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What Does the Bible Say About.... the Gift of the Holy
Spirit?
By Betty Miller
Acts 11:14-17:
"Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house
shall be saved. And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the
beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized
with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. For as much then as God gave
them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I,
that I could withstand God?"
God's gift of the Holy Ghost is promised to us today and not just for
the saints back in the time of the early church, as we find Peter saying,
"...Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is
unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our
God shall call" (Acts 2:38-39). The Holy Ghost is God's gift to us. As we
are baptized in His Spirit we will find that we will experience the gift of speaking in
tongues, plus all the other gifts when needed, if we continue to follow Him (1
Corinthians 12, 13 and 14). These are God's gifts of power to enable us to
accomplish the task to which we have been commissioned. Although the gift has been abused
by many, we should not take lightly the Lord's words to us in John 7:37b-39,
"...Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let
him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they
that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that
Jesus was not yet glorified.)"
ZEAL WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE
A "Balanced Christian Walk" is something that each of us
needs to strive to attain since our eagerness and zeal can create problems for us. The
Scripture talks of this in Romans 10:2, "For I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.'' We need the zeal, yet it
must be balanced according to the knowledge of God's Word. The Scripture says in Hosea
4:6a, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Dangerous
heresies, erroneous teachings and false doctrines can destroy God's people unless they
have a complete knowledge of God's Word. Just memorizing a few Scriptures will not keep us
from error. We must study the Word of God and apply it to our hearts if we are to remain
free from error and extremes. John 15:7 says, "If ye abide
in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto
you." This is a powerful promise of God, but it is conditional as we notice
two "if" in this Scripture. These are if His words are abiding in us, and if we
are abiding in Him. He states we can ask anything and it will be done if these two things
are existent in us.
In looking at this Scripture, we can deduce that if our prayers are not
being answered, we either do not have God's complete Word abiding in us, or we are not
fully abiding in Him. We would be receiving answers to all of our prayers if we had all of
God's Word in us and we were completely controlled by the Holy Spirit. The way for us to
be overcomers and get our prayers answered 100 percent is to allow the Word of God to
dwell in us and change us until we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Then we
would never pray for anything that would not be the will of God for we would know and obey
the will of God. God's Word is His Will. If we are not receiving the answers to our
prayers, we need to allow the Word of God to change us. The Word of God never changes, and
Jesus never changes; so if there is any changing to be done, it must be on our end.
"For I am the Lord, I change not" (Malachi 3:6a). "Jesus Christ the same
yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Hebrews 13:8).
Jesus is the Rock. He is solid and stable and will not change. For this
reason we can trust Him and believe the Words He has spoken to us. If He said it, then
that settles it. It is truth because He cannot lie. If He said it and we believe it, then
faith in His Word will produce those things that are promised to us in the Bible. Knowing
only portions of the Word can cause us to become imbalanced. We must seek to know the
whole truth and be completely surrendered to the will of God for us to be victorious and
successful Christians. Stressing one portion of God's Word will invariably produce prayer
failures. This is the reason for many "faith" failures today. It is not so much
people's lack of faith that fails to produce the answers they are seeking, but their
failure to apply other portions of God's Word.
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This article is taken from the book Extremes or Balance? by Betty
Miller. You may copy and circulate it freely.
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