SERIES THREE

Spirit and Water

G B Woodcock

English definitions of Greek and Hebrew words are taken from:

- Online Bible Greek Lexicon © 2010 Online Bible North America. All rights reserved.

- Online Bible Hebrew Lexicon © 2010 Online Bible North America. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise stated, all Scripture quotations are taken from:

The New American Standard Bible ® (1995 Update) Copyright ©1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are taken from the New King James Version, ©1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

One with Christ | Series Three (Kindle Edition)- G B Woodcock

A Bible study series on experiencing love and unity with God

Copyright © 2013 Geoff Woodcock. Freely receive, freely give. Permission is given to reproduce, distribute and share this material for non-commercial purposes.

Web | www.onewithchrist.com

Email | info@onewithchrist.com

ISBN: 978-0-9922520-2-1

Published by Studyword Media

Contents

Introduction

1. Into the Water

2. Born of Water

3. Present Salvation

4. In Water and Spirit

5. Into the Spirit

6. Testing the Heart

7. The Way of Testing

8. Preparing the Heart

9. Counting the Cost

10. Ready, Set, Wait

11. Waiting on God

12. Filled with the Spirit

13. Immersed in God

14. Into His Name

15. Clothed with Christ

16. Earthen Vessels

Contact Us

Reference Notes

Introduction

“Consider now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary; be courageous and act.”

1 Chronicles 28:10

In Series Two of the One with Christ studies we saw how the Tabernacle of Moses gives us a pattern for our spiritual life and our growth in Christ. When we first come to faith we experience the cross as our brazen altar. Through the blood of Jesus we are forgiven and redeemed. Yet this is just the beginning of our new life in Christ. Like the tabernacle, the goal of our spiritual growth is the presence of God. There in the Holy of Holies we can become one with Christ and commune with Him in intimacy and love.

Like Moses with the tabernacle and Solomon with the temple, we have a call to build a house for the sanctuary of God’s presence. Together with the Spirit, we can build and grow our hearts into a sanctuary that God is pleased to dwell in. Through the Spirit we can become a temple of the living God.

Strong Foundations

1 Corinthians 3:10-11

According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

The temple of the heart needs a strong foundation. And that foundation is Jesus Christ. Every aspect of the heart must be established in Jesus and conformed to His design. But what is God’s design for us? What is the reason for our creation?

God’s design for us is revealed in Scripture. The word of God calls us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love others as ourselves because God has created us for love. We are called to partake of the nature of Christ and have His life formed within us because God designed us to be one with Christ. To be truly human as God created us to be is to live in love and union with Christ.[1]

As our hearts are conformed to God’s design, the outward aspects of our lives will begin to flow naturally from our hearts and reflect the reality of His love in us. Our thoughts, words, prayers and actions will find their source in the foundation that is laid in our hearts. And that foundation is Jesus. It is the presence, nature, life and love of Christ upon which we build our lives.

Series One and Two

The first two series of the One with Christ studies provide the basis for the material we will cover in Series Three. As such, it is advised to complete the first two series before progressing on with Series Three. However, as always, be led by the Spirit of life and focus on what He puts before you.

Before we get started, we will look at a short overview of some of the key aspects of Series One and Series Two.

Our Journey

When we first come to faith in God we begin to know Jesus as our Redeemer. He died to save us from our sin and restore us into relationship with God. When we enter into a covenant of faith with God, we receive the Spirit of adoption and become children of God. As His children, God gives us an awesome spiritual inheritance that far surpasses anything we could ever dream of or imagine. Our inheritance is Jesus. It is the gift of His indwelling nature and life, and all the blessings that flow from His presence within us.

For our inheritance in Christ to be of value in our lives, we need to enter it, possess it and let it change us. We need our inheritance to become our actual experience. To lead us into the possession of our inheritance, Jesus gives us His word and His Spirit. The Spirit breathes His life into the word and it becomes living, active and powerful in us. As we receive the living word, the Spirit then acts to fulfill His word in us. In this way, the Spirit and word work together to lead us into His truth and reality.

Faith is the only way to access grace and experience reality. So to change and grow in God, we need to have faith. Real faith is the deep confidence of the heart that comes from hearing God speak. It is the certainty of knowing that because God has spoken it will be done. He will fulfill His word to us. Because faith leads to reality, learning to hear the voice of God is essential if we are to mature in Christ. As we hear His voice, we receive more faith and so we grow more in God.

To lead us into our inheritance, the Spirit reveals to us the next step in our journey, giving us greater faith, vision and direction in God. This step-by-step revelation brings the truth of God alive for us. Through revelation, God’s truth becomes real for us; it becomes our truth and it enables us to grow more in faith. Thus revelation is a key to becoming one with Christ.

Our spiritual journey into our inheritance starts with the cross. The cross is the place of repentance, faith and the power of the blood of Christ to cleanse us from our sin. At the cross we learn of the divine exchange through the flesh and blood of Christ. Jesus’ flesh is His nature. His blood is His life. So it is through the cross that we begin to eat and drink of Christ. By faith we exchange our nature for Jesus’ nature and our life for His life. As we enter into this exchange we commune with Jesus and begin to become one with Him.

It is at the cross that we also discover the meaning of worship. We learn what it is to be a living sacrifice of worship. Knowing our call to worship, we seek the grace of God to transform our hearts, that we may truly love God and so worship Him in spirit and truth.

The Tabernacle

All of these elements of our spiritual journey are found in the tabernacle of Moses. Entering into reality is pictured by the gate of the outer court. The brazen altar represents salvation through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The bronze laver speaks of being washed by the living word. The bread of the Presence calls us to partake of the divine nature of Christ. The golden lampstand represents the light of revelation. The golden altar is a picture of true worship. And the Ark of the Covenant is a picture of the divine presence and glory of God in the Holy of Holies. Thus each element of the tabernacle represents a spiritual reality that we can experience in our hearts as we grow in Christ.

Exodus 40:33-34

He erected the court all around the tabernacle and the altar, and hung up the veil for the gateway of the court. Thus Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

As we build our house for God and establish the tabernacle in our hearts, God promises to fill us with His awesome presence and glory. The way to the Holy of Holies is open. The Ark is waiting. God is calling us into His presence.

Where to from Here?

Having worked with the Spirit to build His tabernacle in us, we can move into the Holy of Holies and the presence of God. This is the focus of both Series Three and Series Four: becoming one with Christ in His presence and glory.

In Series Three we look at our call to be filled with the Spirit of God and learn more about preparing our hearts for His Spirit. In Series Four we focus on living in the Spirit as we look at what it means to abide in Christ.

As we learned in Series One, knowledge of a truth without experience is of little value. If we are to grow in God then we need the truth of His word to become our reality. This is the only way to change, growth and lasting fruitfulness. So if you find that you are no longer reading the studies with a view to personally experiencing the truth of God then it would be wise to stop reading and to set your heart again on God.

My prayer is that you would delight yourself in the Lord. May He truly be your joy, your heart, your desire and your one true love. May you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. May you be called, chosen and faithful. And by the grace of God, may you come to know more of His awesome and unfailing love for you, and may you become more and more one with Christ.

Author, One with Christ

Chapter 1

Into the Water

“Now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.”

Acts 22:16

In Series Two we looked at our inheritance in Christ in terms of the Tabernacle of Moses. As we possess the spiritual realities of the tabernacle, our hearts are prepared for the presence and glory of God. In this study we will review some of the key points from Series Two in terms of the baptism of water.

Repent and be Baptized

Acts 2:38

Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

In this passage Peter calls people to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. The baptism of water is a physical act that is intended to follow repentance and faith in Jesus. Regardless of how it is performed, being baptized in water is a reflection of the reality of turning from our sins and finding forgiveness and new life in Christ.

A Sign and Seal

Romans 4:3, 10-11

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness…“How then was it credited? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised; and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them…”

Seal: sphragis

A seal, the inscription or impression made by a seal, that by which anything is confirmed, proved, authenticated, as by a seal (a token or proof).

Since ancient times people have used physical signs to show that they are in relationship or covenant. In the same way that we use wedding rings as a sign of our marriage covenant, in Scripture when people made a covenant it would often be sealed with a physical symbol.[2] In keeping with this practice, God gave Abraham circumcision as an outward sign of their commitment to each other. The covenant itself was based on faith and so circumcision was a sign of faith.[3] It was evidence that Abraham’s faith in God was real and that he had attained the righteousness that comes through faith in God.

Like circumcision, the act of baptism in water is a sign of the covenant that we made with God when we first came to faith in Christ.[4] It is an act that seals our faith and shows that our confidence in God is real.

Washed from Sin

1 Peter 3:20-22 (emphasis added)

…when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.

In this passage we read that it is baptism that saves us. But can the physical act of baptism in water alone really save us? Can we be saved apart from baptism? And what are we actually saved from?

Ephesians 2:8-9 (original Greek emphasis)

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

We are saved by grace through faith. Salvation is a gift of grace that was secured when Jesus gave His life at the cross. Because of its high cost, salvation is not a debt that God owes to those who earn it. There is simply nothing we could ever do that would make us remotely worthy of the blood of Jesus. Rather, our salvation is a free gift that we can only receive and experience through faith.

Therefore if we have not sincerely repented and received the forgiveness of God by faith then the act of being baptized in water will not secure our salvation.[5] Baptism is only said to save us because it is a seal of our faith. Without faith we have no covenant with God to seal and we have no salvation. If we are baptized in water apart from faith then our baptism is nothing more than an empty ritual.

So if we are saved by grace through faith alone, do we need to be baptized at all? What is the purpose of the physical act of water baptism if we are already saved?

Faith and Works

James 2:17-22

Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected.

Our outward actions express the reality of our hearts. So if our actions do not reflect the confidence of our faith then it means that our faith is either dead or incomplete. Thus if we want to have a living and real faith then we need to let our faith flow freely through our actions.

In this light, water baptism is designed to be an outward expression of our faith in Jesus as our savior and redeemer. It is an act that perfects our faith in God for our salvation and confirms our covenant with Him. As such, if we have made a covenant with God and come to salvation by faith in Jesus then we should take the opportunity to complete our faith by being baptized in water. As a seal of faith, baptism is a gift, privilege and essential call for every believer.

Darkness to Light

So is water baptism only a sign and seal of our faith in God or are there more depths to baptism that we can explore?

Acts 26:15b-18

“I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.”

When Paul was on the road to Damascus, he saw a light from heaven shining brighter than the sun. During the vision, Jesus gave Paul insight into what it means to be redeemed.

When we come to faith in Christ we move from darkness to light; from spiritual blindness to sight; from the dominion of Satan to God; and from spiritual poverty to the riches of an inheritance among the saints. In other parts of Scripture our conversion is described in similar terms, such as moving from fantasy to reality, from sin to righteousness, from slavery to freedom, and from death to life.[6]

Thus our redemption involves more than the forgiveness of sin. It is being set free, enriched, born again, restored, brought to life, renewed, recreated and more. So like our redemption, our baptism in water also represents more than just our faith for salvation. As a spiritual symbol, our baptism in water symbolizes of the end of our old life of sin and the start of our new life in Christ. It represents our translation from spiritual darkness into the riches, light, love and truth of God.

But do we actually attain a life of complete freedom, light and righteousness when we first come to faith in Jesus? Or do we only experience these aspects of our redemption when we are baptized? If not, then when can know the full reality of our redemption?

Summary

Our baptism in water is an outward act that seals our faith in God and remains as a permanent sign of our covenant with Him. Through the baptism of water we confirm that we have bound our lives to Christ and He to us.

Just as works without faith are dead, so faith without works is also dead. For our faith to be living and powerful it needs to be made complete through our words and actions. And baptism in water is one such action. As a work of faith, our baptism is a spiritually powerful start to our relationship with God. So if we have not already been baptized in water then we should not hesitate to express our faith and devotion to God in baptism. By His grace we need to take His hand and let Him lead us into the waters of baptism.

Questions

Have I been baptized in water?

If so, what did being baptized mean to me?

If not, why not?

What does it mean to live in covenant with God?

Chapter 2

Born of Water

Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

John 3:3

Water baptism is a seal of our faith and redemption in Christ. In the last study we learned how there are vast depths to redemption to explore as we grow in God. Redemption is the experience of forgiveness and the cleansing of our heart and conscience. It is being set free, brought to life, renewed in the light, recreated in truth, enriched through an inheritance of unspeakable wealth, and born again of God.

In the same way, beyond the physical act of baptism there are vast depths of God waiting to be discovered. As we look past the physical, we can see some of the spiritual experiences that define what it means spiritually to be baptized in water.

Born Again

John 3:5

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

We cannot enter into the kingdom of God unless we are born of water and Spirit. But what does it mean to be born of water? Does this refer to our physical baptism in water or is being born of water a spiritual experience?

Washed by God

Titus 3:4-7

But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Ephesians 5:25-26

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word…

In Christ we are washed by the regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. And we are also washed through the word of God. So as we discovered in Series One, Scripture often uses water as a type of the Spirit and the word, which combine together to create the living word of God.

1 Peter 1:22-23

Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.

We are born again through the living and enduring word of God. When we hear the word of salvation in Christ, the Spirit breathes life into His word and it pierces our hearts. We know deep within us that what we have heard is true and God is real. As we receive faith through hearing the living word, we experience the reality of our salvation in Jesus. By God’s grace, we are cleansed by the Spirit and the word of God and we are restored into relationship with our Father.

Being born again through the living word of God is the spiritual fulfillment of what it means to be born of water. From this perspective we find that the act of water baptism not only seals our faith in Jesus for our redemption but it also reflects the reality of being born of water through the living word of God. So in terms of spiritual experience, our baptism in water does not need to end with the physical act of baptism. Rather, we can continue to immerse ourselves in God’s word and let His living water wash and renew us. But how do we soak in the word of God?

The Word in Action

Deuteronomy 11:18-19

“You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up.”

In this passage we hear the call to impress the word of God on our hearts and souls. The word of Christ is to be established at the forefront of our minds and imprinted in the depths of our souls. As we let the word of God soak into us, the written nature of God becomes the living nature of God within us. Through the word of God we grow and mature in Christ as His nature is formed in our hearts.

When the truth of God dwells within us, it can then flow out of us through our words and works. Then, just as God called His people to bind His words as a sign on their hands, so our works will be signs of God’s truth. And just as God called His people to constantly speak of His truth, so when we speak from our hearts, His truth will be heard.

Treasure the Word

Psalm 119:11

Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.

Joshua 1:8 (NKJV)

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

Scripture calls us to meditate on the word of God and treasure it in our hearts so that we might act according to the word of God and have good success. As we are faithful to meditate on God’s word and impress it on our hearts, the word will begin to shape our hearts, minds and desires. Then the more we are changed by God’s word, the more natural and easy it will be for us to act according to the truth within us. And the promise of Scripture is that when we act according to His word, we will find blessing, spiritual prosperity and good success.

To meditate on the word of God is to think about, imagine, ponder, contemplate, muse, research, study and intently focus on God’s word. Such reflection is not merely an intellectual exercise, but rather it is a form of worship, focusing both the heart and mind on God. This being so, we need to value the word as a way to worship and connect with God. The more we meditate on the word, the more the word will take root in our hearts and start to bear fruit in our words and actions.

Delight of the Word

Jeremiah 15:16

Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts.

Like Jeremiah, the Spirit of God can make His word a joy and delight for us. He can open our eyes to the glory of His word and create a real hunger for His truth in us. Like fine food, we will delight in consuming the living word of God and letting it become a part of us.

