A Nugget from New Life Network
(excerpts from Dr. Larry Ollison)
Scripture for the Day – July 3, 2020
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!“ (Luke 11:13).
The Holy Spirit may seem a mystery to some people, but God’s desire is for His believers to know and understand the deep things of the Spirit. God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God (1 Corinthians 2:10).
Because of ignorance, fear, and tradition, many have chosen to ignore teachings concerning the Holy Spirit. Remember the final words of Jesus as He ascended into heaven from earth: You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you (Acts 1:8). Three days after His crucifixion, He was resurrected by the Spirit of God (Acts 10:40) and He placed His blood on the altar in Heaven. When His blood touched the altar, it completed the work of God and put into motion the continuing plan of God for the salvation, cleansing, and deliverance of man. At the moment the sacrificial Lamb of God placed His blood on the altar, all the work had been completed and man could receive Jesus as Lord and Savior by the simple act of confessing with his mouth the Lord Jesus and believing in his heart that God raised Him from the dead.
This may all sound too easy, but that’s because it is. All the work that needs to be done for a person to receive salvation (everlasting life) is to receive the work of the Lord Jesus. God loved us so much that He paid the ultimate price of sacrificing His Son so that all who receive His Son as Lord and Savior will be saved. John 3:16 says that God loved us so much that He sent His Son, so that whoever would simply believe in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. He did the work and all we have to do is receive His gift.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).
Believing and receiving is the method God has implemented for a Christian to receive everything that God has to offer. Receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is no different. Jesus clearly explained that the heavenly Father would give the Holy Spirit to those all who asked.
If you are a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you. Everyone in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost was a Christian and the Holy Spirit was living inside of them. They had already believed that God had raised Jesus from the dead and they had already been confessing it with their mouths, but a second experience occurred in the upper room and they received a power they didn’t have before. You can receive that same power in the same way. Jesus did not lie. He spoke the truth when He said if you ask the Father to give you the Holy Spirit, He will give you His Holy Spirit.
If you are a Christian who desires to be filled with the Holy Spirit, then all that remains is for you to ask and receive. You may ask, “But how do I receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit?” First of all, do not put God in a box and limit Him. In the Bible, the Holy Spirit was received several different ways. When Paul came to Ephesus, he encountered a group of believers that had not even heard of the Holy Spirit. After briefly teaching them, he laid hands on them. Immediately, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied (Acts 19:1-7). Another time, while Peter was preaching at Cornelius’ household, the Holy Spirit fell upon those listening, and apparently it was totally unexpected (Acts 10:44). On the Day of Pentecost, the 120 in the upper room were waiting and expecting when they were filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49). While all three of these events were different in nature, everyone received the same Holy Spirit and the same manifestation.
Jesus said if you ask the Father, He will give you the Spirit, and if you ask the Father for the Spirit, then you have received His Spirit. How do we know we have received? Because we have asked and God promised that if we ask, we would receive. When we can rest in His promise that His Word is true, the manifestations will follow.
