RECEIVING THE SPIRIT

Gal. 3:2-3 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

In recent years a large part of the church in America has turned away from any emphasis on the Holy Spirit. Even those who had formerly acknowledged the baptism in the Holy Sprit have distanced themselves from anything that resembles something supernatural. The gifts of the Spirit are rendered as something insignificant and are not welcomed in the majority of worship gatherings. There is often lip service given to some kind of belief in the moving of the Spirit but for whatever reason He is not welcome at church. I always thought the whole point of the church was to house the presence of God. Maybe we need more of Him and less Christian empowerment slogans or five steps to a better life or a better you. Help us Lord!!! Here is something Luther said about the Holy Spirit and the church.

“Try to appreciate the force of Paul’s argument which is so often repeated in the Book of Acts. That Book was written for the express purpose of verifying Paul’s assertion, that the Holy Ghost comes upon men, not in response to the preaching of the Law, but in response to the preaching of the Gospel. When Peter preached Christ at the first Pentecost, the Holy Ghost fell upon the hearers, “and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.” Acts 2:41 Cornelius received the Holy Ghost while Peter was speaking of Christ. “The Holy Ghost fell on all of them which heard the word.” These are actual experiences that cannot very well be denied. When Paul and Barnabas returned to Jerusalem and reported what they had been able to accomplish among the Gentiles, the whole Church was astonished, particularly when it heard that the uncircumcised Gentiles had received the Holy Ghost by the preaching of faith in Christ.”

For Peter and the apostles, it was the Baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of the heavenly language that convinced them than the gentiles “got it”. Without the evidence of the Spirit’s presence in the midst of the gentile church the Jerusalem Church would never accept them. They knew The Lord accepted them by the evidence of His Glory.
As Paul said, how can we be made perfect or become more mature by the flesh (human effort). What was started by the power of the Spirit must be completed by the power of the Spirit.
I think we are coming to a season that we will have no choice but to return to an emphasis on the power of the Spirit. There is too much sin, too much temptation, too much sickness to depend on human effort. What was started by the Spirit can only be completed by the Holy Spirit.