When we ask the Spirit to breath on the word of God and impress it into our souls, our time in His word will bear lasting fruit. As we are led by the Spirit, He may teach us to approach the word of God in many different ways. For example, we can meditate on a certain truth and let it soak into our hearts. We can study the word and receive revelation. We can search the word for greater understanding. We can memorize and recall the word. We can teach the word and share with others about the word of God. We can also let the word flow into our everyday lives as we learn to instinctively apply the word of God in our lives.

As we continue to soak in the living word, we will find that every aspect of the word draws us closer to God. Jesus is the Word of God and the Scriptures are a revelation of God in Christ Jesus.[7] So when we let the word of Christ abide in us, we open a door to a deeper realm of love and unity with Jesus.

Summary

Colossians 3:16a

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you…

Baptism in water reflects our salvation and new birth through the living word of God. So beyond the physical act of baptism, we can continue to soak in the waters of the living word and receive more and more of His cleansing and life.

Our words and actions express the reality of our hearts.[8] Therefore before we can faithfully act on the word of God we need to let His truth settle deep within our hearts and change us from within. When the word of Christ richly dwells within us we will come to naturally act and speak according to His truth.

Thus God has not called us to labor or strive to live according to His word. He has designed it to be easy. He simply calls us to let His truth richly dwell within us and then to speak and act from the heart. As we are obedient to impress the word of God onto our hearts and souls, the Holy Spirit will be faithful to fulfill His word. He will come and renew our hearts and lead us into more of our true life in union with God.

Questions

What would it feel like to have a truly clean heart?

What truth would I like to truly know is real in my heart?

How can I come to delight in the word?

How can my actions and words express God’s nature?

Chapter 3

Present Salvation

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Galatians 3:27

The act of baptism in water is a seal of our faith and a sign of our covenant with God. Yet here we find that there are more depths to baptism still to discover. When we are baptized in the name of Jesus, we are baptized into Christ. But what does it mean to be baptized into Jesus?

Death to Life

Romans 6:1-9 (original Greek emphasis)

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.[9]

When we are baptized into Christ, we are baptized into His death so that just as Jesus was raised to glory, we too might walk in newness of life. In other words, to be baptized into Christ is to be united with Jesus in the power of His death and resurrection.

Jesus was crucified so that our old self could be crucified with Him and we could be set free from our slavery to sin. Therefore a key aspect of being baptized into Jesus is dying to sin and receiving new life in Christ. But does this mean that when we are baptized in water we experience the actual reality of dying to sin? Are we really united with Christ in resurrection life at our baptism?

An Inheritance Gained

When we are first redeemed by God we receive an awesome spiritual inheritance in Christ. All the blessings of God are given to us through Jesus, however in the beginning we only actually experience a small portion of those blessings.[10]

For example, when we start out in our relationship with God, we only really know and believe a small measure of the truth. As we grow spiritually, we learn more of God and we grow in our knowledge and experience of the truth. We see more of the light and reality of God and we become less blind.

In the same way, our initial experience of repentance is only a small taste of the reality of true repentance. At first, we feel the guilt of sin that leads us to seek the forgiveness of God. Yet beyond feelings of guilt there are many more depths to repentance that we can experience as we grow in God.

For example, the word repent (metanoeo) means to change. So as we grow in repentance we can discover the reality of true change as God transforms our hearts and minds.[11] By changing our lives inwardly, repentance leads us to change the way we live outwardly. More and more we come to detest our sin and its influence in our lives. As we set ourselves against our sin and continue to grow in repentance, we are ultimately led into the reality of being crucified with Christ and dying to sin.

Thus the redemption of our souls is an ongoing work that we experience as we pursue the depths of repentance, purity and righteousness in Christ. This principle is true for every aspect of our spiritual life in Christ, including our salvation. There are always greater depths to experience and explore.

A Present Salvation

1 Peter 2:1-3

Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.

Soteria: salvation

Welfare, prosperity, deliverance, preservation, salvation, safety. From sozo meaning: to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction.

When we first come to faith our salvation secures us a place with God in eternity after we physically die. Yet the word sozo means more than eternal security. It means being safe, healed, delivered and made whole. From this perspective, we find that as we grow in God we grow in our salvation. We become more saved.

2 Thessalonians 2:13

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.

Here we find that God has chosen us for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith. The salvation of God being spoken of here is not a future salvation after we die. It is our present salvation from sin. It is our deliverance from our old self-life through the sanctifying power of the Spirit.

As we grow in our salvation more of our old life is washed away by the blood of Jesus and we find healing as His life is formed in us. Through faith in the truth of our salvation we are made whole and holy as His nature is formed in our hearts. In this way, our salvation saves us from sin to God. Through the sanctifying work of the Spirit we are increasingly delivered from our old self and set free to become our new self in Christ.

Baptism and Inheritance

Our experience of salvation begins when we first come to faith in God and continues through the process of sanctification. In the same way, even though our outward baptism in water takes place at a single point in time, our inward baptism into Christ continues throughout our entire lives.

In this sense, being baptized in water not only perfects our faith for the salvation we have received so far, but it also seals our promised inheritance in Christ for the sanctification we are yet to experience. So while we may not experience the fullness of death to sin or resurrection life at the time of our baptism in water, our baptism is still a sign of the covenant we have made with God in the death and life of Christ. As we descend into the water we commit ourselves to dying with Christ to sin. As we rise out of the water we devote ourselves to living in the reality of our new life in Christ. This new life is a new birth and a brand new start as a new person. So as a symbol and statement of faith, our baptism in water marks just the beginning of our salvation, sanctification and new life in Christ. It is a first step of faith in our journey towards our Promised Land.

Noah and the Ark

1 Peter 3:20b-21 (NKJV, emphasis added)

…in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.

Baptism is the fulfillment or antitype of Noah’s ark. As a type, Noah’s ark and the circumstances surrounding the ark can teach us about our baptism in Christ.

In the days of Noah, God poured out His judgment on all sin and evil.[12] However, Noah was blameless before God and so he and his family were saved by God as they took shelter in the ark.[13]

Like the people in the time of Noah, when we first come to faith in God we carry the presence of sin in our hearts. To set us free from sin, God overwhelms our sin with a flood of His judgment and condemns all our sin to death and destruction. As we are baptized into Jesus, our sinful self dies with Christ at the cross. Yet like Noah and his family, all that is righteous within us is preserved in Christ, for He is our ark. Jesus is our only refuge and salvation from God’s judgment upon sin.

So we know how Noah was saved by God. But the question now is why? Why did God preserve Noah and His family?

Redeemed for a Reason

The purpose of the ark was not just to keep Noah and his family alive, but to keep them safe through God’s judgment on sin and deliver them into a new life. Like Noah, God has forgiven our sin and redeemed us for a purpose beyond our eternal survival. Just as Noah was saved so he might begin life again, so we are delivered through God’s judgment so that we might enter into our new life in Christ.

The Promise of the Spirit

Acts 2:38-39 [14]

Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.”

Galatians 3:13-14

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us — for it is written, “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

In Acts 2 Peter calls the people to repent and be forgiven so that they may receive the gift of the Spirit.[15] Paul then echoes the same truth: Jesus redeems us for a reason. Just as God saved Noah for a new life, so Jesus redeems us from the curse of the Law and saves us from our sin so that we would know the reality of our new life in God. And this new life is found in the promise of the Holy Spirit.

Summary

In the waters of baptism we seal our faith for our past, present and future salvation. Through baptism we devote our entire lives to being united with Christ in death and life and to experiencing the depths of our inheritance in Him.

As a symbol, water baptism represents our redemption, salvation and new life in Christ. These gifts are works of grace that the Spirit of God performs in our hearts through faith. As we grow in God, we experience more of our redemption, salvation and life. We become more redeemed, more saved and more alive in Christ. In this way, the question for us is not: are we saved? but are we being saved? Are we continuing to grow in our salvation?

Questions

How can I experience more of my salvation?

Why am I being redeemed?

What is the promise of the Holy Spirit?

How can I enter into my new life in Christ?

Chapter 4

In Water and Spirit

Christ redeemed us…so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Galatians 3:14a,15b

Baptism in water is a work that perfects our faith in God for the forgiveness of sin. It is an act of obedience that brings our faith to life and proves that our devotion to God is real. In this way, baptism is an outward sign of the covenant that we make with God when we give our lives to love and obey Him.

Our baptism in water represents the reality of redemption and salvation. Yet we are redeemed for more than just life after death. As Scripture says: Jesus redeems us and saves us from our sin so that we can receive the promise of the Spirit. Like Noah, God has called us to a new life of righteousness. He has called us to a life that is filled with His Spirit.

Born of Water and Spirit

John 3:1-8

Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

If we are to experience the kingdom of God then we must be born of water and of the Spirit. Just as we cannot separate the flesh of Christ from His blood nor His nature from His life, so we cannot separate the reality of being born of water from being born of the Spirit. Both experiences are essential to our spiritual life.

In Water and Spirit

Mark 1:9-11

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him; and a voice came out of the heavens: “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.”

John 1:32-33

John testified saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’”

Jesus has always been entirely holy and so His baptism was not a baptism of repentance. Rather Jesus was baptized in water as an example for us to follow.[16] And His example did not end with water. When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit came down from heaven and remained on Jesus. The presence of the Holy Spirit following His baptism was a confirmation that Jesus not only saves us from our sin but that He also baptizes us in His Spirit. In reality, Jesus saves us from sin and death so that He can baptize us in His Spirit.

Baptized in Water and Spirit

Acts 19:5-6

When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying.

Acts 10:44-48a

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message. All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God. Then Peter answered, “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?” And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

In Scripture, many people were filled with the Spirit after their water baptism.[17] Others received the Spirit before their baptism in water. Of concern was not the order of baptisms, but simply that people were immersed both in water and in the Spirit. So if believers were found that had received one baptism and not the other, they were immediately offered the other baptism.

Thus the baptism of water is not complete without the baptism of the Holy Spirit and vice versa. Repentance and forgiveness are essential graces that lead to the baptism of water. However, it is only as we receive the baptism of the Spirit that we realize the actual reason for repentance and forgiveness.

So like the early believers, the order of our baptisms in water and Spirit is not that important; what really matters is that we are baptized both in water and in the Spirit. Together these baptisms form a fundamental starting point for our life in God.

In Cloud and Sea

1 Corinthians 10:1-4

For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.

Israel’s journey to the Promised Land is a picture of our spiritual journey into our inheritance in Christ. Just as the people of Israel were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, so if we are to be baptized into Jesus then we need to be baptized in water and in the Spirit.

Children of God

Romans 8:14-17

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

When we first come to faith in Jesus, we become children of God. The Holy Spirit within us testifies with our spirit that we are children of God and heirs of God with Christ. As God’s children we bear His image. Through His nature and life within us, we are the flesh and blood of God. We are recreated in His image so that like children, we might mature into His likeness.

John 1:11-13

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

When we receive Jesus, He gives us the right to become children of God. But when do we become children of God in reality? We know that those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God. But does this mean that we only receive the spirit of adoption when we are born of the Spirit? Or does this all happen when we first come to faith in Jesus?[18]

Faith and Reality

Acts 2:38

Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

The Spirit of God is a gift. There is nothing we could ever do to earn the Spirit of Christ. His presence and life within us is a gift of God’s grace and through Scripture we know that the only way to access grace is through faith.[19]

Faith is the deep confidence of the heart that comes from hearing the living word of God. Because Jesus is truth and faith comes from Him, our faith has to be founded on the truth. If our faith is not based on truth then it is not real faith and it has not come from God. So if we are to have the faith we need to be filled with the Spirit then we need to know what the word of God says about the baptism of the Spirit. Did we receive the fullness of the Spirit when we first came to repentance? Or is the baptism of the Spirit a gift that we experience separately from our redemption in Christ?

Summary

Baptism in water is more than a religious ritual. It is an act that perfects our faith in Jesus and reflects the reality of being forgiven and redeemed by Christ. Yet like redemption, our baptism in water is not an end in itself. Jesus has redeemed us for a reason. He took our sin at the cross so that we might be baptized in His Spirit and receive a whole new life in Christ. Thus the real heart of the gospel is not the truth of eternal salvation. It is the good news of the presence and life of God permeating us through the Spirit of Jesus.[20]

As we discover the reason for our redemption we see why we need to be born of water and of Spirit in order to enter into the kingdom of God. Through faith in the living word of God we experience salvation and we are spiritually born of water. As we receive the Holy Spirit we then find new life as we are born of the Spirit and united with Jesus.

Like our salvation, we can only receive the promise of the Holy Spirit through faith. And faith itself is a gift that comes from God.[21] As the Spirit of God speaks the truth of His word to us, He forms a powerful confidence in our hearts that leads us into reality.

So if we want to experience more of the Spirit then we need to ask God to reveal more of His truth and so create more faith in our hearts. We need to ask Him to speak to us and show us the nature of our inheritance in the Spirit. What does it mean to be baptized in the Spirit? When can we experience this baptism? Is there an inheritance beyond the baptism of the Spirit?

Questions

Spend some time reflecting on your current relationship with the Holy Spirit. Sense your heart. Is there a desire for more of the Spirit? If so, what is that desire for specifically? Offer your desires to God and then spend some time waiting on Him. Take time to sense His heart and open yourself to His love. Let Him fill you.

Chapter 5

Into the Spirit

“I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Matthew 1:8

When John the Baptist spoke of Jesus, he revealed Him to be the Lamb that takes away our sin and the One who baptizes us with the Holy Spirit. Thus the work of Christ is to set us free from sin and to fill us with His Spirit. But when does this happen? When are we actually filled with the Spirit of God?

Baptism in the Spirit

Acts 8:14-17

Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.

For He had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit.

Here we find that although the believers in Samaria had been baptized with water in the name of Jesus, they were yet to receive the outpouring of the Spirit. Like the disciples before Pentecost, these believers had been redeemed and restored into relationship with God. They had repented of their sin and they knew the reality of God’s forgiveness. As God’s children, the baptism of the Spirit was a part of their inheritance in Christ. However it was only as they were prayed for that they were filled with the Spirit.

In the same way, the baptism of the Spirit is a part of every believer’s inheritance in Christ. Anyone with faith, desire and a heart to obey God can be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

So does this mean that we only receive the Spirit when we are baptized in the Spirit? Can we be in relationship with God without receiving His Spirit? Or can we receive the Holy Spirit apart from the baptism of the Spirit?

Receive and Wait

John 20:21-22

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; 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.”

After His resurrection, Jesus breathed upon His disciples and imparted the Spirit of God to them. Through the grace and love of Christ, the disciples received the Breath of Life.

Acts 1:3-5

To these He [Jesus] also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

Here we find that Jesus told those same disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So although the disciples had received the Spirit through Jesus’ breath, they were not yet baptized in the Spirit. Having imparted the Spirit to His disciples, Jesus promised them that there was more of the Spirit still to come.

Clothed with Power

Luke 24:49

“And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

In this passage Jesus describes the baptism of the Spirit as being clothed with power. Thus spiritual power is a defining feature of the baptism of the Spirit. It is a quality of the Spirit that did not come with the Breath of God, but one that the disciples received as they were baptized in the Spirit. So even though they had already received a measure of the Spirit of God, the disciples entered into a new realm of power, life and relationship with God through the baptism of the Spirit.

