Joyce Meyer - What Is The Baptism With The Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is a major part of our journey with Christ, and it's such a gift. He is something that I would not want to go a single day without because he helps on so many levels. But understandably, there is some confusion. He's difficult to understand because He's not really part of the physical realm that we are used to dealing with. But if you really dig into God's Word, then you can understand who He is and how He helps.

Check out this question from twitter. We get a lot of questions on the Holy Spirit. This is from Jesse, "How do you know when you've been baptized in the Holy Spirit? What does it feel like"? Well, Jesse, today Joyce Meyer will answer your question and many others when she answers, what is the baptism with the Holy Spirit?

I want to talk to you for a moment about the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, I don't think He gets the attention He deserves. We serve one God, but a triune God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. And when Jesus ascended on high, He sent the Holy Spirit to take His place.

Well, there's many great things about the Holy Spirit, but one that comes to my mind right now is that Jesus, because He was in a human body like we are, could only be one place at a time. But He said, "When I go away, you're going to be better off".

Well, I'm sure the disciples thought, "How could we possibly be any better off"? But you see, the Holy Spirit can be everywhere with every person at the same time. And He has come to live in us.

When you were born again, when you received Christ as your Savior, you received the Holy Spirit. But the Bible teaches us that we can and should be not only filled with the Spirit, but ever filled with the Holy Spirit. And that's so important.

If you want to know the truth, the Holy Spirit is the power that you need to live the christian life. Amen? Now, you don't necessarily need to be filled with the Spirit to be saved, but you need to be filled with the Spirit to live saved. If you want to live the life that Jesus died to give you, then you need to be completely filled with the Holy Spirit. And we need power. I don't know about you, but I need all the power, all the Holy Ghost help that I can get.

And so, in Acts chapter 1, Jesus told the disciples to go and wait for the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He said, "John baptized you with water, but not many days from now, you shall be baptized with (placed in and introduced into) the Holy Spirit". And in verse 8, it says, "But you shall receive power ability, efficiency, and might when the Holy Spirit has come upon you".

Don't you like that? Power, ability, efficiency, and might when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. "And then you shall be My witnesses".

I love this, it doesn't say you'll go out and do witnessing, it says you'll be, you'll be. There's a difference in being because if you are, then you are that all the time. But if you're doing, you can turn it on and off. You can do church on Sunday morning, and then get out in the world and not be the same as you were on Sunday morning.

And they waited in the upper room in chapter 2, verse 1, "And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together waiting in one place. When suddenly there came a sound from heaven like the rushing of a mighty wind. And they were all filled (diffused throughout their souls) with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance".

Now, in 1976, I was a christian, had been for a long time. Dave and I went to a large, well-known denomination, and we were very faithful. Dave grew up in that church, he was an elder in the church, I was on the church board.

We were there every time the church door opened, and I was miserable. I didn't have any victory in my life, I'd been abused in my childhood, and I wasn't receiving the healing that I needed or the help that I needed.

So, I was definitely one of those people, I acted one way on Sunday and a completely different way at home behind closed doors. I cried out to God, and He touched me, and I didn't even really know what had happened to me except it sure was wonderful.

And I felt so different. I felt like I'd been baptized in love. I felt like I was drunk on the love of God. And I wasn't a very loving person, so it was a real difference there. But you have to be hungry. And if you're not hungry enough, then just wait another year and have another year's worth of mess, and see when you come back around if you're hungry enough then, amen?

But don't be satisfied with just status quo. "I'm okay. I go to church, I go home, I go to church, I go home". My goodness, there's so much more to life than that. When the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you shall receive power, power.

You know, there's many gifts of the Spirit. There's the ministry gifts, the offices that minister to us, apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. There's other gifts like gifts of organization, gifts of giving, gifts of exhortation, all kinds of gifts.

There's musical gifts and speaking gifts, but then there's these supernatural endowments of power is what the amplified Bible says, and they are words of knowledge, words of wisdom, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, discerning of spirit, the gift of faith, the gift of miracles, prophecy, and things like that. And I know that some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

But let me tell you something, I have read so many books on this, and I have studied, and I have studied everything in the Bible. And if you are hungry for more of God in your life, then you are going to do the same thing. You are not going to sit there and wait for somebody to spoon feed you everything that you know. Amen?

And I tell you, when you seek God for yourself and He touches your life, nobody can ever tell you. You know, people say, "Well, well, what happened"? It's like, you know what? I don't know, I just know it was God. And I know that I've never been the same since, amen?