Steps to receiving the Holy Spirit

Messages for June 2018: Our Month of the Holy Spirit

Message for Sunday 17^th June, 2018

Theme: Understanding the Ministry and Gift of the Holy Spirit

Topic: Steps to receiving the Holy Spirit

Introduction: So far, we have seen who the Holy Spirit is and why He came.  However, all we have learnt about the Holy Spirit would be merely theoretical if we do not know Him in our personal experiences. Therefore, my business today is to show you how you can know the Holy Spirit in your experience.

The following steps when taken sincerely will help anyone seeking the Holy Spirit to really know Him in their personal experience:

1.     Receive Jesus Christ as your Saviour and Lord: If you do so, you will become saved and therefore a child of God. This is what qualifies you for the gift of the Holy Spirit. When the first converts after the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost sought to know how to be saved, Peter told them to repent and be baptized and they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. See Acts 2:36-39. The reason for this demand is that the Lord had said that the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit; only those who would submit to be discipled by Him would qualify for this great gift. Thus you have to receive Jesus Christ as your Saviour to get saved and then as your Lord making you a disciple of His to qualify you to be able to receive Him because the world cannot receive Him. See Jn.14:15-18; Acts 2:37-39.

2.     Desire the blessing: For one to receive this blessing, we must have a strong desire for it comparable to a thirst we have for water that can only be sated by taking water. See Jn.7:37-39; Mt.5:6 GNB and Lk.16:19-21. In our third text, we see the example of poor Lazarus whose only desire was to be fed the crumbs from the rich man’s table. All he got was that; he could not rise above His desire even though he served the same God as Abraham who was very rich and blessed in all things. So when you sincerely desire the gift of the Holy Spirit, God will not deny you.

3.     Embrace the four “R”s for the infilling:  These are terms used to represent four things you must do beginning with the letter R to be filled with the Holy Spirit. These four things are:

Renounce: As new believers, we must renounce the hidden things of darkness because failure to do so can cause people to participate in the unfruitful works of darkness which can make their faith to become ineffective or unfruitful. See 2Cor.4:2; Eph.5:11-12 and Gal.5:18-20.

This means to disown, separate and depart completely from concealed, private and inward things of dishonesty like all known sin especially sin involving witchcraft, ancestor worship, worship of idols, Ouija boards, sorcery, tarot cards, tea leaves, fortune telling or tellers, charms, amulets and such like. You have to consciously renounce the unfruitful works of darkness like the early Church fathers got the new converts to do in Acts 19:18-19. From Acts 5:32 and Jn.14:15-16.

Relax: Being tense when we anticipate this blessing is quite understandable considering the fact that the experience is all new to us. If you are tense however, it would hinder you from receiving. When you relax physically, it will enable you to relax spiritually and emotionally and make it easy for you to receive this precious blessing. The peace and calm of God is a great environment of your mind where you can receive the Holy Spirit. See Jn.14:27 and Jn.15:11.

Receive: Since the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit has been here so we do not need to wait to receive Him anymore; we simply do it now by faith knowing is near us and ready to fill us. In Lk.11:13, we learn that if we know how to give good gifts to our children, much more God would give good gifts to his children who ask him. Some people believe that they may receive a wrong spirit. The truth is that if it is God you asked the Holy Spirit from, you will receive only the Holy Spirit and no other. You have to go to an evil spirit to receive the evil. God is a good God. See Exod.34:5-7; Mt.19:17; Mk.10:18 and Dan.9:4.

Respond: In Acts 2:4 when the disciples were first filled with the Holy Spirit, they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. This is the gate way to the power we just received. Isaiah in the Old Testament prophesied of this in Isa.28:11 saying that God will speak to His people with stammering lips and another tongue.

We shall draw the curtain here today and next week, we will continue by looking at the gifts and fruit of the spirit of the recreated human. Meanwhile, like we saw earlier, the first step to receiving this great gift is to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. If you want to do so now, you can by saying the following prayer out loud in faith and you will be born again:

Heavenly Father,

Have mercy on me a sinner. Today, I believe that Jesus died for me and you raised Him from the dead for my Justification. I therefore declare that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord and from today, I renounce the fatherhood of Satan and embrace Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord. Thank you for this father in Jesus’ name! Amen.

Congratulations! For more information and resources that would help you grow in this new life, please visit our website at www.kingdomheirsministries.org and our blogs at www.flourishinggirl.blogspot.com and follow us on twitter at alero_nanna and on face book on www.facebook.com/flourishinggirl www.facebook.com/khmii2015; www.facebook.com/thewellbeingcenter. Or www.facebook.com/kingdomjointheirsfamily email:  jointheirsfamily@gmail.com.