Life and More Life

In the Present Salvation study we learned how we can grow in our salvation.[22] When we first come to faith in Christ, we are saved and yet we also have an inheritance in salvation. Our eternity is secure and yet we can become more saved as Jesus heals us, makes us whole and sets us free in new ways.

In the same way, when we enter into covenant with God Jesus breathes on us and brings us to life through His Spirit. We receive the Holy Spirit and we also receive an inheritance in the Spirit. We can go on to be baptized in the Spirit and be clothed with His power. We can learn to abide in the Spirit. We can come to worship, pray, minister, speak and live in the Spirit. We can experience the Spirit of Jesus as our refining fire. We can know Him as our present love or as our radiant glory. He can be our home, our helper, our guide and our life.[23] In this way, the initial experience of being filled with the Spirit is not an end in itself. Rather, it is simply the beginning of a new realm of relationship with the Spirit of God in which we have a lifetime of growth and experience before us.

Infancy to Maturity

The baptism of the Spirit is an experience that is separate from our initial redemption and is only received by faith. However if some people lack the faith to be baptized in the Spirit while others embrace the filling of the Spirit then does this mean that there are different classes of Christians?[24] Can we have greater and lesser believers based on the experience of Spirit baptism?

Press on to Maturity

Hebrews 5:13-6:1 (original Greek emphasis)

For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity…

The picture of being born again is one of being born into a family. When we first come to faith in God we are brought to life as spiritual babies with a lifetime of growth before us. In the beginning we need the milk of the word to nurture us.[25] As we grow we become like infants, learning to walk in the Spirit. Then, as we continue to mature and consume the solid food of the truth of God, we become like children who grow into adolescents, who then become mature adults.[26]

As we grow in God we do not seek the filling of the Spirit so that we can feel like we are part of an elite spiritual class. To press on to maturity so that we can feel superior to those who are less mature makes no sense in the natural or the spiritual.[27] We are to press onto maturity simply because it is God’s call for us and we live to love Him and do His will.

Maturity and Humility

Philippians 2:3-4

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

If we are in Christ, we are in a family, not a class society. And in our families we do not look down on others because they are young. Rather we recognize that it is normal for everyone to be at different stages of growth and so we are sensitive to those who are younger and we are respectful of those who are more mature. We also recognize that it is unnatural for people to stop maturing at any stage of life, and so we love, nurture, lead and spur each other on to greater maturity in Christ.[28]

In God’s family we all share the same blood. We have the same Father who has given us the same inheritance and called us to the same goal: love and unity with Him. Knowing this, we need to set our hearts on God’s will for us and continue to mature in Christ while encouraging others to keep growing.

If we are one of those believers who are yet to receive the baptism of the Spirit then we can take heart that we are not in a lesser class of faith. We are simply at a different place in the same journey. What is important is not where we are now but where we are heading. So the question for us is: what do we really want? Do we truly want to be filled with the Spirit?

Summary

When we first come to faith in God we receive an awesome inheritance in Jesus. A foundational aspect of this inheritance is the baptism of the Spirit. Through the baptism of the Spirit we are clothed with power from on high and we are filled with the life and presence of Jesus.

However, the baptism of the Spirit is not a destination or end point of our maturity. It is just one of many steps in our spiritual journey. Therefore we need to resolve to always press on to greater maturity in Christ. We need to focus our hearts on always growing in God so that we can know more of the depths of our inheritance in Jesus.

Questions

What does it mean to be baptized with the Spirit?

Have I experienced the power of the Spirit?

Can I be filled with more of the Spirit?

What quality of the Spirit do I really want to possess?

Chapter 6

Testing the Heart

The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the LORD tests hearts.

Proverbs 17:3

As His children, God has given us the promise of being filled with His Spirit. But does this mean that we can choose to be filled with the Spirit whenever we want? Or do we have to wait until we are led by God into the baptism of the Spirit?

The Pace of God

2 Peter 3:9

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.[29]

God wants everyone to come to salvation and so He patiently waits for people to come to repentance. God does not force repentance or salvation on anyone. It is a free gift that we can choose to receive or reject. The same is true for the Holy Spirit. Being baptized in the Spirit is a free gift of God.

But if this is the case then why would we not all be filled with the Spirit when we first come to faith in Jesus? If Jesus is ready and willing to fill us with His Spirit right now then what could keep us from being baptized in Him? Do we need to wait for God or is He waiting for us?

When Jesus and the apostles called people to repent, many people heard the truth, turned to Christ and were saved from their sin. But some did not. Ultimately it was the condition of each person’s heart that determined if they would heed the call. Those people who had hard hearts rejected the word, leaving God to continue patiently waiting for them to come to repentance. However, those who had open and responsive hearts believed the living word and experienced the reality of salvation by faith in God.

In the same way that our hearts needed to be ready to receive salvation, so our hearts also need to be ready to be baptized with the Spirit. For those of us who have already prepared our hearts, simply asking God in faith will be all we need to do to be filled with the Spirit. However if we lack the faith or desire to be baptized, or if we have a divided heart, then we might find that we need to prepare our hearts before we can experience the baptism of the Spirit.

A Seeking Heart

Mark 10:17-23

As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” And he said to Him, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.” Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus, looking around, said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!”

Here we learn of a man who came to Jesus seeking eternal life. The man in this passage was genuinely seeking God. He ran to Jesus. In humility, he knelt down before Jesus and honored Him. From his youth, this man had sought to keep the law and live a good life. He had an honest faith and a righteous desire for eternal life. And yet there was something lacking.

The man came to Jesus wanting to know how he could inherit eternal life. Jesus loved him and answered his question by testing his heart. Jesus was not saying that everyone must sell all their possessions in order to inherit eternal life. Instead He was showing us that we need to have an undivided heart to know His life. God demands our complete devotion.

The problem for the rich young man was that his wealth had divided his heart. Jesus wanted to set him free from the hold of wealth and so He called him to let go of his riches and follow Him. And the man was torn. He grieved because he truly wanted eternal life but his dependence on his material wealth was more powerful than his spiritual desire for real life. So instead of making him rich, his temporal wealth left him spiritually bound and immeasurably poor.

An Inheritance at Risk

1 Corinthians 2:9

But just as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

In calling the rich man to follow Him, Jesus was offering him an inheritance beyond all imagination. The man could have become a disciple and apostle. He could have been baptized in the Spirit and become one with Christ. He could have found eternal life and divine love. But his heart was divided and He was not ready for the liberating change that Jesus spoke of.

Like the young man, we also have an awesome inheritance in Jesus. We are called to live in His presence and abide in His unfailing love. We are called to enter into the glory of the Most Holy Place and become one with Christ. However, if we are to possess our inheritance and know the reality of eternal life in Christ then we need to have hearts that are entirely and unreservedly devoted to God.

Unconscious Compromise

Initially the rich young man had believed that his heart was devoted to God. However, the reality was that his heart was divided. Like this man, we can run to Jesus, honestly believing that we fully desire the things of God. But like him, we too can be honestly mistaken. We can think that we want more of God but be unaware of the competing attachments and affections of our hearts. We can be blind to the compromises we have made and the ongoing effects of those compromises.[30] When we live in this way, our hearts are divided. We have a desire for God, but it is on our terms. We want Him to save us, but not in our entirety.[31]

Psalm 19:12

Who can understand his errors?

Cleanse me from secret faults.

Like David, we can be unaware of the true state of our hearts.[32] We can unknowingly harbor secret sins that resist God’s grace and undermine our spiritual growth in Christ. So in order to grow more in God, we need to be set free from our hidden sin. We need to ask God to test our hearts and expose everything that is keeping us from loving and following Him completely.

Testing the Heart

Psalm 26:2

Examine me, O LORD, and try me;

Test my mind and my heart.

1 Chronicles 28:9

“As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.”

Psalm 139:23-24

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

And see if there be any hurtful way in me,

And lead me in the everlasting way.

If we are to know the reality of our potential life in God then we need to be like David and cry out to God to test our hearts and minds. We need Him to reveal any hurtful way in us. As we turn to God, He will test and refine us like gold or silver. He will expose the impurities in our hearts so that we can turn to Him in repentance and faith and find the power of Jesus’ blood to wash away our sin.

An Impossible Call

When the rich young man discovered the cost of following Jesus, he was grieved. The perceived price for eternal life was too high to bear. But was there ever any hope for the young man? Jesus knew the conflict within the young man, so when Jesus revealed his heart was He making a final judgment on the man? Or was the young man actually able to change his own heart and turn from his wealth?[33]

Mark 10:17-24 (original Greek emphasis)

The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” They were even more astonished and said to Him, “Then who can be saved?” Looking at them, Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”

Like the rich young man, it is impossible for us to prepare our hearts for Jesus without His grace. Yet His grace is forever present and available. The Spirit of God is always ready and willing to change our hearts and prepare us for more of God.

All Things are Possible

Mark 9:23-24 (NKJV)

Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

The man in this passage desperately wanted Jesus to heal his son. When Jesus said that it was possible by faith, the man recognized his problem. He knew that although he had some faith, he also had unbelief in his heart that he needed help to overcome. And so he called on Jesus to help him to believe.

Like the man in this passage, the rich young man could have thrown himself down before Jesus and confessed the fear and insecurity that was dividing his heart.[34] He could have asked for forgiveness and the grace to set him free from his love of wealth. Then Jesus would have forgiven his sin, touched him and healed his heart. On that day, the man could have found in Christ the power to leave his wealth and follow God. But he failed to ask for grace. He did not seek freedom or transformation. Instead, having looked at and talked with the Son of God, he turned and walked away.

A key lesson that we learn from the story of the rich young man is that before we seek God to test our hearts, we need to prepare ourselves to give up whatever He exposes. We need to fix our eyes on Christ and resolve to pursue His grace and never turn away from Him, ever, no matter what the cost.

Summary

Like the Tabernacle of Moses, we need to prepare our hearts to be filled with the Spirit of God. However, often we can find that we do not truly know our own hearts. We can be blind to the unconscious compromises, the idolatry and the sin that abides in our hearts. So to prepare and purify our hearts, the Spirit of God tests us and shows us what is truly within us. Through the light of revelation, the Spirit of God reveals our hidden sin so that we might turn to Jesus and receive His grace to be forgiven, and be set free to follow Him with all our heart.

Questions

Do I really want God to test my heart?

Can I test my own heart?

What elements of the world have a hold on my heart?

Am I prepared to run to Christ during testing?

Chapter 7

The Way of Testing

“For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

Matthew 7:14

In the previous study we saw how Jesus tested the heart of the rich young ruler. Like the young man, we also need the Spirit of God to test our hearts. As we invite God to shine His light into our hearts, He will expose the hidden darkness within us so that we might be set free to be filled with His Spirit and presence.

The Talents

Matthew 25:14-30

“For it is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey. Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents. In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more. But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, ‘Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed. Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest. Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.’ For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

In the parable of the talents, the master tested his slaves. At issue was not how much money the slaves could earn their master. Rather the master was testing the hearts of His slaves. Those with good hearts acted faithfully and their fruitfulness was evidence of their loyalty. They were proven to be good and faithful, and so they were exalted into the joy of the Lord.

For the unfaithful slave, the test of the talents exposed the impurity of His heart. Our natural mind would want to show mercy to the slave, reasoning that he acted in ignorance. Yet the slave knew what was required. Despite this knowledge, he chose to listen to his fear over obeying His master’s voice.

Fear was an idol in the slave’s heart that undermined his loyalty, faithfulness, goodness, courage and wisdom. He was afraid to fail and so he sought to preserve his life rather than risk it for his master. The result was that by yielding to his fear, the slave chose an outcome that was worse than the failure he had so feared in the first place.

In order to pass the test, the slave should have firstly dealt with his heart. He needed to recognize and overcome his fear, give up his ownership of his life, and determine to act in love and loyalty. Thus the slave’s real failure did not concern the talent; it was a failure of the heart. The talent was simply evidence that his heart was divided against his master. By choosing to succumb to his fear the slave obeyed another master and chose another future. Rather than entering into joy and abundance, he was bound in the outer darkness.

In the same way, in our hearts we choose whether we live in the outer darkness or in the joy of the Lord. If we are to be filled with the Spirit and live in His presence then we need to have an undivided heart that is completely devoted to the love and will of God.

Psalm 86:11

Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name.

The first step towards a united heart is to ask God for the grace of His testing. As He exposes our compromises, He will purify us, set us free and prepare our hearts for His Spirit.

The Way of Testing

Deuteronomy 8:2a

“You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart…”

Like the worthless slave in the parable of the talents, the first generation of Israelites out of Egypt also had divided hearts and so they forfeited their inheritance. However, for 40 years God humbled and tested the second generation of Israelites in the wilderness so that He might prove their hearts.

Like Israel, if we are to live in our Promised Land then we need to have hearts that are free from fear and compromise. We need to be willing to be humbled and broken by God so that we might be set free from our independence and pride. We need to ask God to test us and expose our hidden sin so that we might have undivided hearts that are ready for His Spirit and presence.

Breaking the Chains

In testing our hearts, Jesus only exposes what is harmful in us. Therefore the call to sacrifice our hidden sins is a call of grace. The Spirit works in love to expose the chains of our hearts. And no matter how fond of them we are, no matter how innocent and even good they may seem, they are still chains that need to be broken for us to be truly free.

When we seek God to try our hearts, He may reveal our sin in different ways. Sometimes the revelation may come simply as a word that pierces our hearts. At other times God may put us in a situation that provokes a sinful reaction from us. He may use our relationships to test us. God may call us to break a habit or change the way we spend our free time. Or like Abraham or the rich young man, the Spirit of God may simply call us to sacrifice those things that we love more than Him.

Psalm 90:8

You have placed our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.

1 John 1:6-7

If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

When we live in the light, the Spirit exposes the darkness in our hearts so that the blood of Jesus can cleanse us from that sin. No sin can ever stand against the blood of Jesus. Just as darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, so sin cannot remain in the presence of Jesus’ blood. His blood washes sin away forever. In this way, the testing of God is a gift of love that leads us into greater freedom and life in Christ.

A New Heart

Jeremiah 24:7

“I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.”

When God reveals our sin, we need to return to Him with our whole heart. In every time of testing we are to entirely set our hearts on seeking God and finding His grace and forgiveness.

Ezekiel 36:25-27

“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

If we focus on continually returning to God during times of testing, we have the promise that He will give us a new heart. He will cleanse us from our hidden sin and pour His Spirit into us. By His grace, He will recreate our hearts in His image. Then, with a new heart and a new nature, and by the love and power of His Spirit, we will naturally walk in His ways.

Summary

To enter into the baptism of the Spirit we need to seek God. But seeking alone is not enough. If we want to be baptized in the Spirit of Jesus then we need to have hearts that are wholly devoted to God.

To this end, the Holy Spirit will test our hearts. He will shine His light and expose our hidden faults. He exposes our sin, not to judge or condemn us, but to set us free. So when we receive His revelation and see the division within our hearts, we need to run to Jesus. As we come to Jesus in repentance and faith, we will experience the power of His blood to wash away our sin and set us free.

So we see that testing brings revelation, which with faith leads to freedom. By His grace our sin is exposed and by His blood it is washed away and destroyed forever. Like gold, we are refined and made pure. Through the Spirit we receive a heart that is recreated in His image with one love and goal. And that is Jesus Christ.

Questions

Is there fear in my heart?

Am I ready to be tested?

