First of all, salvation is the most powerful experience that will ever take place in you as a person. The Bible says in Second Corinthians 5:17 that, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; old things have passed away and behold all things have become new.”

 

We go through a transformation. It’s as if we are in a worldly cocoon. The Lord Jesus touches our lives, and we emerge transformed into a butterfly, a “brand new creature.”

 

When you get saved, you go through a metamorphosis. The person that you were at one moment is in the very next moment totally different. It’s exciting to go through that divine metamorphosis.

 

Yet, the most powerful experience you’ll ever receive as a Christian is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

 

Acts 1:8 says, “you shall receive power after that (or when) the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the Earth.”

 

The Greek word for power is dunamis meaning power, dynamite – the dynamic power of God that turns you into a dynamo for God.

 

God’s power touches you at salvation in a gentle breath. Your spirit comes alive and you are saved. The baptism in the Holy Spirit gives you dauntless courage; the power of God upon you helps you to go out and tell other people boldly that they need to be saved.

 

The power of the Holy Ghost gives us boldness to help us conquer our world. We need to get all of God’s power inside of us that we can handle.

 

There’s not a single believer who couldn’t handle more of the power of God than he or she has today. We need to appropriate His power and see our world converted to Jesus Christ in these last days.

 

There are two ways to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit – with the laying on of hands and without the laying on of hands.

 

In Acts 9, Ananias laid his hands upon Saul of Tarsus and Saul receiving the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Afterward, in Acts 19, Saul, who is now the Apostle Paul, went to Ephesus and prayed for others to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

 

We become agents when we lay hands on people. When I lay my hands upon someone, I become an instrument (a vehicle or transmitter) for the Holy Spirit to flow through.

 

The baptism of the Holy Spirit does not come from the person laying hands on you. It comes from your heavenly Father. The person is just a channel for the Spirit to flow through. All the glory, praise and credit belong to God.

 

If the postman brings you a letter with a $1,000 check from your earthly father, you don’t get all excited and kiss the postman and tell him how much you appreciate him being a good delivery person.

 

No, you get all excited and call your father and say, “Thanks for the $1,000. The gift doesn’t come from the postman; it comes from your father.

 

When I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, I was 19 and attending Oral Roberts University. I had been saved for less than a year and was very confused about this gift from God.

 

I had been reading a book printed by a popular ministry that said to speak in gibberish to receive the Holy Spirit and all of a sudden, you have it.

 

But you’re not speaking your own gibberish that comes from your own heart and your own head when you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You are speaking words that God supplies, words that come from the Holy Ghost.

 

The Bible says, “No man can tame the tongue.”

 

God wants us to see that He is the only one who can tame the tongue. This is the reason that we do not understand the words we are saying, because they are God’s words flowing out of us. We do the talking, but God supplies the words.

 

In my effort to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I remember praying in my dorm room, “God, you’ve got to help me through this confusion. This book says I’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit, but it doesn’t seem right. There’s something wrong about this.”

 

Just then, a friend dropped in to ask me to play basketball. I told him I was confused about receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

 

He instructed me and laid hands on me, and God baptized me with the Holy Spirit.

 

A second way to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit is without the laying on of hands.

 

In Acts 1:15, the Bible says 120 believers were in the Upper Room. “These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, with Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers.”

 

One accord is what we are seeking when we praise and worship God in church. We get one heart, one mind, one purpose – to seek God and press into Him until we receive.

 

Acts 2:1-3 says on the day of Pentecost, “They were all in one accord in one place and suddenly they heard a sound from heaven as a violent tempest blast. There appeared unto them divided tongues or cloven tongues like as of fire and sat upon each of them.”

 

The Bible tells us of three instances where people had hands laid upon them to receive the Holy Spirit, Chapters 8, 9 and 19 of Acts. Two accounts are recorded where they received the Holy Spirit in a sovereign way, Acts 2 and 10.

 

Speaking in tongues is the evidence that a person has been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

 

Dennis Bennett, an Episcopalian priest, often has been described as the father of the modern Charismatic movement. Being an intellectual, Bennett had a hard time receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit because he did not want to yield his mouth and his vocal chords to God to speak in a language he did not know.

 

Bennett once asked Pentecostals to pray for him to receive the baptism, but he did not want to speak in an unknown language. They told him, “we’re sorry but it comes with the package.”

 

I find it is more difficult for people who are intellectuals to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit than for anybody else. It is because when we pray in the Spirit, our spirit prays but our understanding is unfruitful. We don’t understand what we are saying and that really bothers some of us.

 

I like what Pat Boone said when asked if you have to speak in tongues to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He said, “You don’t have to – you get to.”

