on how strong the Holy Spirit wants to manifest Himself to you, you may actually start to cry when this manifestation starts to occur.

If this should happen to you, do not be afraid of it. This is an incredible experience to be able to feel the manifest presence of God on the inside of you. The Holy Spirit will control the manifestation so as not to scare or overwhelm you. You may literally feel His presence manifest all the way up into your chest and face area.

3) Absolutely Nothing

If the gift of tongues does not manifest in you or you do not receive any type of inner manifestation from the Holy Spirit when He first enters into your soul – then the next thing that may happen is absolutely nothing! And this is what actually happens most of the time. There are no manifestations, either of His presence or with the gift of tongues.

However, just because nothing has happened does not mean that He has not entered into your soul. So how do you know that you have really received this gift?

This will lead us into the last section – the benefits of having received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. You should start to receive and experience some of these benefits over the course of time. It may not happen overnight. However, just be patient with Him. Over the course of time – He will start to miraculously show Himself to you in a wide variety of ways.

Here is a list of some of the things that you can look forward to receiving after you have received this gift.

The Benefits of Being
Baptized in the Holy Spirit

I could do an entire article on each one of these benefits, but to keep this particular article concise and to the point – I will just touch briefly on each of the things that you can expect to possibly happen to you. I will be touching more on these benefits and blessings in future articles.

One last thing before I start listing each of these incredible benefits. In order to get any of these benefits to be fully released to you – you will have to do your part in all of this. You will have to seek to establish a close personal relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And you will also have to spend some kind of regular quality getting to know more about Them and all of Their ways by studying the Bible.

The Bible says that God will give back to us with the measure that we use. In other words, if you want God to give you 100% from His direction - then you have to be willing to give Him 100% from your direction. Seek – and then you will find. Ask – and then you will receive.

If you do not seek – then the reverse is also true – then you will not find. I believe there are spiritual laws that are in operation in God’s realm - and God simply will not put forth any effort to show Himself to you in a wide variety of miraculous ways unless you are willing to do your part by pressing in and start to seek after Him.

Do your part, and watch what God will do in your life – especially after you have received the gift of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit! Here are some of the major benefits and blessings that should start to happen to you over the course of time.

1. Deepen Your Personal Relationship With God

As stated above, when you receive this gift, the Holy Spirit will then be able to draw you that much closer to God and Jesus since He is now living where you really reside at – your soul. Since you will now be much closer to the Holy Spirit as a result of Him filling up into your soul – you will now be that much closer to both God and Jesus, since access to Them is made by, in and through the Holy Spirit.

2. Hunger for the Word of God

Since you will now be brought much closer to the Three of Them as a result of having received this gift, the first thing the Holy Spirit is going to want to do with you is to increase your knowledge base about the Lord. When you enter into a true personal relationship with someone, the first thing you will want to do is to find out everything you can about them.

The Bible is the only true and accurate source we have down here that will teach us about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and all of Their ways. So the first thing the Holy Spirit is going to want to do is draw you into the Bible so that you can start to learn more about the Three of Them and all of Their ways. He will actually put a desire and a hunger in you to want to study the Word.

3. Understanding the Word of God

Not only will the Holy Spirit give you a major desire and hunger for the Word of God, but He will also help you understand what you reading from the Bible so that you can start to get some of these incredible truths worked into your personal life. Many Christians, especially newborns, don’t understand or comprehend half of what they are reading when they first try to study the Bible.

You will find that the Holy Spirit will start to illuminate your mind as to what certain Scripture verses mean and how they can apply to your daily life and walk with the Lord. This is supernatural revelation and illumination that will come directly from Him.

4. The Anointing

With you now being Spirit-filled up into your soul area – you will now be in a better position to receive God’s anointing on your life. The anointing is the power of the Holy Spirit operating through you to accomplish whatever God wants you to do for Him. It will be God’s supernatural power flowing through you, not your power. Your powers are limited, but God's power are not!

You will have God's anointing and power to be the best at whatever He will call you to do for Him in this life. If God calls you to be a doctor, then you will have His supernatural power and anointing operating through you to become a great doctor, not just an average doctor. This anointing will not only come on whatever your job or jobs are going to be for Him in this life, but this anointing will also fall on other areas of your life.

If you are married, then God’s anointing will be on you to enable you to become a much better spouse for your mate. If you are a parent with children, then God’s anointing will be on you to be able to be a very good parent for your children. God’s anointing will also fall on your personal relationships that you have with other people.

If you are open to receiving His full anointing in your life – there is no area of your life that He will not come into to give you a helping hand. The Bible calls the Holy Spirit the "Helper," and He can help you in every area of your life – no matter how small or trivial the task or issue may be.

The Holy Spirit will also help in establishing priorities in your life and help you with properly organizing things that need to get done on a daily basis so that you can fully accomplish everything that needs to get done on that daily basis. In other words, He can help make your life a lot less stressful and a lot easier to manage if you can learn how to follow His leadings.