What one thing would I not want God to ask me to sacrifice?

Is there grace to overcome the compromises of the heart?

Chapter 8

Preparing the Heart

“…for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

1 Samuel 16:7b

When we come to Jesus, He sees through our actions and our words to the inner nature of our hearts. Thus if we want to be baptized in the Spirit then we need to seek Him with more than words. We need to actively prepare our hearts to abide in the Spirit of Jesus. But how can we prepare our hearts?

Desire

John 6:35

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”

Proverbs 13:12

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

If we hunger for Jesus, we will be satisfied as we come to Him. Yet the opposite is also true: if we do not hunger for Jesus then we will not be filled. So in terms of being filled with the Spirit, we need to prepare our hearts by growing a desire for the Spirit that is more real than our natural hunger. Our desire to be baptized into Christ needs to be a consuming desire that reflects our desperate need for the Spirit.

Philippians 2:13

…for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

It is God who works in us to create true desire in our hearts. So if we lack desire, we simply need to seek God to meet our need. And He will. As we seek Him, God will reveal to us our constant need for His Spirit. Then, as our eyes are opened to our need, a hunger for Jesus will naturally grow in our hearts. This desire for Christ will continue to build in us, to the point that being baptized in the Spirit of Jesus will no longer be just a desire, but an absolute necessity. Just as our physical life depends on our breathing, so being filled with the Spirit will become an essential need in our spiritual life.[35]

Faith

Hebrews 4:1

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.

The first generation of Hebrews to cross the desert forfeited their future in the Promised Land because of a lack of faith. They lived and died outside their inheritance because they did not trust God to keep His promise. If we are to learn from their failings and enter into our inheritance in Christ then we need to expel all fear and doubt, and cultivate the gift of faith.

Romans 8:31-32

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

The word of God is clear: God did not spare His Son, therefore He will not withhold anything from us. If we prepare our hearts, He will fill us with His Spirit. It is a rock-solid promise. We simply need to receive the true confidence of faith and stand in the sure knowledge that God will keep His word.[36]

Repentance

As we saw in the last study, when we live in the light the blood of Jesus washes away our sin. The Spirit tests our hearts and reveals our hidden sins, which are then destroyed by His blood and forever forgotten. In this way, it is a gift of God’s grace for our sin to be exposed. We can as God to test us our hearts with joy knowing that His testing brings our freedom.

Acts 3:19

“Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…”

If we repent, we have the promise that our sins will be completely erased and we will experience times of refreshing from His presence.[37] But what is true repentance?

A Change of Heart

Repent: metanoeo

To change one’s mind, i.e. to repent

Repentance means change. So if we have not truly changed then we have not truly repented. In this sense, repentance is not just about feeling a sense of remorse for our sin and asking God to forgive us. Repentance is about actual transformation. It is only as we ask God to permanently change our hearts and minds that we begin to truly repent of our sin.

For example, if the Spirit exposes greed within our hearts then our feelings of remorse lead us to ask God to forgive our acts of greed. However, repentance is more than forgiveness. Beyond being forgiven of our sin, we need to seek the power of the cross to remove the underlying root of greed from our hearts. We need to ask God to cut it away from our hearts so that we are no longer compelled or influenced by greed. In this sense, when we repent from our sin, we seek a lasting change in our hearts that we know is possible in God. We turn to Jesus and ask Him to wash away our sin and transform our hearts.

Faith and Repentance

It is by faith that we experience reality. So if we only have faith for forgiveness then that is all we will experience. The root of sin will remain to bring forth fruit in another season. To truly change through repentance we need to believe that the blood of Jesus not only washes away our acts of sin but that it soaks into the root of sin and removes it from our hearts. We need to know that the cross is the end of sin and that Jesus’ blood washes away every trace of sin. It is in this sense that repentance is a gift from God. Only He can reveal to us the power of the Lamb of God to take away our sin. Only He can enable us to imagine a life without the presence and compelling of the sin that we are seeking freedom from. So to prepare our hearts for His Spirit, we need to seek the gift of repentance and faith so that we can know the transforming power of the blood of Christ.

Forgiveness

Matthew 6:14-15

“For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”

Matthew 18:35

“…My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”

Ephesians 4:32

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

When we come to faith in Jesus and receive the grace of His love and forgiveness, we give up the right to hold people’s sin against them. Just as God redeemed us and forgave our sin, so we are commanded to forgive others when they hurt or offend us. This command is not optional. From the youngest to the oldest of us, and from the most trivial to the cruelest of sin, if we want to know the fullness of God’s forgiveness then we need to forgive others from our hearts. When we seek and receive the grace of God to forgive others, our forgiveness becomes an act of faith and love that blesses others and sets us free.

In this way, forgiving others is an essential part of being baptized in the Spirit. Unforgiveness is a sin that hardens our hearts and keeps us from experiencing the presence of God. So if the Spirit exposes unforgiveness in our hearts then we need to repent and ask God to fill us with His grace and love so that we might truly forgive others and ourselves.[38]

Humility

Psalm 51:10-11, 17

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from Your presence

And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me…

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

A broken and a contrite heart,

O God, You will not despise.

In Psalm 51 David cries out to God to cleanse his heart so that he might dwell in God’s presence. If sin is left to live in our hearts, it will separate us from the presence of God and we will remain in the outer courts of our spiritual experience. So like David, if we are to be baptized in the Spirit and to live in His presence then we need we need to humble ourselves before God. We need to prepare our hearts by asking God to take our sin, break our hearts and establish His humility and love in us.[39]

A Seeking Heart

Jeremiah 29:12-13

“Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Luke 11:9-13

“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

God wants to give us the Holy Spirit. Jesus died so we could be filled with the Spirit. So having prepared our hearts, we can come as little children and ask our Father to immerse us in His Spirit. We can be sure that if we persist in asking God in faith, He will answer our cries. Our part is simply to seek God and keep seeking; to prepare our hearts and keep preparing until Jesus fulfills His promise and baptizes us in His Spirit.

Summary

God is ready and willing to immerse us in His Spirit. He is simply waiting until we are ready. Thus our call is to prepare our hearts for His Spirit. As we prepare our hearts we increase our capacity for loving God and abiding in Him.

The preparation of the heart is not a work by which we can earn our baptism in His Spirit. Rather it is an act of grace. The different aspects of our preparation such as repentance, desire, forgiveness, faith and petitioning of God are not acts that we can use to force God to release His Spirit. Rather they are simply evidence of a ready heart. As God sees the genuine and fervent desire and purity of our hearts, He will answer our cry and fill us with His Spirit.

Questions

How great is my desire to be filled with more of the Spirit?

Do I really need to be baptized in the Spirit?

What might it cost me to live in the Spirit?

What could keep me from being filled with the Spirit?

Chapter 9

Counting the Cost

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.”

Matthew 16:24

The salvation of God is a free gift that we can only receive through repentance and faith. However, as we saw in the last study, repentance is more than just being sorry for our sin. It is a complete change of the heart, mind and life.

In this way, there is a cost to the gift of salvation. Change is a defining aspect of growth and so part of the cost of salvation is the constant change that we must embrace as we grow in God. While the maturity that comes from change is always a great blessing, at times the process of change may be painful or costly. Like the rich young ruler, our hearts may be torn in two by God. With this in mind, if we are to prepare our hearts for God, we need to count the cost and get ready to change.

Counting the Cost

Luke 14:25-33

Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”

Rather than celebrating that large crowds were going along with Him, Jesus challenged the people to count the cost of following Him. He made discipleship a costly calling.

At the time Jesus spoke, the cross was the ultimate symbol of pain, horror, suffering, shame, humiliation and death. It held no meaning of victory over sin and it was the last thing that anyone could ever want to experience. For those people with divided hearts, the good news of following Jesus could not possibly have sounded any worse.

When Jesus spoke of the cost of our calling, He revealed that we all need to be prepared to embrace suffering, pain and loss as a part of following Him. It is inevitable. So like the large crowds that Jesus spoke to, we too need to stop and consider if we are truly willing to endure suffering so that we can partake of His glory. Are we willing to lose our lives and give up everything we love so that we can be worthy of being called His disciple? Or are we satisfied with life as it is now?[40]

Persecutions to Come

2 Timothy 3:12

Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

So why is suffering an inevitable part of our spiritual life? If God is all good then why does He call us to endure trials and suffering? Can we not have the blessings of God without sacrifice? Can we not experience the spiritual pleasures of life in Christ without the pain?

The world is shaped largely by the sinful hearts of people and the influence of the enemy and so just as the world persecuted Jesus, it will also persecute those who follow Him. Because we are united with Jesus, we will encounter people who will judge, reject and despise us. This is to be both expected and accepted with joy, for the persecutions and trials that come to us can all work to our spiritual advantage.

James 1:2-4

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

The various trials that we experience serve to test our faith and reveal the quality of our hearts.[41] As our faith is tested we grow in endurance and we are made complete in Christ. In this way, trials and testing are not intended to be a negative experience. Rather the testing of our hearts is a gift that leads us further into our inheritance in Christ.

From Suffering to Love

While our hearts can be tested through external trials, the Holy Spirit can also work in us inwardly to purify our hearts. He can test us with emotional pain. He may break and humble us. The Spirit may take us through the inward suffering and desolation that some call the dark night of the soul. To learn why the Spirit of God does this and to understand the necessity of suffering, we need to look at our ultimate calling in God.

Mark 12:28-30

One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’”

The most important command for every follower of Christ is to love God with all the heart, soul, mind and strength. As we learned in Series One, as impossible as this call may seem, it is made attainable through faith, grace and the power of God. We can do it.

Ezekiel 36:26-27

“Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

In Scripture, God reveals how He makes it possible to love Him with our whole heart. Here we learn that God removes our lifeless heart and gives us a new heart and a new spirit, so that we can walk in His statutes and keep His commands. Thus to enable us to keep the greatest command, God gives us a new heart and puts His Spirit of Love within us. Through His transforming grace and the presence of His Spirit within us, God empowers us to love Him with our entire being.

A Painful Grace

Deuteronomy 30:6

“Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.”

The Spirit of God circumcises our hearts so that we might love Him with all our heart and with all our soul, and so that we may live. True life is found in pure love. And pure love is found in union with the Spirit as He circumcises our hearts.

The circumcision of the heart is the same experience as the removal of our heart of stone. It is a work of the cross that takes the sin and darkness from our hearts so that we can be filled with a complete and pervasive love for God.

In the natural realm, circumcision is a painful experience. The same is true in the spirit. It can be a painful process to give over our hearts to the cross and let God cut away our sin. However the severity of the cross is only relative to our attachment to sin and to the degree that we see sin as a part of who we are. If we have separated the sin of our hearts from our own self-identity; if we consider it an enemy within us, then we will run to the cross with joy and gladly embrace the circumcision of the heart. However, if we have made treaties with our sin; if we tolerate our sin and let it define us in any way, then the cross will be a slow and painful death for us. So the more completely we can give our hearts to the cross, the quicker and less painful our circumcision will be.

Crucified with Christ

Galatians 2:20

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

If we have truly given our lives to God then our focus must be on loving Him with our entire being. And if this is our goal then pure love is an absolute necessity.

To take us into the reality of a complete and pure love, God fills us with His Spirit and love, and circumcises our hearts through the cross. As we are crucified with Christ we lose our old life so that we can find our true life in union with His Spirit. Through this we can see how suffering and glory are inevitable parts of our growth in Christ. At the cross we find the pain of circumcision and in the baptism of the Spirit we find inexpressible joy and great glory. Through the cross we experience the end of our old life of sin and the beginning of a new life in union with Christ.

Summary

Matthew 13:45-46

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

Like the pearl of great price, possessing the life of Christ in us through the baptism of the Spirit is going to cost us everything we have. In the natural realm there are no partial crucifixions or semi-circumcisions. The same is true spiritually. It is all or nothing. The grace of God deserves and demands nothing less than the devotion of our entire lives to the love of God. Thus the call of the cross is to give ourselves entirely to God so that the Holy Spirit can lead us to love Him with all that we are.

Our primary call in Christ is to love God from a pure heart, which is only possible as we are baptized in the Spirit and circumcised in our hearts. Yet we cannot baptize or circumcise ourselves. It is a work of grace that we only experience as we come to God in faith and true repentance. God is ready and willing to do His work, but are we? Are we willing to lose our lives in order to find His? Are we willing to endure the testing of the heart and the suffering of the cross? Can we complete the journey set before us?

Questions

Take some time to consider the cost of the inheritance that God has given you. Are you prepared to pay the price? What if the price was giving up TV forever? What if it was leaving a relationship? What if the price was to give up your career or your dream for your life?

If you are not yet ready to pay the price then the question is: do you want to be prepared to pay the price? If so, take some time to ask the Spirit to work in your heart to make it truly ready for the pain of the cross and the glory of the Spirit.

Chapter 10

Ready, Set, Wait

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.

Isaiah 40:31

In this study we will look at how we can actively embrace the baptism of the Spirit. The principles here are relevant at every stage of our spiritual growth. So even if we have already been filled with the Spirit, there will always be greater experiences of the Spirit awaiting us. We can always go deeper into the Spirit; we simply need to learn how.

Receive, Now Wait

Acts 1:1-5

The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

After Jesus was resurrected, He breathed on His disciples and imparted His Spirit to them. Yet even though the disciples had received the Spirit, Jesus still commanded them to wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There was a greater experience of the Spirit still to come.

So why did Jesus call the disciples to wait? Was it simply a matter of timing? Or was the call to wait a test of faith? Why was waiting so important?

When we study waiting in Scripture, we find that waiting on God is a spiritual discipline similar to prayer or fasting or worship. It is a spiritually powerful act. So while God may fill us with His Spirit just as soon as our hearts are ready, like the disciples He may call us to wait on Him for a while before He baptizes us in His Spirit. But if God really wants to baptize us in His Spirit, why would He call us to wait?

Ceasing Works

Psalm 46:10

“Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

At times we can find ourselves trying to please God by the things we do rather than by simply living in faith and love. When we slip into this mindset, we start to believe that if we pray for longer, praise louder, give more, or increase our time in worship or in the word that God will be more pleased with us. We think that He will love us more and we will win more of His favor because of the things that we are doing for Him. Conversely, we can also think that if we miss a quiet time or fall asleep while praying that we have failed God and He will judge us according to His displeasure. All these thoughts come from a core belief that we can please God by our works.

Hebrews 11:6

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

Scripture is clear: it is by faith that we please God. So if our works lack faith then the very works that we do while trying to please God will actually draw us away from Him and separate us from His presence.[42] If our works are to be pleasing before God then they must be works of faith and love.

Surrender

Waiting on God purifies our hearts by forcing us to let go of our works-based mindset. Often our natural mind would like to do something for God. Our minds will tell us that we need to do something for Him. Yet in waiting we stop doing those works that we are so fond of and we surrender our hearts, minds, plans and time to God.[43]

Luke 10:38-42

Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Like Martha, our works can distract us away from Jesus. So in waiting we do nothing but wait. We patiently wait for God and let Him do what He wants, when He wants. If He wants to speak, we listen. If He wants to teach, we learn. If He wants to pour His love into us then we open our hearts and receive.

In this way, by waiting on God we acknowledge that apart from God we can do nothing. Apart from Him we are nothing. Through waiting we lose our self to find God. We abandon ourselves to God, giving all our desires, thoughts, feelings, ambitions, and struggles to Him. We give Him total control of our spiritual and natural lives that He may have the dominion in us He deserves.