 

Acts 10:44-46 records that “those of the circumcision” (Jews) were astonished that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Gentiles.”

 

How did they know the Gentiles had received?

 

Acts 10:46 says, “They heard them speak with tongues and they magnified God.”

 

From Acts 19:6, we know that “when the Holy Spirit came upon them, they spoke with tongues, and they prophesied.”

 

This biblical instance verifies that tongues are the initial physical evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and specific biblical promises are given to help us grasp that God wants us to have this gift and help us with our own expectations.

 

In Mark 1:8, John the Baptist told the people: “I baptize you with water but He, (the Messiah, Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

 

After receiving the baptism in the Spirit in Acts 2, Peter says in Acts 2:38 and 39: “Repent and let everyone of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, to your children – to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall call.”

 

The Lord Jesus tells his disciples in Luke 24:39: “I’m going to send you what the Father has promised, but tarry (wait or stay) in Jerusalem until you’re clothed with power from on high.”

 

So you’ve got the promises of John the Baptist, the Apostle Peter and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will keep every promise He ever makes to you.

 

Let me go back to my own experience that day I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit in my dorm room. My friend said, “I’ve got a Scripture I want you to read to me.”

 

He opened the Bible to Luke 11 and said, “start reading at verse 9 and don’t stop until you get to verse 13.”

 

It says: “Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone who asks receives, who seeks finds and to him who knocks the door shall be opened.”

 

In that same passage (Luke 11:11-13) Jesus asks them, “If a son asks you for bread would you instead of bread, give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, would you give him a serpent instead? Or if he asks for an egg, would he instead of an egg, offer him a scorpion?”

 

And he adds, “If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Ghost to those who ask Him!”

 

I love those words “how much more.” The promise that He has made to you – He will fulfill that promise.

 

I want you to known that every promise God ever gives you will be tested. There is never a promise God gives you that does not go through a testing time. In fact, it goes through a process of birth, death and resurrection. The death time is when you think the promise is never going to happen. The resurrection time is when you’re glad you held onto that promise in spite of the fact it seemed to have died.

 

Evangelist Marvin Gorman once accepted a pastorate to an Assembly of God church in New Orleans and later learned that none of his board members or his congregation was baptized in the Holy Spirit.

 

He was disillusioned but not undaunted. He decided he had to press through and preached on the baptism of the Holy Spirit for one year. He never saw one person receive the gift.

 

One Sunday, he invited a guest speaker who was preaching for about 15 or 20 minutes, when Pastor Gorman heard God say “take the service back.”

 

Pastor Gorman tapped the guest minister on the shoulder. He said, “I have to obey God. God has told me to take the service back.”

 

He addressed the congregation: “I want every person here who has never been baptized in the Holy Spirit to stand to your feet.”

 

The whole congregation stood up. Then he prayed a simple prayer over them and suddenly without laying hands on anyone, one person received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, then somebody else, then another. By the time they finished the service, more than 75 percent of the congregation received the baptism in the Holy Spirit as a sovereign work of God.

 

I want you to know that God gives us promises, and we have to hold onto those promises. Some people have been praying for the baptism in the Holy Spirit for years. Can God be saying, “today is your day”?

 

Some people receive the Holy Spirit so easily. All they do is ask and they receive because they’re so yielded to God.

 

That certainly wasn’t me. I was a little bit like Dennis Bennett, one of those intellectuals. I was thinking if there is anyway I can get this package without yielding my mind to say some things I don’t understand – that’s the way I want to receive it. Well, it doesn’t come like that.

 

To help me receive, my friend posed this simple question, and it is what turned me around.

 

He said, “If your father is good and will not let something bad or evil come to you, why wouldn’t you yield your spirit to Him and just speak whatever He puts in your mouth?”

 

In other words, open your mouth wide and God will fill it.

 

When I yielded my spirit to God as my friend laid his hands upon me, suddenly the power of God began to flow through me and I began to speak in tongues as He gave me utterance. And I had total confidence that whatever I spoke was going to be the Spirit of God. I opened my mouth in faith and it began to pour out.

 

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is the doorway to all the gifts of the spirit. It brought the church into tongues, interpretation, prophecy, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, discerning of spirits, faith, miracles and healing. All those divine gifts flow out of one gift.

 

In like manner, salvation generates the gift of love with all its attributes – joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. The nine fruits and the nine gifts produce a balance of character. God wants us to grow godly character through salvation. The fruit of the spirit comes from Him. And he wants us to develop charisma power – the power that emanates from the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

 

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is available to all of us. God is the supreme giver and this is his gift.

 

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”