Walking With JesusSample

Being Filled With the Holy Spirit

Scripture is very clear that having a relationship with Jesus doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. 

Believers experience the Holy Spirit in two distinct ways:

• Firstly when we get saved – the presence of the Holy Spirit.
• Secondly when we get filled with the Holy Spirit – the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

We all need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Scripture refers to this as being baptised (Acts 1:5), the Holy Spirit coming upon someone (Acts 1:8), receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:17), the pouring out of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:45) or being filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:3-4). 

Sometimes people received the Holy Spirit when other believers laid hands on them (Acts 19:1-6), while others received the Spirit spontaneously (Acts 2). We simply need to ask God for the gift of the Holy Spirit. I advise you to pray this prayer with another believer who has already been filled with the Holy Spirit.

Scripture says that we are baptised once, but we must be continually filled. This means that we need to consecrate ourselves daily and yield to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Reflection questions (write your answers in a journal):

• How do we get baptised? (see Luke 11:9-13)
• Why do you think God gave us the Holy Spirit? 

Testimony:

Once in a prayer meeting, we were praying in tongues when one of the guys stopped us and said that one of the ladies was praying in Zulu, an African language. He understood every word she spoke although she herself did not. This was a manifestation of the gift of speaking in tongues as we find in the second chapter of Acts. He explained to us that she was worshipping God and describing the beauty of the Lord.