This type of surrender is similar to what Scripture calls pouring our hearts out before God.[44] In His presence we can pour out our hearts in words or in silence, and then having surrendered all to God, we simply wait on Him to take the offerings of our hearts.

Unconditional Availability

A key aspect of waiting on God is unconditional availability. This is waiting in the sense of always being prepared and ready to receive the Spirit when He comes.

A natural example is helpful to illustrate this. If we are waiting for an important call, we do not decide to pause life and wait by the phone in the hope that the call will come as we wait. Instead we carry on doing our normal activities and when the phone rings we stop what we are doing and we answer the call.

The same principle applies to our lives in Christ. While we can have specific times of waiting on God, beyond these times we are called to live a life of unconditional availability. We are to live with our ears always open and listening for His voice. Then, whenever we hear the Spirit of Jesus call our name, we drop everything we are doing to commune with Him. In this way we make ourselves constantly available to God to connect with Him.

To live in a state of unconditional availability we need to learn to be sensitive to His voice. We also need to cultivate a heart that is always ready and willing to respond to His call, placing Jesus above every other priority in our lives.

Power of Waiting

Isaiah 64:3-4

You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence. For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.

When we wait on God, He comes and acts on our behalf. God is true to His word and so as we wait on Him, He will move. He will release His Spirit to act in us and in the lives of others, doing awesome things which we may not always expect.

In this promise we find that waiting on God is not an idle exercise. It is an effective form of prayer and worship, which releases the power of the Spirit of God to act on our behalf. So as an act of faith, waiting on God can be more spiritually productive than many of the other works that we do in God. Through the grace of God, waiting is an act of power.

New Strength

Isaiah 40:31

Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.

When we wait on God, He pours out the strength of His Spirit into us. The spiritual strength that God gives us enables us to make rapid progress in our spiritual journey. We can fly, run and walk without growing tired. In this way, waiting on God leads to greater growth and maturity in God.

Spiritual Growth

Psalm 37:9, 34

For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land…Wait for the Lord and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.

Those who wait for the Lord will inherit the land. When we wait on God, we have the promise that He will lead us into the reality of our inheritance in Christ. Again we find that waiting on God does not stall our spiritual growth, nor does it equate to spiritual idleness. On the contrary, when we wait on God we are changed. Through waiting on Him, we enter into our inheritance of becoming one with Christ.

Summary

Psalm 40:1

I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry.

Waiting on God is a calling, privilege and gift. It is a spiritual discipline that we need to learn and one that requires our complete surrender. In waiting, we cease our striving. We are silent before the living God. We are still and we acknowledge that He alone is God. In waiting, we yield our will to God and give ourselves to seeing His will done in His way and in His time.

As we learn to wait, we can start to have precious times of waiting in God’s presence. Yet beyond these times we are also called to a life of waiting. We are called to be unconditionally available to God with hearts that are always ready to hear and obey. As we respond to our call to wait, we will find that our times of waiting on God release the power of His Spirit, usher us into His presence, help us to grow in God, and enable us to become more one with Christ.

Questions

Do I want to learn to wait on God?

Am I trying to earn anything from God through my works?

Is waiting a work? How can I be sure I am waiting in faith?

How can I keep my mind focused as I wait on God?

Take some time to begin waiting on God. Present yourself wholly to God, pour out your heart to Him and then let simply wait. Wait expectantly, longingly and confidently. Wait in love.

Chapter 11

Waiting on God

Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.

Psalm 27:14

There are many depths to waiting on God and as always the experience far exceeds the theory. As we learn to wait on God we will enter into the blessings that only waiting can bring.

In its basic form, waiting is simply spending time before God. It is watching and listening for God. Like the watchmen on the city walls, we stand focused before God, keeping our eyes fixed on Him.[45] Like Mary we sit at His feet and listen.[46] In waiting we no longer try to petition God or dictate to Him. Instead, we simply stop, wait, and let God have His way.

2 Timothy 1:7

For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.

In the beginning, waiting on God may seem like more of a discipline than a privilege. Learning to wait can be difficult at first for it requires us to set aside all distractions and focus our hearts and minds solely on God.[47] However, if we start small and build from there, we will find that waiting on God will soon become easier and more natural to us. The key is to let the Spirit lead us in His grace. Two minutes of waiting in faith and love will prove more fruitful than an hour of waiting in our own strength.[48]

Waiting in Scripture

To learn more about waiting on God we can look at the different Hebrew and Greek words that are translated as wait in Scripture. Each word has a slightly different meaning and each one adds insight into what it means to wait on God.[49]

Avah [50]

The word avah, implies a desire and longing in waiting. We do not merely wait for a lack of anything better to do. We wait because we long to encounter God in greater ways.

Yachal [51]

The word yachal carries a sense of hope and expectancy. We wait on God in the sure knowledge that He will come. This confidence in God is based on His faithfulness and gives us unshakeable hope.

Chuwl [52]

The Hebrew word chuwl is also translated as wait. In certain contexts, chuwl describes the waiting involved in labor and in the birthing process.[53] In terms of waiting on God, there may be times when we find waiting difficult or even intercessory. Yet when we wait on God with patience and perseverance, we can wait secure in the knowledge that the creative power of the Spirit is being released. Just as labor leads to birth, so the Spirit will use our waiting to birth new things into our lives and the lives of others. By His grace, our labor will be rewarded.

Amad [54]

The word amad carries the sense of enduring and persisting when we wait. It is also used to describe the act of standing as a servant and presenting oneself before the king.

In the spirit, when we wait on God we present ourselves to our King and wait for Him to speak. We do not give up if we fail to hear from God or experience His presence while we wait. Rather we persist and endure, continuing to invest time waiting on God, knowing that the act of waiting in faith and love will always be a blessing to God.

Yashab [55]

The word yashab means to dwell, remain, abide or inhabit. As we wait on God we abide in Him. His presence becomes our dwelling place.

Natsab [56]

The word natsab means to wait at attention and it is used to describe soldiers standing on duty or attendants waiting on the king.[57] Natsab conveys the idea of being fixed in position, standing firm, established and upright. In this sense, our times of waiting on God can be like a solider keeping watch, or a servant waiting for a command. We stay focused and resolute, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, waiting to hear His voice and sense His heart.[58]

Qavah [59]

The common meaning of the word qavah is similar to yachal but it also has some wider meanings. As well as waiting, qavah also means to collect or bind together.

As we wait on God we are united with His Spirit and we are bound to Him. Thus waiting on God is not solely focused on a future experience of the Spirit. Waiting on God brings about a present transformation. While we wait on God we are joined to Christ and made one spirit with Him.[60]

Prosdechomai [61]

The Greek word prosdechomai means to look for or wait; to expect the fulfillment of a promise; or to admit or receive one into companionship. In this sense, when we wait on God we join ourselves to Him as a companion and friend. Through our waiting on God we connect our hearts with His in love and friendship. We also wait in the knowledge and confidence that God will fulfill His promises to us.[62] He will keep His word.

Waiting is:

Waiting is an act of faith. When we wait on God, we wait in the confidence that He will come and fulfill His word. We also stand firm in the knowledge that God is blessed as we wait.

Waiting is an act of desire. We wait on God because we are not content with our current level of spiritual maturity. We want more of God.

Waiting is an act of love. As the bride awaits her groom, so we wait on God with a desire to love Him more.

Waiting is an act of obedience. God calls us to wait and so we patiently wait in obedience to His command. We know that God’s commands are expressions of His love, so we choose to live in His love by obeying the call to wait.

Waiting is an act of surrender. When we wait on God we set aside everything in our lives and put God first. Like servants who wait on their master, we deny ourselves and we make God’s desires our desires and His will our will. We abandon all our own plans and activities, and we wait on God for His presence and leading.

Waiting is an act of worship. It is an expression of selfless devotion to God.

Waiting is an act of humility. When we wait on God we acknowledge that apart from Him we are nothing. We simply and humbly wait for the Spirit to come and fill us.

Waiting is an expression of an undivided heart and mind. When we wait on God we focus our hearts and minds solely on God. Everything else dissolves in the light of His presence, and we are inwardly united in our devotion to God.

Evidence of a Prepared Heart

Once we appreciate the deeper dimensions of waiting on God, we can see why God might call us to wait for the baptism of the Spirit. The act of waiting on God is evidence that our hearts are ready to be immersed in the Spirit. In this way, the better prepared our hearts are for God, the easier and more natural it is for us to wait on Him.

Therefore if we find it a struggle to wait on God then the struggle itself shows us that our hearts need to be changed more by His Spirit. To experience this change, we need to enter into a greater degree of our salvation. We need to ask God to expose our hidden sin, wash us in His blood and transform us by His Spirit. As God continues to change our hearts we can start to naturally increase our times of waiting on Him.

It is important to remember that a key part of waiting on God is ceasing from our striving and our works. This means that we need to be careful not to try and use waiting as a way of manipulating God to move in us. If we try to earn God’s blessing through waiting on Him then we defeat the purpose of waiting on God and forfeit the blessings that we are trying in vain to earn.

Instead, when we wait on God we need to wait with a pure heart. We need to see waiting on God as an opportunity to love and bless Him. When our purpose in waiting is simply to love God, our waiting becomes more than an act of discipline. It becomes a powerful act of faith and love that is evidence of a prepared and longing heart.

Summary

The gift of the baptism in the Spirit is available to all believers. If we are faithful to prepare our hearts for God we can rest in the knowledge that God will keep His promise and we will be filled with His Spirit.

The call to wait on God is a great privilege and blessing. For when God calls us to wait on Him, He is effectively saying that He wants to come and act in power on our behalf. We simply have to cease striving and surrender our lives to the transforming love of God.

When we wait on God, we bless Him and exalt Him to our highest place, and in doing so our hearts and minds are changed. Through waiting we release the Spirit of God to fill our hearts with His presence, unite us with God and lead us into the reality of our inheritance in Christ.

Questions

Do I find it easy or hard to wait on God?

What is the biggest obstacle to waiting?

What can I expect when waiting on God?

How can waiting be a blessing to God?

Chapter 12

Filled with the Spirit

Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised…

Acts 1:4

Jesus called His disciples to wait for the baptism of the Spirit and they obeyed. The disciples gathered together with one mind and devoted themselves to prayer and seeking God. They waited on God, knowing that He would fulfill His word in His perfect timing. And after just a short time, Jesus kept His promise and baptized His people with His Spirit.

Filled with the Spirit

Acts 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs — we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others were mocking and saying, “They are full of sweet wine.” But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel: ‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, ‘that I will pour forth of My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”

When Jesus poured out His Spirit at Pentecost, He filled His people with the Spirit in an outwardly visible way.[63] There was a sound like an awesome wind and tongues of fire were seen upon people’s heads as Jesus poured out His Spirit. When the people were filled with the Holy Spirit they began to miraculously speak in different languages. Through the Spirit, the spoken word of God then pierced the hearts of the hearers, leading many people to turn to God and find forgiveness and new life in Christ.

Thus the baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost came with great power. The believers who had been faithfully waiting on God were transformed by the Holy Spirit. Through the infilling of the Spirit, they were able to move in power, speak words of living truth and perform many signs and wonders.[64]

A Quiet Immersion

Acts 9:17-19a

So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized; and he took food and was strengthened.

When Paul was first filled with the Spirit, God restored his sight. Paul was then baptized in water and had something to eat. Outwardly Paul’s experience of the Spirit was completely different to what the disciples experienced at Pentecost. The disciples were baptized in the Spirit with tongues of fire and a rushing wind. In contrast, Paul was filled with the Spirit with a short prayer. Yet Paul received the same life and power of the Spirit as the others. Like the disciples, Paul was inwardly transformed by God and he went on to continually speak, live and act in the power of the Spirit of Jesus.

Like Paul, when we are first filled with the Spirit of God, we may experience the Spirit in a unique and personal way. For some of us, the baptism of the Spirit may simply come as an increasing sense of spiritual life. For others it may come in an outwardly visible way with an ability to move in the gifts of the Spirit. Some people may experience the baptism of the Spirit in a sensory way, such as feeling overwhelmed by the love or life of God. For others, the Spirit may come as a word, a vision, or a sense of His presence. Or like Paul, the baptism of the Spirit may take place entirely within the heart. It may simply come as a quiet revelation; the sure knowledge that we have been filled with the Spirit of God.[65]

Overcoming Doubt

Being filled with the Spirit is a spiritual experience in which the tangible sense of God’s presence often confirms our faith and fulfills our desire for the Spirit of God. But what happens if our baptism only starts with a quiet whisper and lacks any real sense of God’s presence? What if we do not actually feel any different? How can we know for sure that we have been filled with the Spirit?

We are baptized with the Spirit of God by faith. So if we are unsure of whether we have been filled with the Spirit or not, we can simply ask God. If He reveals that we need to continue waiting for His Spirit then we wait. However, if God confirms that He has filled us with His Spirit then we need to stand in confidence in His gift. Having been filled with the Spirit we now need to focus on learning to live and abound in the Spirit.

Open Hearts and Minds

Galatians 5:25

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.[66]

Knowing that Jesus can pour out His Spirit in many different ways, it is helpful to have an open mind as we seek God to fill us with His Spirit. In the beginning Jesus may baptize us with a roar of fire, a splash of water, or the sound of His voice. Yet beyond our initial filling, we are given a lifetime of living and walking by the Spirit to enjoy. So as a first step, the way that Jesus fills us with His Spirit is not as important as the way we continue to walk in the Spirit. We are not in a competition with other people and one manifestation of the baptism of the Spirit is no greater than another. Being filled with the Spirit of God is a gift of immeasurable value in whatever form it takes. So regardless of how we experience the baptism of the Spirit, with sincere hearts we need to express our profound gratitude to God for the gift of His Spirit.[67]

Just as our baptism in the Spirit can start in different ways, so we will also have different spiritual experiences as we learn to live and walk by the Spirit. As such, we need to be careful not to let our previous experiences of the Spirit define our future expectations. Even if we started with a quiet baptism in the Spirit, at another time in our journey God may pour out His Spirit on us in an awesome display of manifest glory. Or He may choose to bless us with more of His Spirit in a subtle or even entirely unexpected way.

With this in mind, we need to yield our expectations to God and come to Him with open anticipation, allowing Him to move in us as He wills. Our part is simply to follow Jesus in humility, obedience and love.

Summary

The baptism of the Spirit is the experience of being filled with the Spirit of God and being clothed with His power. This filling of the Spirit may come in any number of different ways. Yet it is the same Spirit and the same love that we all receive from the same God. Therefore, regardless of how Jesus may choose to baptize us in His Spirit, we all have the same grace and potential to fulfill our calling in Christ. We can all know the reality of our calling in Christ and come to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Through the baptism of the Spirit and the presence of His nature within us, we can all become one with Christ. From the least to the greatest, it is possible for each and every one of us.

Becoming one with Christ is a progressive experience. As we grow spiritually we become more redeemed, more saved and more one with His Spirit. So like the early Church, being filled with the Spirit is only the beginning. We are called to live and walk in the Spirit, continually finding new life in His presence. By God’s grace, every new day brings a new opportunity for us to connect with the Spirit of Jesus and become more one with Him.

Questions

What is God asking of me?

What is my heart’s desire right now?

Am I happy to wait for more of the Holy Spirit?

What does it mean to live and walk in the Spirit?

