What
Does the Bible Say About
The
Gift of the Holy Spirit?
Acts 11:14-17:
"Who shall
tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved. And as
I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.
Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized
with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. For as much then
as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?"
God's gift
of the Holy Ghost is promised to us today and not just for the saints back
in the time of the early church, as we find Peter saying, "...Repent, and
be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission
of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise
is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as
many as the Lord our God shall call" (Acts 2:38-39). The Holy Ghost is
God's gift to us. As we are baptized in His Spirit we will find that we
will experience the gift of speaking in tongues, plus all the other gifts
when needed, if we continue to follow Him (1 Corinthians 12, 13 and 14).
These are God's gifts of power to enable us to accomplish the task to which
we have been commissioned. Although the gift has been abused by many, we
should not take lightly the Lord's words to us in John 7:37b-39,
"...Jesus stood
and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they
that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given;
because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)"
ZEAL WITHOUT
KNOWLEDGE
A "Balanced
Christian Walk" is something that each of us needs to strive to attain
since our eagerness and zeal can create problems for us. The Scripture
talks of this in Romans 10:2, "For I bear them record that they have a
zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.'' We need the zeal, yet it
must be balanced according to the knowledge of God's Word. The Scripture
says in Hosea 4:6a, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."
Dangerous heresies, erroneous teachings and false doctrines can destroy
God's people unless they have a complete knowledge of God's Word. Just
memorizing a few Scriptures will not keep us from error. We must study
the Word of God and apply it to our hearts if we are to remain free from
error and extremes. John 15:7 says, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide
in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." This
is a powerful promise of God, but it is conditional as we notice two "if"
in this Scripture. These are if His words are abiding in us, and if we
are abiding in Him. He states we can ask anything and it will be done if
these two things are existent in us.
In looking
at this Scripture, we can deduce that if our prayers are not being answered,
we either do not have God's complete Word abiding in us, or we are not
fully abiding in Him. We would be receiving answers to all of our prayers
if we had all of God's Word in us and we were completely controlled by
the Holy Spirit. The way for us to be overcomers and get our prayers answered
100 percent is to allow the Word of God to dwell in us and change us until
we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Then we would never pray
for anything that would not be the will of God for we would know and obey
the will of God. God's Word is His Will. If we are not receiving the answers
to our prayers, we need to allow the Word of God to change us. The Word
of God never changes, and Jesus never changes; so if there is any changing
to be done, it must be on our end. "For I am the Lord, I change not" (Malachi
3:6a). "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Hebrews
13:8).
Jesus is the
Rock. He is solid and stable and will not change. For this reason we can
trust Him and believe the Words He has spoken to us. If He said it, then
that settles it. It is truth because He cannot lie. If He said it and we
believe it, then faith in His Word will produce those things that are promised
to us in the Bible. Knowing only portions of the Word can cause us to become
imbalanced. We must seek to know the whole truth and be completely surrendered
to the will of God for us to be victorious and successful Christians. Stressing
one portion of God's Word will invariably produce prayer failures. This
is the reason for many "faith" failures today. It is not so much people's
lack of faith that fails to produce the answers they are seeking,
but their failure
to apply other portions of God's Word.
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