EASY TO RECEIVE

John 19:21,22 – So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be to you; just as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and *said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

It’s a little embarrassing and still quite shocking when I think about the fresh download of the Holy Spirit I received in my life in the summer of 1994. The funny thing is that I had been pastoring a Pentecostal church for sixteen years at that point in my life. If anyone was Spirit filled at that point one would think it would have been me. I guess the problem was getting Spirit filled is one thing, staying that way is another story. Apparently what it all boiled down to was this, I had somehow forgotten one of the first lessons of my Christian faith, I had forgotten how to receive. Professionalism had taken over my life; I was the answer man, name a topic and I was supposed to be an expert, but some how I wasn’t and as the years went by I was becoming dryer and dryer in my personal life. What was the solution? I needed to be filled with the Spirit again, I needed to learn to receive from the Lord all over again. Here is how Max Lucado describes receiving the Holy Spirit.

“He does not coerce, cajole, or force his way into our lives. He enters when welcomed, so for heaven’s sake welcome him. Does that seem too simple? It might. We tend to complicate this matter of receiving the Spirit. We create seven secrets of walking in the Spirit or ten requirements for receiving the Spirit or holy hints about the Holy Spirit. Yet the Spirit of God is not a computer to be programmed. He is a person to be welcomed.”

That’s exactly what the disciples learned that first Easter evening when Jesus walked into the room where they had gathered. What did the Lord say to the? It was really simple, all He said was, “Receive the Holy Spirit” and then He breathed on them. That’s it, it couldn’t be that simple but it is. That’s the great lesson I learned in 1994, receive the Holy Spirit. But you might say, “I already have done that”. But that is exactly the point, the past is just that, the past. We need to receive the Holy Spirit today, we need to receive Him every day, even multiple times a day. Receive the Holy Spirit and you will also experience the breath of God entering into your life.