Chapter 13

Immersed in God

“Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 2:38

The baptism of water is an act that confirms our faith in God for the forgiveness of sin. Yet our salvation is not complete with forgiveness alone. Jesus came to take away our sin so that He could fill us with His Spirit. Thus being baptized in the Spirit is an essential step in the course of our redemption.

When Jesus pours out His Spirit into us, we are clothed with power and filled with His life and presence. This is not an end in itself but rather it is a new beginning as we learn to live and walk by the Spirit. The ongoing nature of life in the Spirit can be seen in the Greek word baptizo.[68]

Full Immersion

Baptize: baptizo

To dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge (of vessels sunk); to cleanse by dipping or submerging, to wash, to make clean with water, to wash one’s self, bathe; to overwhelm.

To be baptized in the Spirit is to be immersed, submerged, and overwhelmed by the Spirit of God.[69] In this sense, baptism in the Spirit is more than a one-off event or experience; it is a repeated dipping to the point of total saturation. In baptism we become like a sunken vessel, completely and continually overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit. The immersive and ongoing nature of baptism is confirmed in the following text, which highlights the difference between dipping and saturation.[70]

The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo (as opposed to bapto) is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 BC. It is a recipe for making pickles and is helpful because it uses both words. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be ‘dipped’ (bapto) into boiling water and then ‘baptized’ (baptizo) in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables in a solution. But the first is temporary. The second, the act of baptizing the vegetable, produces a permanent change.[71]

The difference between dipping and saturation is also seen in the dying of garments. A garment can be dipped in dye, but it is only baptized when the dye has saturated the garment and the dye is no longer separable from the material. Through baptism the garment has been permanently changed and all that now remains is the united product: a dyed garment.

This principle is also true for the baptism of the Spirit. To be baptized in the Spirit is to be saturated in God. As such, our immersion in the Spirit is not an isolated event that takes place at a certain point in time. On the contrary, true baptism is an ongoing reality. Like the pickle in the solution, baptism is a continual immersion such that every part of us is saturated with the Spirit and we become one with Christ.

Filled with the Spirit

Acts 2:1-4

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

When Jesus poured out His Spirit at the Feast of Pentecost, Scripture says that the people were filled with the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit is a term that describes the reality of being baptized or immersed in the Spirit of God. Being filled is being baptized.[72]

Filled Again

Acts 4:31

And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.

Acts 13:52

And the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

The ongoing nature of the baptism in the Spirit can be seen in these passages. After the disciples were first filled with the Holy Spirit, they went on to be filled again and again with the Spirit of God. Thus the disciples’ baptism in the Spirit did not stop at Pentecost. Rather it continued as God filled them with His Spirit over and again.[73]

Ephesians 5:18

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be [continually] filled with the Spirit…

In this passage, Paul uses the Greek present imperative tense to call us to be continually filled with the Spirit.[74] So while our baptism in the Spirit starts when we are first filled with the Holy Spirit, like the disciples, our call is to keep on being filled with the Spirit of Jesus.[75] By God’s grace, we are to develop a lifestyle of being continually filled with more of His Spirit.

The Nature of the Spirit

John 7:37-38a

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit…

In this passage, the Holy Spirit is described as living water. This is similar to other Scriptures that liken the Spirit to fire, oil, water and wind.[76] These pictures give us insight into some of the different qualities of the Spirit. However it is important to look beyond these qualities and see the person of the Spirit.

The Spirit of Jesus

Philippians 1:19

…for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ…

Like water, oil and wind, the Holy Spirit is the ever-present life of God in which we can soak and be saturated. However, unlike these things, the Holy Spirit is not an it. He is the living Spirit of Jesus Christ and God the Father, and as such He has personality. The Spirit of God feels. He loves. He grieves. He rejoices. He desires. He listens. He speaks. He thinks. He acts. The Holy Spirit has the full heart, nature, character and life of Jesus. He is the person of Jesus that we can get to know as we connect and commune with Him.

Baptized into a Relationship

The baptism of the Spirit is not a qualification that we gain so that we can begin to move in the spiritual gifts or say that we are a Spirit-filled Christian. Rather our baptism in the Spirit of Jesus is a new realm of love and unity with Christ. Therefore we need to view the baptism of the Spirit not as an event to be experienced, but as a relationship to enjoy, explore and grow in. Baptism in the Spirit is an immersive relationship.

As we are baptized in the Spirit, we are saturated in the person of Jesus. His life and nature fill us and overtake us, and we are caught in the intimacy of the ongoing relationship that is Spirit baptism.

Through our ongoing immersion in the Holy Spirit, Jesus changes the way we think, feel and act. His presence purifies the intentions and desires of our hearts. Like the dye that overwhelms the color of the fabric, so Jesus’ love overwhelms our fear. His joy removes our sorrow. His humility replaces our pride. The Spirit of God heals our brokenness and in its place He gives us His wholeness. Through the Spirit, the blood of Jesus washes away the color of old life and immerses us in the new and vibrant life of Christ.

Spirit and Unity

John 14:23

Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Jesus. The Father and Son are one and share one Spirit.[77] Thus it is through the Spirit that we abide in Christ and in the Father, and it is through the Spirit that the Father and Son abide in us. So when we receive the Spirit, we receive the life of and presence of God within us. He lives in us and we live in Him.

Summary

Jesus died to save us from our sin so that we could receive His Spirit. Yet beyond just imparting the breath of His Spirit to us, Jesus wants to overwhelm us with His life and presence through the baptism of the Spirit. However it is up to us to decide if we will be satisfied with just being dipped in the Spirit or if we truly want to be completely and continually saturated in the Spirit of Jesus.

The baptism of the Spirit is an essential step in becoming one with Christ. Like the dyed garment, as we continue to live in the Spirit, every part of us is infused with Jesus. Through the ongoing filling of the Spirit we are united with God and become one spirit with Him.

Question

How great is my desire to immersed more in the Spirit?

How can I be continually filled with the Spirit?

What part of my old life would I like Jesus to wash away?

How can I abide in the Spirit?

Chapter 14

Into His Name

And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Acts 10:48a

Baptized in His Name

Acts 19:5-6

When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying.

The name of Jesus is a key aspect of our baptism into Christ. In New Testament times, the use of Jesus’ name showed that His baptism was different from all the other baptisms of the time. The naming of the baptism confirmed Jesus as the source and authority of the baptism. Through Jesus’ name, His truth, love and power overshadowed each baptism.

What’s in a Name?

In Scripture, people were often named after the circumstances in which they were born. Pharaoh’s’ daughter chose the name Moses (meaning drawn) because Moses was drawn out of the water. Hannah called her son Samuel (heard of God), because God had heard her cry for a son. Phinehas’ wife named her son Ichabod (no glory) because the Ark of the Covenant had been captured and the glory of God had departed. Jacob was renamed Israel (God prevails) because he wrestled with God.[78]

Thus in Scripture we can often discover the reasons why people were given their names. But while some people were named according to the events surrounding their birth, others were named not according to circumstances but according to their nature or calling.

As His Name Is

Genesis 3:20

Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.

Adam called his wife Eve (meaning Life) because she was to be the mother of all the living. Her name reflected who she was. Abigail says of Nabal that “As his name is, so is he.”[79] Nabal’s name reflected his nature and his name was Fool. David was a man who was captured in the love of God and so his name (Beloved) expressed the reality of his heart. These people all had names that reflected who they were and revealed defining aspects of their identity.[80]

You Shall Call His Name Jesus

In Scripture, a person’s name can often represent their nature and character. This is also true for Jesus.

Matthew 1:20-23

But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”

Jesus: Iesous

Jesus, the transliteration of the Hebrew term, Yehoshua/Jehoshua, (contracted to “Joshua”) which means “Yahweh saves” (or “Yahweh is salvation”).

Jesus was sent from heaven to become the salvation of God. So God told Mary to name Him Yahweh Saves. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus fulfilled His name and became God’s salvation.

Jesus is also called Immanuel, because He is God with us. Jesus is called the Prince of Peace because He is the source of all peace. He is the King of kings because He has all power and authority. He is called the Lamb of God because He is the sacrificial offering provided by God to atone for our sin. He is the Alpha and Omega because He is our beginning and end. He is the source and goal of our lives. So we find that the names of Jesus all reveal different aspects of His nature.

Names of God

Exodus 3:13-14

Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Just as the names of Jesus speak of His nature, so the names of God also express His nature. God is called El Shaddai because He is the Almighty God and the source of our power and life.[81] His name is Yaweh-Yireh because He is our provider. He is Yaweh-Rapha because He is the source of our healing. He is called Elohim because He is awesome in power and strength. God is I AM because He is. He has no beginning or end. He simply and eternally is. In this way, each one of the names of God gives us insight into His nature, character and being.

Ask in My Name

John 14:8

Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”

In this passage Jesus told His disciples that it was the Father who was present and abiding within Jesus that did His work and gave Jesus His words to speak. Everything Jesus said and did flowed from His unity with the Father. In this way, Jesus revealed the nature of the Father through His words and actions. As Jesus acted in the authority, power and love of the Father, He revealed the name of God.

After explaining that His unity with the Father was the source of His power, Jesus then called His disciples to pray in His name, promising that He would answer them. So when we read these verses in context, we learn that to pray in the name of Jesus means more than simply saying the words “in the name of Jesus” when we pray. To truly pray in the name of Jesus is to pray according to His nature. It is to let our prayers flow from our unity with Him. When we pray according to His nature, will and love within us, we have the promise that Jesus will uphold His name and answer our prayers.

Keep Them in Your Name

John 17:11-12

“I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.”

The name of the Father is the same name given to Jesus. Spiritually, the Father and Son share the same name because they share the same nature. They are one in Spirit, name and nature.

In this passage Jesus asks the Father to keep His disciples in His name, so that they may be one, even as Jesus is one with the Father. So like Jesus, our unity with God comes from sharing His nature. As Jesus writes His name on our hearts, He forms His nature within us and we become united with Christ.

Summary

Ephesians 4:4-6

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

There is only one baptism and that is the baptism in the name of Jesus. The name of Jesus represents the nature, heart, love, character and will of God. So to be spiritually baptized in the name of Jesus is to have His nature formed within us. It is to enter into the exchange of the cross and yield our nature to Jesus and receive His nature in return. Being baptized in His name is partaking of the divine nature. It is putting on the new self. It is eating the flesh of Christ and drinking His blood. It is abiding in the Vine and communing with Jesus. Being baptized into Jesus is being regenerated, recreated and renewed by the Spirit. It is being transformed into His image. In this way, being baptized in the name of Jesus is not a one-off physical event, but a lifetime of spiritual experience and growth. It is the ongoing reality of being one with Christ.[82]

Questions

What aspect of God’s nature am I most drawn to at present?

Have I been praying in the name of Jesus?

How can I be sure I am praying according to the will of God?

What would it be like to be spiritually baptized in His name?

Chapter 15

Clothed with Christ

“And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Luke 24:49

When Jesus called His disciples to wait for the Spirit, He told them to wait in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high. Through the baptism of the Spirit, the disciples were clothed with power.

Galatians 3:27

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

When we are baptized into Jesus we are clothed with Him. But what does it mean to be clothed with Christ? How is being clothed with Christ connected to the baptism in the Spirit?

Being Clothed

Romans 13:14

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.

Put on: enduo

To sink into (clothing), put on, clothe one’s self.

The picture of being clothed with Christ is that of putting on a garment. In ancient Greece, an actor was said to be clothed with (enduo) a person when they were acting in character.[83] Outside the theatre, the word enduo was used of people who had chosen to put on a teacher or mentor by adopting their teachings, principles and beliefs.[84] In both senses, being clothed with another person was an act of deliberate imitation.

To Try or To Be?

Ephesians 4:31-5:2

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Just as God has forgiven us, so we are to forgive others. And just as Jesus loved us, so we are to imitate Christ by living in love. However real love cannot be fabricated. There is no such thing as pretend love. We either act in love or we do not.[85] Therefore we cannot imitate God simply by trying to copy His example. Unlike an actor who pretends to be a character, we are not called to pretend to be like Jesus. On the contrary, God is calling us to live in reality. God wants a genuine love and so He offers to fill our hearts with His love so that we might truly act in love.[86]

Just as we can walk in love only when God’s love is poured out in our hearts, so it is only as His nature is formed within us that we live according to His character. In this way, to be clothed with Jesus is not simply to act like Him, but it is to be like Him. To truly imitate God we need to become one with Christ and let Jesus live through us.

As we soak in the Spirit and word of God, His life and love soak into us and we are clothed with Christ from the inside out. As our hearts are changed by His presence, instead of copying Christ we will express Christ. His nature and life within us will shine through our words and actions.

Clothing in Scripture

Colossians 3:12-14

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on [enduo] a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

In this passage we are called to put on or clothe ourselves with a heart of compassion, humility and love. This picture of being clothed with a heart of love is not drawn from the Greek idiom of imitation. Rather it echoes Old Testament writings that use clothing to speak of the heart.

In Series Two we learned how Scripture often uses natural objects or events to reflect spiritual realities.[87] One such type is clothing. The linen garments of the high priest, the sackcloth of the mourner, the royal robes of the king, the cloak of the prophet, the armor of the warrior and the exquisite beauty of the bride’s dress are all used at different times to express the spiritual state of the heart and soul.

Thus Scripture often draws attention to a person’s clothing when their clothes reflect the reality of their heart or give us an insight into the person’s current spiritual experience. As we learn to see the spiritual significance in a person’s clothing, we can find encouragement in our spiritual life and discover keys to growing in Christ.

Priestly Garments

Zechariah 3:3-4

Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel. He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” Again he said to him, “See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes.”

When we harbor sin in our hearts, we are spiritually clothed with filthy garments. Sin stains the purity and beauty of our hearts. When we turn to God by faith, He removes our stained and impure garments by taking away our sin. He then imparts His righteousness to us and clothes us with royal robes.[88]

Leviticus 16:2-4

The LORD said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, or he will die; for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. Aaron shall enter the holy place with this: with a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy linen tunic, and the linen undergarments shall be next to his body, and he shall be girded with the linen sash and attired with the linen turban (these are holy garments). Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on.”[89]

The priestly garments set Aaron apart from other people and enabled him to minister before God. However before he could wear the holy garments, Aaron first had to be made holy. Only when he had been washed clean could he wear the holy clothes and minister before God in righteousness. Only then did the linen garments reflect the purity of his heart.

Revelation 19:7-8

“Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

In Scripture, fine linen garments express righteousness and purity.[90] The priest and the bride were pictured in fine linen because they had been made pure and righteous by God. Their hearts had been washed by blood and they were filled with the righteousness of God.

Clothing the Naked

Revelation 3:17-18

“Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.”

The church at Laodicea believed they were wealthy and well clothed, and yet in the spirit they were poor, blind and naked. In their hearts they lacked the life, purity and holiness of Christ. Their clothes reflected the true state of their hearts and they were naked. In the spirit they had no covering and no protection so Jesus counseled them to come to Him and buy white garments. He called His church to repent so they could be made truly holy through Him.[91] If the Laodiceans would humble themselves and return to Jesus, they would experience the spiritual covering, warmth and protection of being clothed with Christ.

Sackcloth and Ashes

Ester 4:1-3

When Mordecai learned all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city and wailed loudly and bitterly. He went as far as the king’s gate, for no one was to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth. In each and every province where the command and decree of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing; and many lay on sackcloth and ashes.

