Holy Spirit

Over the last year or so I have been  learning so much about Holy Spirit! I grew up in a southern Baptist church and was taught that He was part of the Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but past that I didn't have any real knowledge of His purpose or power.  As I have been studying and learning and experiencing, I am convinced He is vital in our lives!

In Acts 19, Paul is with a group of believers and has this conversation...

Acts 19:1-6 It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus, and found some disciples. He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said to him, “No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they said, “Into John’s baptism.” Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying. 

I felt like that was me!! Here I had been a follower of Christ for decades and had never heard about the job of Holy Spirit. There are so many chapters in Acts, and even in the Old Testament they prophesy about it, that the Holy Spirit will be poured out and come upon us. (Joel 2:28, Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Acts 13:52, Acts 1:5, Acts 1:8, Acts 2:38...and that's only a few!) Time and time again the Bible talks about having both baptisms, one of Christ for forgiveness of our sin, which I had, and one of Holy Spirit, for His power, which I did not have. It saddens me that somewhere along the way the church stopped teaching on Holy Spirit... Maybe they thought it was weird, or too hard to control, or unexplainable?  And it is, but I think the enemy is trying to strip the church of the one thing we need, Holy Spirit's power!

I hope that I have not completely lost you, and that you have not put me in a box with "those weird church people." Like I said, I have been wrestling with this for about a year. It is contradictory to what I was taught so I am having to take what I was taught and put it up against scripture and let Jesus speak truth over my prior knowledge.  In doing this, I feel like my relationship has changed a thousand times over just by asking Holy Spirit to come upon me and fill me with His power. For the sake of writing too long of a blog post, I will save my Holy Spirit Experiences for my next post.  But if you are curious, like I was, and have never been talked about Holy Spirit, I pray that you will ask God to show you. Luke 24:45 asks God to "open our minds to understand the Scriptures."  

I believe that this might be the key to bringing revival in our world; putting Holy Spirit back in the place where He was created to be! Not a whimsical vapor that floats around the earth, but a powerful all-knowing being that helps each one of us bring glory to God.