5. Improve Your Prayer Life

The Holy Spirit will help make you much more effective and much more powerful in your prayer life to God the Father. You will learn how to "pray in the Spirit," which means that both you and Him will be praying to God the Father on the same request at the same time.

With His presence and power mixing in with your prayer efforts, you will find yourself starting to get more of your personal prayers answered. You will also start to feel and sense a much stronger connection to God the Father when you do go into prayer with Him.

The Holy Spirit will also help guide your prayers so that they are properly worded to the Lord, along with showing you the different types of prayer strategies you can take with God the Father in order to help increase your chances of getting more of your personal prayers answered!

6. The Holy Spirit Will Start To Teach You Things

The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit will "teach us all things and guide us into all truth." The Holy Spirit has been set up by God the Father to be your Teacher and Guide in this life. He will help teach and guide you through every area of your life if you are open to receiving this from Him.

I could write an entire article just on this one topic alone with all of the incredible, wide variety of ways He will use to start teaching you with. It never gets boring with the many ways that He does use to try and teach you different things. I will be doing additional articles in the future on the different and specific ways that He will use to teach you things.

The Bible tells us that those that are led by the Holy Spirit are the true sons of God. This is a Spirit-led life. The Holy Spirit will teach you how to be led by Him so that you can get to where the Lord wants to lead you to.

7. Renewing of Your Mind

The Bible tells us that we are transformed by the "renewing of our minds." God wants to put right thinking into our minds. The Bible gives us all of the information that we will need for this renewal to take place.

However, the Holy Spirit is the One that will really help you out in incorporating everything you read in the Bible. It is the Word and the Spirit working together that will cause this renewal to take place in your mind.

8. Sanctification

God’s ultimate and highest aim for all of us is our sanctification in Him. He wants to mold, shape and transform us into a better and more holy people. He wants to transform us into the express image of His Son Jesus Christ. Again, this is all done through combining both the Word and the Spirit together.

We read in the Bible what God wants us to be like. He wants us to be loving, good, gentle, kind and humble people. However, the Word by itself will not get the job done. The Word gives us the knowledge of what God is expecting from each one of us – but the Holy Spirit is the One who will actually make us more loving, more gentle, more good and more humble. However, He will not do this for us unless we are willing to spend some kind of regular quality time in the Word learning exactly what God wants to teach us.

The Holy Spirit needs something to work with in order to be able to transform and sanctify us – and that something is knowledge – and knowledge is received by studying the Bible. This is why you need both the Word and the Spirit operating through you in order to really change you into the kind of person God wants you to become in Him.

9. Nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit

This will lead right into the next topic – the 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us that there are 9 specific fruits that come directly from the Holy Spirit. These are His fruits – not ours. The 9 specific fruits of the Holy Spirit are love, joy, peace, self-control, faithfulness, longsuffering, kindness, goodness and gentleness.

What this means is that His love, His goodness, His joy, and His peace will start to be worked and meshed into your personality so that you can then start to become a much more loving, gentle and kind person. After having received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit – these nine fruits will start manifesting into your personality much more quickly and much more powerfully!

The Holy Spirit will also be working some additional qualities into your personality such as the qualities of boldness, courage, confidence and passion. Jesus says in Revelation that He will spew you out of His mouth if He finds that you are too lukewarm. God is looking for passionate and intense people and the Holy Spirit will help to work these kinds of qualities into your personality.

10. Nine Gifts of the Holy Spirit

In addition to the 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit, the Bible also tells us that there are 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit. The 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit are the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, prophecy, the gift of tongues, the interpretation of tongues, the discerning of spirits, the working of miracles, the gifts of healing and the gift of faith.

Any one of these gifts will now be able to be manifested through you at any time to be able to help either yourself or someone else. I will be doing another article on this topic in the near future giving you more information as to exactly what each of these nine gifts are and how they operate. Just suffice to say for now, you will have a much better chance of getting some of these nine gifts to manifest through you after you have received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit than you did before you had received this gift.

11. Communication From God

After you receive this gift, you will be hearing from God with much more clarity and with much more frequency. God likes to supernaturally communicate to His children in a wide variety of ways.

The number one way is through the "inner knowing." Other ways are through the inner witness, leadings, quickenings (where the Holy Spirit will jump things at you), visions, dreams, signs in your circumstances, etc.

Again, this will be another article, but suffice to say, you can learn how to hear from God and the Holy Spirit will teach you how to do it. It is a skill which can be learned and taught.

12. Seeing Things More Clearly

One of the most amazing things that will happen to you over the course of time is that you will start to see things through the "eyes" of the Holy Spirit. You will start seeing things as God sees them – not as man sees them. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit will help guide you into all truth and one of the ways that He will do this is by allowing you to see things from His perspective.