In Scripture, being clothed in sackcloth represents mourning, humiliation and repentance.[92] Sackcloth was a coarse and uncomfortable material and so it was seen as an appropriate expression of a repentant heart. Thus when our hearts are humbled and broken before God we are spiritually clothed in sackcloth.

Jesus’ Clothes

Matthew 17:1-2

Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light.

At the transfiguration, the spiritual nature of Christ was seen in the physical realm. Jesus is the pure Light of God and so His clothing reflected His heart and became as white as light.

John 19:23-24

Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be”; this was to fulfill the Scripture: “They divided my outer garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”

In this passage Scripture draws attention to Jesus’ tunic as being seamless, woven in one piece. If clothing speaks of the reality of the heart then the seamless tunic reveals that Jesus was inwardly entirely united with God. There was no point at which God ended and Jesus began.

When we recognize the spiritual significance of clothing, we see another aspect of the crucifixion of Christ. At the cross Jesus was stripped of all his clothes. His covering was gone. The loss of Jesus’ physical clothes mirrored the loss of His spiritual covering. At the cross Jesus became sin and so was separated from the presence of the Father.[93] The unity of the Father and Son was broken. The Father no longer covered His Son, but had given Him over to die naked and alone.

Summary

Romans 13:14

But put on [enduo] the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.

The call to put on Christ echoes our need to be continually filled with the Spirit. Just as we put on our physical clothes each day, so we are called to constantly put on Christ. Every day we are to receive more of His Spirit and let His nature and love envelop and transform us.

As we learn to put on Christ we will grow as imitators of God; not as people who have reduced faith to a philosophy of copying Christ’s example, but as people who follow Jesus by living in unity with Him. In this way, being clothed with Christ means that He covers us from the inside out. By His grace, Jesus inwardly clothes our hearts with His nature and fills us with His life so that our outward actions naturally express His love.

Questions

How do I clothe myself with Jesus?

Do I put on Christ or does He clothe me?

If clothing reflects the heart, what am I wearing in the spirit?

How do I want to be dressed?

Chapter 16

Earthen Vessels

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but ever be filled and stimulated with the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 5:18 (AMP)

The gift of the baptism of the Spirit is an immersion in the life of Christ. It is not intended to be a one-time experience but rather it is a new life of ongoing unity with Jesus.

In Earthen Vessels

2 Corinthians 4:6-7

For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.

In this passage Paul likens us to earthen vessels. In Biblical times, a common clay jar was created for a purpose. Typically, a jar was designed to hold a food or drink such as grain, oil, water or wine. In itself a clay jar was of little value. Yet when it was filled, the jar shared in the value of its contents.

As people we are like earthen vessels. We are ordinary and common and we are easily broken. Yet despite our frailty, God has designed us to be temples of His Spirit and bearers of His love. He did not create us to live as independent and empty people. Rather God created us to live in unity with Him and find our true worth as living vessels of the life and presence of Christ.

Breaking the Jar

Jeremiah 18:1-6

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.”

God has designed our hearts to be filled with His Spirit. Yet because of sin, our hearts need to be reworked and renewed. So when we seek God to immerse us in the Spirit, we need to be willing to be broken. We need to let God test our hearts and remove our heart of stone. We need to let Him shatter our self-made image and replace it with the image of His Son. When we are humbled and broken before God, He will restore us into His design and fill us with His Spirit.

Unending Oil

1 Kings 17:10-16

So he [Elijah] arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks; and he called to her and said, “Please get me a little water in a jar, that I may drink.” As she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.” But she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar; and behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die.” Then Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go, do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son. For thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain on the face of the earth.’” So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bowl of flour was not exhausted nor did the jar of oil become empty, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke through Elijah.

In Scripture, oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.[94] When a person was anointed with oil, the oil symbolized the spiritual reality of the Spirit of God being poured out on that person.

God kept Elijah, the widow and her son alive by keeping the widow’s jar continually filled with oil. This miracle gives us an insight into the baptism of the Spirit. Like the jar of oil, we are not designed to only have a single filling of the Spirit of God. One filling is not enough to sustain our ongoing life. Through the grace of God we need to remain full of the Spirit in order to live and grow. Like the widow’s jar, no matter how much of the Spirit flows in and out of us, we need to stay filled with the Spirit of God. But is it really possible to always be filled with the Spirit?

Ephesians 5:17-18

So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be [continually] filled with the Spirit...

In Scripture God commands us to be continually filled with the Spirit. And every command of God is a promise that He can fulfill in us by His grace. So because God has given us the command, we can be certain that He wants to continually fill us with His Spirit. He is ready and willing to make it a reality in us. We simply need to embrace His will for us.

In Spirit and Word

In the passage in 1 Kings, it was not just the oil that never ran out, but it was also the flour. In Scripture, the word of God is likened to bread.[95] It is the written expression of God that imparts the nature of Christ to us. It is Jesus’ flesh and our sustenance. So in the story of the widow of Zarephath we again hear the call to be immersed in both the word and the Spirit. As we continue to immerse ourselves in the word and in the Spirit we grow in our love and unity with God through the nature and life of Christ.

One Spirit

1 Corinthians 6:17-19 (original Greek emphasis)

But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. In ourselves we are nothing and yet when we are filled with the Spirit of God we share in His glory and surpassing power.

In this passage we learn that when we join ourselves to God, we become one spirit with Him. Through a covenant of grace we are filled with the Spirit of God and we become one with Christ. In this way, when we are truly baptized in the Spirit, we lose ourselves in God and discover a new life in unity with Him. Through our immersion into the Spirit of Jesus, our whole identity is changed. We are transformed by His presence and we truly begin a new life with Christ.

So does being one spirit with God make us God? If we partake of the divine nature, do we actually become divine?

One God

Psalm 86:10

For You are great and do wondrous deeds; You alone are God.

It is important to see that while the baptism of the Spirit unites us with God, it does not turn us into God. God alone is God.

In the Immersed in God study we looked at the baptism of the Spirit in terms of dying clothes. Using the same picture we can see that even though the garment soaks in the dye, it does not become dye. In itself, the garment cannot boast of its color or vibrancy for these qualities come solely from the dye. However, by being soaked in the dye, the garment now shares in the qualities of the dye and radiates its color and beauty. Through baptism the garment and the dye become one.This principle of unity and individuality is also found in the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark of the Covenant

Exodus 25:10-11

“They shall construct an ark of acacia wood two and a half cubits long, and one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits high. You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and you shall make a gold molding around it.”

In the ark of the covenant we have a picture of being clothed with Christ as a vessel of His Spirit. The ark of the covenant was made from acacia wood which was overlaid inside and out with pure gold.

In Scripture gold was the most precious metal and was associated with royalty, authority, excellence and power. It was the metal of kings. As a spiritual metaphor, gold speaks of the nature of God. Just as natural gold does not corrupt, rust or break down over time, so the nature of God is entirely incorruptible. Like pure gold, there is no mixture in God; the nature of God is pure love and is more valuable than anything else we could possibly desire.

In contrast to the gold of God’s nature, Scripture likens people to trees and in wood we find a picture of our human nature.[96] When we put our roots down into Christ, we can grow and prosper. Yet unlike the incorruptible gold, when we stop drawing our life from the waters of the Spirit, our human nature soon gives way to rot and decay.

Thus in the ark of the covenant we see our life in unity with Christ. By faith, our human nature is purified and overlaid with the divine nature of God. Like the dye that saturates the garment, the nature of Christ covers us inside and out. No longer is there just a wooden box and some gold. Rather the two become one and there is now a golden ark. And within the unity of wood and gold, God is pleased to dwell.

These same principles are true of our baptism in the Spirit. In becoming one spirit with God, we do not become God and nor do we lose our humanity.[97] The wooden box of the ark did not cease to be a wooden box and nor did it change into gold. But it did become the golden ark of God’s presence.

In the same way, when we are filled with the Spirit we become a new creation. Our humanity is still present, but it is clothed in the nature of Jesus and through this unity it becomes true humanity. So while we cannot claim any of the qualities of God as our own, when we are immersed in the Spirit we share in His nature. Like an empty temple or a clay jar we are nothing apart from God; yet as we are filled with the glory of His presence we share in His life and begin to radiate His love, beauty, character and power. Through divine union we become nothing more or less than one with Christ.

Summary

In the Tabernacle, the bronze laver needed the water to make people clean. The lamp needed the oil to bring forth light. The tabernacle of Moses needed the ark of the covenant if it was to be anything more than just a tent, and the wood of the ark needed the gold covering in order to be anything more than a plain wooden box.

In the same way, apart from God we are nothing. Yet God has created us to be vessels of His Spirit. Jesus wants to break, reshape and renew our hearts so that we can live in love and unity with Him. Jesus wants to be the oil that continually fills our earthen vessels and bread that never runs out.

God is all-powerful and all-loving and He is able to carry out His plan for us. A life immersed in the Spirit and in God’s word is possible through grace, and God has grace to spare. We simply need to believe in His heart and ability, and then actively desire His will for us. As we cry out to God to fill us with His Spirit again and again, He will answer us. He will fulfill His word and lead us into a new life that is sustained by the unending oil of His Spirit, presence and life.

Questions

What part does faith play in being filled with the Spirit?

How can I sustain the desire to be continually filled with the Spirit?

Is Jesus really like a treasure to me?

Am I united with God?

Contact Us

Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:11

If you would like to make contact with us, please visit our website or email us. On our website you will be able to find links to Series Four of the One with Christ series as well as other resources.

Website: www.onewithchrist.com

Email: info@onewithchrist.com

Please feel free to send through any feedback you may have on the studies or any testimonies of God’s grace that you are happy to share with others. We would love to hear from you.

Reference Notes

1) For more on our spiritual design, see the Living Image book by the author, available at www.onewithchrist.com.

2) For example, the rainbow became a sign of the covenant that God made with Noah (Genesis 9:8-17). The Sabbath rest became a sign that people were keeping the covenant of the Law that God made through Moses (Exodus 31:12-17). Likewise, when people had made a truce or covenant of peace with each other, they would then eat and drink together to seal their covenant and new friendship (Genesis 26:26-31).

In modern times we also use physical signs to seal some covenants or agreements. For example, wedding rings are often used as an outward sign of the marriage covenant. Although these outward acts have little meaning or power by themselves, they represent and complete the powerful reality that is found in the realms of covenant.

3) See Genesis 17:1-14 for the covenant of circumcision.

4) Colossians 2:9-12 refers to baptism in Christ as a spiritual circumcision. It is a sign and seal of our faith in the death and resurrection of Christ.

5) Thus Peter writes that it is not baptism in the sense of a physical washing that saves us (the removal of dirt from our bodies), but rather we are saved through the resurrection of Christ as we spiritually experience all that our baptism represents. As we are baptized into Jesus through faith we experience the spiritual cleansing of Jesus’ blood. Through His death and resurrection our sins are washed away and we can have a clear conscience before God.

6) John 5:24, Romans 6:4, 1 John 3:14, Romans 8:2, John 8:34-36, Romans 6:16-18, John 16:13, 2 Thessalonians 2:13

7) Revelation 19:11-13, John 1:1

8) Matthew 12:31-37, Matthew 15:15-21

9) If we took this passage out of the context of faith and grace then we could start to think that the physical act of water baptism should lead us into the fullness of our new life in Christ and the complete death of our old self. However as we learned in Series One, we can only experience our new life in Christ by faith, and faith can only come from God by His grace. Therefore apart from faith our baptism in water cannot lead us to experience the reality of the life it represents. Baptism is simply a seal of faith. If we place our confidence in the act of baptism to take us into our new life in Christ then our faith is misplaced. Our confidence must be always sourced in God and not in our own works. As such if we want to experience more of the life that Christ has prepared for us then we need to look beyond the act of water baptism and focus on growing in God’s grace, faith and reality.

10) Ephesians 1:3

11) See 2 Timothy 2:25. God is the source of the true repentance that leads to real and lasting change. So while repentance may initially start with a choice to turn to God, as we grow in repentance we find that true repentance is a gift of God. It is the power of His grace to transform our hearts and minds.

12) For the account of Noah and the ark see Genesis 5:30-9:17.

13) Note that the ark was a work of faith for Noah. Noah believed that God would save him and so he acted on his faith in obedience to God. As he confidently worked according to the Spirit’s leading, his work not only perfected his faith but it became the actual fulfillment of his faith. Noah believed God would deliver him and his family and God kept His promise through Noah’s own work of faith.

14) Ephesians 1:13-14

15) It is easy to miss how radical a call this was to the Jewish listeners. Those living under the Mosaic Law would previously only have believed in forgiveness through the sacrifice of animals. They also would have only associated the anointing of the Spirit of God with key figures throughout their spiritual history. From this perspective the simple call to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sin so that they could receive the Spirit of God would have been an incredibly challenging and yet exhilarating call to a whole new life and faith.

16) There are other depths to Jesus’ baptism that relate to the fulfilling of all righteousness. We will look at some of these depths in a future series.

17) Acts 8:14-17

18) It is important to know which parts of our inheritance we possess and which parts we are still yet to experience. If we mistakenly believe that we already possess a certain aspect of our inheritance in Christ then we compromise our faith and desire and so forfeit the full wealth of our inheritance. When this happens, we become like the Laodiceans. The believers at Laodicea truly believed they were spiritually rich and well clothed but in reality they were spiritually poor, blind, miserable and naked. They had embraced a spiritual fantasy rather than reality. The only way to overcome this was for Jesus to bring a revelation of the truth. Once the true situation was revealed, the Laodiceans could then repent and find truth, healing and wealth in Jesus. So like the Laodiceans, we too need a revelation of the truth so that we can receive faith and desire from God and live in reality.

19) Romans 5:1-2

20) Colossians 1:27. This is the mysterious heart of the gospel: Christ in us. It is the good news of redemption and salvation which leads us to be filled with the Spirit of God. Through faith we receive the life and presence of God within our hearts and we experience the reality of the gospel.

21) See the Source of Faith study in Series One.

22) See the Present Salvation study. When we first come to faith in God, our salvation is not complete in an actual, experiential way. Though our life with God after death is secure, in our present life we can still struggle with different sins, habits and mindsets that need to be overcome by God. As we come to God and seek the power of Jesus’ blood to wash away our sin, we can become more saved in our own actual experience. Our sin is washed away and we feel tangibly different; we are free and we are no longer under the control or compulsion of that sin. We have been saved again by the blood of Jesus.

23) Beyond who the Spirit can be to us, there is also what He can do in us. The Spirit of Jesus can regenerate, renew, recreate, transform, free, wash, empower, sanctify us and unite us with Christ. We can experience all these ministries of the Spirit as we mature in God.

24) In the Present Salvation study, we learned that throughout our lives we grow in our experience of salvation. So while we all share the same eternal security in Christ, at any given time we can all be at different stages of our personal inward salvation and sanctification. In the same way, while we all share in the same Spirit, we can all be at different stages of growth in the Spirit. This leads us back to the principle of maturity. Our spiritual life is not so much about being able to differentiate ourselves from other believers, but seeing others as being in different places on the same journey. We all share the same call and the same destination: maturity and unity in Christ.

25) 1 Corinthians 3:1-3

26) As we learned in Series Two, our spiritual growth does not happen by accident. If we want to grow in the Spirit then we need to consciously choose to mature. We need to actively seek God to baptize us in His Spirit as we press on to greater maturity in Christ.

