Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit

Today you don’t have to study much, because we want you to take time to follow the simple instruction on how to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. If you need further help to receive by faith, you can talk to your teacher about it and ask him to lay hands on you to impart the Holy Spirit to you.

Jesus gives us very simple teaching about how we can receive the gift of the Spirit. When we see how the disciples were baptised in the Holy Spirit and how they helped the new Christians to experience this, we can expect the same to happen when we follow their example.

How to receive:

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water shall flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. (John 7:37-39)

1. Thirst –

Thirst - having a longing to receive all that Jesus wants to give you. It is he who baptises in the Holy Spirit and who desires/wants to give you something you need. He will also create a thirst for more of the power of the Spirit and he wants to fill you so that you overflow.

2. Come

Come to Jesus who baptises in the Spirit and ask. He who asks receives! “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13)

3. Drink

Drink - receive the blessing by faith. “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). We were all given the one Spirit to drink (1 Cor.12:13).

4. Let someone lay hands on you and pray for you.

When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. (Acts 19:6)

The laying on of hands is a sacrament - a means of grace - God has given Christians in order to pass on His power and blessing to others. When someone lays hands on you, they communicate the Spirit of God who dwells in them, to you. The laying on of hands can be a great help and blessing. (You, yourself, can begin to lay hands on people, pray for them and expect that God will bless them, fill them with his Spirit and make them well through your hands.)

When the Spirit comes over you and fills you as an answer to prayer and the laying on of hands, your speech organs will be stimulated to form new sounds and words as you submit yourself to his influence. Our own natural words seem insufficient to thank and praise the Lord as we should. The Holy Spirit leads and prompts us (but does not force us) to speak in tongues. This is a new prayer language that is given to us. Just allow the new language to flow naturally, even though you do not understand what you are saying, and speak to God directly from your spirit:

For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. (1 Cor.14:2)

Exercise:

Describe how you received the gift of Holy Spirit

Describe the blessings you have received by being baptised in the Holy Spirit

Continue to memorise the previous Scripture verses:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8)