You will start seeing the truth in the many different situations you will find yourself in. Not only will you start seeing the truth that is in the Bible, but you will also start seeing the truth in many different things and areas in your everyday life.

The Bible says that the truth will set you free. However, you first have to "see" what the truth is before that truth can start to work to set you free. The Holy Spirit will help make sure that you see what the real truth is on a wide variety of matters and issues in your life. Once you see what the real truth is on a certain matter, then you will know how to properly handle it.

13. Show You Things To Come

The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit will show us things to come – and that is before they come. The reason He likes to do this is so that we can properly prepare ourselves for something that may be coming down the road, whether it be good or bad. He will do this in a wide variety of ways. Again, this will be another article.

14. Help Increase Your Intelligence Levels

Since you now have the Holy Spirit operating up in your soul area – He can now help improve your intelligence level, which will also include improving your ability to remember things. He will help improve your memory and your ability to retain and remember things.

The Bible tells us that He will help bring back to our remembrance Scripture verses when we will need them on the spot. He can also do this with a wide variety of other things in your life - including helping you with your school work if you are still in school and with the different things on your job at your place of employment.

15. Help Increase Energy Levels and Physical Strength

Since the Holy Spirit is now living up in your soul area – He is going to be that much closer to your physical body. Your spirit is located on the inside of your soul. Your soul had thus been acting as a bit of a barrier between your spirit and body.

Before you had received this gift, the Holy Spirit was just living in your spirit. But now that you have received this gift, He is now living up in your soul area and right next to your physical body.

What that means is that His presence will start to overlap into your physical body. When that starts to happen, your physical energy levels will start to increase. Your physical strength levels may also increase due to the fact that His power may start to overlap into your physical body.

I have talked with numerous people who have reported that their physical energy levels had increased after having received this gift – and sometimes quite dramatically.

16. Will Help "Keep You"

The Bible tells us that the Lord is our "keeper." It is God’s job to "keep us" protected and from straying too far from the straight and narrow path that He wants all of us to travel on. With God becoming much more active in your life after having received this gift, expect God to communicate to you with much more frequency and with much more intensity if you should find yourself headed for trouble or too far off the straight and narrow road.

God will also help keep you centered and balanced in your walk with Him. Some people seem to get too far away from Him and end up falling out of balance with Him. They then start to become too flakey in their walks with Him. Once this starts to happens, they then do not make the best witness or representative for God when trying to witness to others. As a result, they end up chasing more people away from God rather than leading more people to Him.

After having received this gift, you will become much more sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leadings, and it will become much easier for you to read Him and stay properly balanced in your walk with the Lord.

17. You Will Become More Compassionate

With the Holy Spirit now living and residing much closer to you in your soul area, another thing that will start to happen to you is that you will start to find yourself having much more compassion and empathy for other people and their problems and pains.

You will start to feel God’s sorrow and pain for their conditions. The Holy Spirit will start to "tenderize" your heart, making it much more tender and compassionate. The Bible tells us that God will take out our heart of "stone", which is called a "hard heart," and give us a new heart of "flesh," which is a more tender and compassionate type of heart.

You will also find yourself being able to cry more easily than you have in the past - and this will go for grown men too. The Holy Spirit will help make you much more sensitive to other people’s feelings and emotions - sometimes almost to the point of actually being able to feel that person’s emotions, pain or grief to the same degree they may be feeling it.

18. Manifestations

After having received this gift, you will be open to receiving different kinds of manifestations from the Lord. Again, this will be another article. But many people are scared of this realm, and God will usually only show Himself in this way to the people that would really welcome it and not be afraid of it.

You can get "stirrings" on the inside of you, which are manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s presence on the inside of your soul and body. You can get the laughter from the Spirit on the inside of you which is God laughing through you.

Other manifestations would be getting goose bumps on your skin, getting drunk in the Spirit, getting slain in the Spirit, receiving what I call the "power shakes" - where the Holy Spirit will manifest His power on your physical body making a part or all of your body shake or tremble - fragrance manifestations such as the smell of perfume, roses or other flowers - visions, dreams, prophecies and supernatural signs in your circumstances.

Again, God will usually only do this for the people who are comfortable enough in receiving them. Do not let this supernatural realm scare you away from receiving this gift. The other benefits are too important and they are all needed in order for you to live a victorious and overcoming life in the Lord.

Conclusion

If you will really chew and meditate on all of the above benefits and blessings, you will see that they will dramatically change and transform the quality of your life. This is why I say this gift is the second greatest gift that God can give you down here on this earth!

With this gift, God will become much more active in your life and will start to supernaturally show Himself to you in a wide variety of ways. This gift is a major door opener that will take you from the dugout out onto the real playing field where the real walk with the Lord is at.

I will be doing more articles in the future going into much more detail on some of the items listed above.

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Sealed with the Holy Spirit

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Scripture taken from New King James Version.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005-2008 by Michael Bradley.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.