SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/12/2017
7:27 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 The Evidence of the Spirits Coming
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 2:1-4
Message of the
verses: “1 When the day of Pentecost
had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from
heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where
they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing
themselves, and they rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled
with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was
giving them utterance.”
We begin this SD by looking at the difference between
being filled with the Holy Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, for there
is a difference. MacArthur writes “The
apostle Paul carefully defines the baptism with the Spirit as that act of
Christ by which He places believers into His body (Rom. 6:4-6; 1 Cor. 12:13;
Gal. 3:27). In contrast to much errant
teaching today, the New Testament nowhere commands believers to seek the
baptism with the Spirit. It is a
sovereign, single, unrepeatable act on God’s part, and is no more an experience
than are its companions justification and adoption. Although some wrongly view the baptism with
the Spirit as the initiation into the ranks of the spiritual elite, nothing
could be further from the truth. The
purpose of the baptism with the Spirit is not to divide the body of Christ, but
to unify it. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians,
through the baptism with the Spirit ‘we were all baptized into one body’ (1
Cor. 12:13; cf. Gal. 3:26-27; Eph. 4:4-6).”
If you are a true believer in Jesus Christ and someone asks you if you
have been baptized with the Holy Spirit your answer should be yes it happened
the moment I became a believer.
Now as we move onto looking at the filling of the Spirit
which is what we read in verse four, this is something that should be
continuous. Peter was filled initially
on the Day of Pentecost, but we read that he was filled in Acts 4:8 “Then
Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers and elders of
the people.” We have mentioned that
there is no such command in the Bible to be baptized with the Holy Spirit there
is a command to be filled with the Holy Spirit and when you look at the
grammatical construction of that passage (Eph. 5:18) it indicates believers are
to be continuously being filled with the Spirit. MacArthur writes “Those who would be filled
with the Spirit must first empty themselves.
That involves confession of sin and dying to selfishness and
self-will. To be filled with the Spirit
is to be consciously practice the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ and to have
a mind saturated with the Word of God.
Colossians 3:16-25 delineates the results of ‘letting the word of Christ
richly dwell’ in us. They are the same
ones that result from the filling of the Spirit (Eph. 5:19-33). As believers yield the moment by moment decisions
of life to His control, they ‘walk by the Spirit’ (Gal. 5:16)…The baptism with the Spirit
grants the power that the filling with the Spirit unleashes.”
Now the next section we will be looking at is the section
that speaks of “tongues” “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and
began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.” I do not want to get into this section now
but will do it in our next SD as there is much to say about this as the
speaking of tongues was a spiritual gift that was given to believers as the
church began. We call it a “sign gift.” We will talk more about this in our next SD.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “The angel of the Lord” (Luke
1:13).
Today’s Bible
question: “Where did Job live?”
Answer in our next SD.
7/12/2017 7:52 AM
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