The Baptism in the Holy Spirit Part IV

The gift of speaking in tongues that accompanies the baptism in the Holy Spirit is very important to the Church today because it is something that represents a certain level of surrender to the Spirit of God that is necessary to begin to flow in further gifts of the Holy Spirit. The surrendering of the tongue to the Spirit of God so that God himself may give you the utterance to speak a language that your natural mind does not understand is a step of faith that will serve as a springboard forward into the supernatural power of God. I have never witnessed anyone minister in another supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit who did not first speak in tongues.

In a very real way the baptism in the Holy Spirit is the gateway into the supernatural power of God for prophecy, for the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, the gift of faith, the gifts of healing, the working of miracles and any other gift of the Spirit. In order to minister in the gifts of the Spirit and in fact to accurately preach the gospel at all one must be yielded to the Holy Spirit. The more that one is yielded to the Spirit the more depth there will be to that person’s ministry and the more supernatural power they will flow in. The supernatural power of the Holy Spirit does not come without being yielded to the Holy Spirit and in order to be yielded to the Holy Spirit you must do things God’s way and God’s way has always been to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and then minister in the power of the Spirit. There was never anyone in the New Testament who was ever recorded to have ministered in the power of the Spirit who was not first baptized in the Holy Spirit.

We are talking about the reality of spiritual things here. There are many in the world even among Christians who through ignorance of the things of the Spirit do not want to be faced with the reality of spiritual things. To be faced with the reality of the supernatural is frightening to some but you will never encounter true love until you encounter the supernatural love of God. The Bible tells us in 1 John 4:8 that God is love. That means that love is a supernatural spirit being, we would never know real love if it were not for the fact that God who is a spirit is love. Love, real love is supernatural it is not of this world. Certainly, there is a negative side of the supernatural and it is this side that movies and books and the like usually portray in order to inspire fear. God however who is love is so immensely greater than the negative side of the supernatural that there is no contest. The devil is not equal to God, he never was and never will be. Satan is a created being who rebelled against God and then fell from heaven because he rebelled. The Creator is so immeasurably greater than the creation that he could if he wished destroy it all including Satan and start over from scratch without anyone but Himself ever knowing that he had done it. There simply is no contest between God and Satan so do not allow fear of the supernatural to keep you from experiencing the fullness of the blessings that God wishes to bestow upon you. Open your heart and receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit it is not complex at all, it only takes trust, a yielding to the Holy Spirit and the willingness to act in faith to speak what He is giving you.

The first thing that is necessary in order to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit is to simply desire to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, without desiring a thing you will never receive it. That sounds quite simple when you put it that way, but the desires of the spirit are born in the spirit it needs to be a heart desire, something that comes from the inside of you and this desire is in every truly born-again believer if they are honest with themselves. It is manifest as a dissatisfaction with where they are in God, wanting something more, a hunger after God that can only be filled by His manifest presence. If you have ever experienced this as a believer then that is God drawing you toward a deeper relationship with Himself, seek His face, yield your heart, yield your tongue. Jesus said in Luke 6:45 that “out of the abundance of the heart his (a good man or an evil man) mouth speaks.”

It is out of the abundance or overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. As you seek God to be baptized in the Holy Spirit He will begin to fill your heart with His presence, with His Spirit. You may then begin to experience different things a feeling like your tongue wants to do something, some describe it as a thickening of the tongue, for some people they begin to hear words in their mind as thoughts it may be a combination of these things but they are all indicators that the Holy Spirit is moving upon you and is wishing to manifest something in you. The thing to do here is to simply yield to it allow your tongue to speak the words that are coming to it whether it is in thoughts or simply in urges. You will not be overpowered, and you can stop at anytime you wish. When you begin to speak your mind will not understand the words that are coming out of your mouth and your natural mind may tell you that they are just gibberish. Do not be deterred by this, spiritual things are foolishness to the natural way of thinking. Allow God to have His way, yield to His Spirit and as you do a whole new realm of the supernatural power of God will begin to open to you. Use the heavenly language that you receive to pray to God often, in private of course or among other believers who also speak in tongues because unbelievers and those who do not pray in tongues will not understand what you are doing. The more you pray in tongues the more you will become yielded to the Spirit of God and there simply will be no limits to where He is able to take you from there.

This concludes the series on the Baptism on the Holy Spirit, I hope you have been blessed please stay tuned for much more in the days to come. Be blessed.