27) For example, in the natural realm, few people want to become physically older so that they can feel superior to those who are younger. Rather we appreciate that everyone is at a different level of physical maturity and that this agrees with the natural order of life.

28) Note that Jesus gave special attention to children. In the same way, we should give special attention to those who are immature in the faith.

29) See also Matthew 18:14

30) The world constantly calls us to compromise through the culture of our societies. When we look to society to define our expectations of a normal life, we can be tempted to justify our compromises and sin simply because such sin is so pervasive in most people’s lives. For example, when we see that most people put their security in their natural wealth it is easy to fall into the trap of becoming dependent on money ourselves. Without thinking, we can come to regard our dependence on our material wealth as an acceptable and even normal part of life.

When we let the world shape our views of life by what we see in other people, we quickly lose the awareness of the compromises of our hearts. We begin to place our trust in wealth and call it wisdom or prudence. We start to tolerate our doubt by calling it realism. We confuse our selfishness with common sense. In doing so, we start to see the compromises of our hearts as parts of our identity rather than sins to be confessed and set free from. In short, we will lose sight of the reality of our hearts and even fail to notice our growing blindness.

Our only defense and security is to continually seek God to search our hearts and expose our hidden sin. If we seek Him, the Spirit of God will challenge us, open our eyes and sets us free from our sin and compromise. We can then start to experience more of the true riches and abundant life that God has prepared for us. We simply need to continually turn to Jesus and ask Him to test our hearts.

31) We want him to save us, just not all of us. This is written in the sense of unconsciously holding back parts of our hearts. We want God to redeem us, but we also want to hold onto some areas of our hearts. We want to keep part of our lives for ourselves or for others. Like Rachel, we want to embrace our new life in the Promised Land but we also want to take some of our old idols with us (see Genesis 31). When we are unknowingly divided in our hearts, we need God to expose those areas of compromise and set us free. As we experience His grace and power to transform us, we can know the reality of being whole-hearted in our devotion to Him.

32) When we turn a blind eye to a sin, we pretend that a specific sinful action or behavior is ok with God. We tolerate a little pride here and a little lust there, no more than anyone else. We may seek forgiveness at the time but we neglect repentance and so leave the way open to continue in our sin.

The danger we face if we continue in this way is that we may come to the place where we no longer perceive our own sin nor our constant need of the cross. If we hold onto such sin and keep it from the cross then it will create resistance in our hearts to the Spirit of God and keep us from experiencing the glory of our inheritance in Christ. The only way out of this place is to humble ourselves before God and seek Him to test our hearts, reveal everything in us that opposes His love, and to set us free.

33) It has been suggested by some commentators that the rich young man in this passage was in fact Mark, the author of this gospel. If this was true, it would mean that Mark did find the grace to obey Jesus by selling his possessions and that he returned to Jesus and followed Him. It would also confirm that Jesus was not judging the young man, but revealing his heart in the hope that he would turn to God and find the grace and power to change his heart.

34) Greed may well have been living in his heart, however for most people the attachment to wealth is not one of greed but of security. We trust in what riches we have because we believe that in these riches we have a form of physical security. Thus it is our insecurity or lack of faith in God that is at the root of our attachment to natural wealth. This insecurity is a sin equal to greed and it will keep us from knowing more of the reality of our inheritance in Christ. Therefore we need to repent of all our insecurity and seek God to give us the true confidence of faith. Only as He forms real faith in us can we know the security of having the Living God care for us and supply all our needs.

35) See Philippians 2:13. Such desire can be found in God. It is the Spirit that works in us to desire God, so He can create the desire we need to endure times of suffering. See the Desire study in Series One for more on desire.

36) See Series One for more on faith.

37) The Greek word translated as wiped away is eksaleipho which means to completely remove, rub out or obliterate. It is written in the sense that when our sins are wiped away, they are erased out of existence and no trace of sin remains.

38) If we do not honestly want to forgive others then we need to focus on building a desire to forgive. Do we want the desire to forgive? If so, we can ask God to create this desire in us and grow it until His desire compels us to forgive. If we genuinely want to forgive but feel we cannot then we need to seek God’s grace to enable us to obey His command. And His grace is abundant. He will answer our cry. He will change our hearts and empower us to find that real freedom that comes as we completely forgive all others of all wrongs.

39) See the Worship study in Series One for more on worship.

40) Note that when Jesus calls us to hate our families and our own lives, He is using a Jewish idiom that simply means to love less (see Genesis 29:30-31 where the word sane, which is often translated as unloved, literally means hate.) So we find that the word hate can be used to describe a lesser love as compared to a greater love. This is clearly seen in Matthew 10:37, which reads: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Thus the greatest command still stands; we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and we are to love others as ourselves. Our love for others is simply never to compete with or take priority over our love for God. We are to love and obey God above all else.

41) See 1 Peter 1:6-9. This is true for all trials, great or small. Often we can fail to be obedient in small trials because they can seem so trivial and spiritually unimportant. Yet these small trials also work to expose our hearts, prove our faith and give us an opportunity to grow in God. If we can learn to be consistently obedient in such trials then the Spirit will be faithful to lead us into more of our inheritance and salvation in Christ.

42) We will look more at striving and the law in a future series of the One with Christ studies.

43) Note that Scripture calls us to act by faith in union with Jesus (James 2:14-26, Matthew 11:28-30). Thus we are not called to cease from all works but simply to stop those works that are not led by the Spirit of God. We are to cease striving in our own strength and instead receive the grace and power of God to do His work in union with Him.

44) See Psalm 62:5-8, Lamentations 2:19

45) Habakkuk 3:1-3

46) Luke 10:38-39

47) Waiting on God often challenges the dominance of our minds. Our minds love to be filled with anything rather than nothing, so it can be difficult at first to quiet our minds and simply focus on God. However, with practice, patience and grace, we will find that short times, even minutes, of waiting on God can bring great blessing. Therefore we do not have to strive to wait on God for great periods of time. We simply start where we are and offer Him the time we have. Then, as we grow in His grace and our hearts are changed, we can begin to naturally increase our times of waiting on God.

48) If we find that we only have the heart to wait for a few minutes at a time then we can increase our time spent waiting on God by waiting more regularly rather than waiting for longer periods. A key to wanting to take short breaks during the day to wait on God is understanding and believing that waiting on God is truly productive. Often we can be so focused on the demands of the day that we achieve little of spiritual value. However, when we realize the power that is released through our times of prayer, worship and waiting, we will naturally want to spend more quick moments before God. We can even use natural situations to draw us to God. For example, when we have times in the natural when we have to wait in queues or traffic, we can retreat into the spirit and use those times to wait on God. In this way we use waiting in the physical realm to lead us to wait in the spirit.

49) In English, the word wait is used to translate many different Hebrew and Greek words. The limited range of English words to communicate the different aspects of waiting is perhaps due to the value we place on waiting. In our modern culture, we see waiting as a predominantly negative experience and so we do not need multiple words to express the different overtones of waiting. For example, the word tarry (which expresses waiting in a positive sense) has become obsolete. In contrast to our modern perspective on waiting, Scripture often expresses waiting as a positive and fruitful experience. In Scripture we are constantly called to wait on God in hope, faith, anticipation and expectancy. The very act of waiting can create depth in the soul and draw us closer to God.

Because waiting can be a valuable experience, the Hebrew and Greek languages use many words to describe the different types of waiting. Other words that are also translated as wait in parts of Scripture but are not dealt with in this study include:

Raphah (#07503): To let go, relax, resign or withdraw. In waiting we give up on our own efforts to move God or gain His blessing and instead we acknowledge our complete dependence on Him.

Daman (#01826): To be silent or made mute. In waiting on God we simply wait in stillness and silence for Him.

Tsadah (#06658): To lie in wait, hunt, or lay waste. Like a hunter waiting for its prey, our waiting on God carries a strong sense of purpose. A similar word that describes lying-in-wait is ereb (#0695).

Mahahh (#04102): To linger, tarry, wait or delay. In this sense, we cannot rush our times of waiting on God. We are to gladly spend time waiting on Him and not be rushed by the distractions of the world.

Chakah (#02442): To wait. Used in Habakkuk 2:3 where even though the vision tarries, Habakkuk is called to wait for it because it will come. In this sense, we are to wait on God in the knowledge that even though He may tarry, He will not delay. He will come in His perfect timing.

Apekdechomai (#553): To assiduously and patiently wait for. In this sense waiting on God requires us to be constant, diligent, attentive, tireless, faithful, persevering and patient.

Enedreuo (#1748): To lie in wait.

Diakoneo (#1247): To wait as a servant, to attend or minister to. In this sense when we wait on God we minister to Him. We wait as His servants, ready to do His will.

Perimeno (#4037): To wait or remain. The disciples were told to wait in Jerusalem until they received the promise of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4).

Nuwach (#05117): To rest, remain, and settle down. In this sense, our times of waiting on God can be a time of refreshing and resting in His presence.

50) Strongs #0183. See Isaiah 26:9

51) Strongs #03176. See Psalm 119:43, 79,147, Isaiah 51:5. Note that sabar (#07663) also carries the sense of hope in waiting.

52) Strongs #02342. See Psalm 37:7, Job 35:14

53) Isaiah 26:17-18, Isaiah 45:10

54) Strongs #05975. See Numbers 9:8, 1 Kings 20:38

55) Strongs #03427. See Exodus 24:14, Psalm 27:4

56) Strongs #05324. See Exodus 5:20, Isaiah 21:8

57) 1 Samuel 22:7, 17, 1 Kings 4:27

58) See Psalm 41:12 You set (natsab) me in your presence forever. In Scripture the word natsab is also used to describe permanent markers or boundaries. In this sense, the boundaries are fixed and immovable. So as we wait on God we are fixed in His presence.

59) Strongs #06960. See Psalm 25:3,5, Genesis 49:18, Psalm 27:14

60) 1 Corinthians 6:17

61) Strongs #4327. See Mark 15:43, Luke 12:36, Jude 1:21

62) Jude 1:21

63) In this passage the baptism of the Spirit is simply expressed as being filled with the Spirit. Thus Jesus baptizes us in His Spirit when He fills us with His life, presence and power.

64) We will look more at the effects of the baptism of the Spirit in Series Four.

65) For other people their experience of the baptism in the Spirit can be different again. The point of this section is not to list all the different ways we can be immersed, but simply to highlight that God can move in different ways with different people and that we all receive the same Spirit regardless of how we experience Him.

If we are immersed in the Spirit in a quiet way then it can help to hear God speak to confirm that He has given us the gift of baptism in the Spirit. When He speaks to us and confirms the gift of His Spirit we can have the real faith to live in the Spirit.

66) In terms of living by the Spirit, because we live in the present moment of time, the only time we can connect with the Spirit is now. Thus to be faithful to our call to live by the Spirit, we need to focus on connecting and communing with the Spirit of God in the present moment. We can not let the future promises or past experiences of the Spirit distract us from seeking Him in the present. For more on the eternal nature of God and the value of our time, see the book Living Image by the author, available at www.onewithchrist.com.

67) If we are disappointed with the way that God fills us with His Spirit, it is because we have expectations of God that He has not met. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is an indescribable gift that God can choose to give us in any way He likes. So if we look at the experiences of other people and feel let down by God then we need to humble ourselves, repent and seek God to forgive our ingratitude, idolatry and pride. He is God and we are simply earthen vessels. As vessels, we need to be eternally thankful that we are receiving anything from God other than His judgment.

So regardless of whether we receive His Spirit by a word from God or by a tangible experience of divine love, we need to express our thanks to God for our baptism and then focus on living in the Spirit. As we fix our eyes on Jesus, He will teach us how to walk and live in unity with His Spirit.

68) In early English translations of Scripture the word baptizo was not translated, but rather it was kept in its Greek form and introduced into the English language as baptize.

69) Baptism means immersion, therefore when we read a passage of Scripture, the meaning can become clearer when we replace the word baptism with immersion. For example Luke 3:16 would read: One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will immerse you in the Holy Spirit and fire.

70) There has been much debate as to the degree of immersion that is required for a valid baptism. Some believe that sprinkling with water is sufficient, while others believe that we need to be fully immersed in water to be truly baptized. And both viewpoints have their grounding in Scripture. Yet these different points of view focus on the physical act of baptism rather than the spiritual reality that baptism represents. What is truly important is what happens in the spirit. Our primary focus should be on the realities of faith and forgiveness, and of death and new life in Christ. If we have any doubts over the outward act of baptism then we can present our doubts to God and let the Spirit lead us on with a clear conscience.

71) Bible Study Magazine, James Montgomery Boice, May 1989, quoted by the Online Bible Greek Lexicon.

72) The outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost was the direct fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to baptize His disciples with His Spirit (Acts 1:5). In this way, when the people were filled with the Spirit they experienced the reality of being baptized in the Spirit. Being filled is being baptized.

73) The baptism of the Spirit is a gift that keeps on giving. One filling prepares our hearts for more fillings. In this way, the principles that first led us to be immersed in the Spirit also lead us to be continually filled with His life and presence. As we continue to purify our hearts and guard our purity; as we stand firm in our devotion to God; as we grow in faith, desire and love; and as we continue to wait on God, He will come and fill us again and again. And with each infilling, we will be more conformed to His image and become more one with Christ.

74) The present imperative tense is used to issue a command that requires ongoing, continual or habitual obedience. A good tool for reading and understanding the meaning of different verb tenses found in Greek and Hebrew is The Discovery Bible. The Discovery Bible layers Bible text with symbols representing the verb tenses and emphasis of the original language. See www.thediscoverybible.com for more information on The Discovery Bible.

75) God’s design and will for us is that we would continually receive more of His Spirit. With every filling of His Spirit, God can impart a new aspect of the life and character of Christ within us. At one time He may fill us with a Spirit of love. At another time God may fill us with a Spirit of power. He may fill us with life, peace, joy, strength, humility, vision or wisdom. When we make being filled with the Spirit a way of life, we will find that every filling of the Spirit changes us and transforms us more into the likeness of Christ.

76) Water: John 7:37-39 The Holy Spirit is like water because He is the source and sustainer of our life. Without the Spirit there is no life.

Fire: Luke 3:16, Hebrews 12:28-29 The Spirit is likened to fire because He purifies our hearts through His sanctifying power (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

Oil: 1 Samuel 16:13, Luke 4:18 The Spirit is like oil as He anoints us with the blessings and power of God.

Wind: John 3:7-8. The Spirit is like the wind because He is invisible, powerful and often unpredictable.

77) 1 John 2:24

78) Moses: Exodus 2:10, Samuel: 1 Samuel 1:20, Ichabod: 1 Samuel 4:21, Israel: Genesis 32:28

79) 1 Samuel 25:2-39

80) The practice of using a person’s name in reference to their character is still retained in modern language. If someone is said to have a good name in a certain area, it means they have established a good reputation in that respect. However in Scripture, a person’s name is more than just their reputation. It is their nature, character, calling, authority and identity.

81) Some interpretations of Shaddai include the breasts, which speaks of God’s nurturing of us and our complete dependence on Him for life.

82) Partakers of the divine nature: 2 Peter 1:4

The new self: Ephesians 4:20-24, Colossians 3:9-11

Daily bread: Matthew 6:11, Luke 11:3.

Eating the flesh of Jesus: John 6:51-56

Communing with Jesus: Matthew 26:26-29, 1 Corinthians 11:25

Abiding in the Vine: John 15:1-9

Dwelling in the living word: Colossians 3:16, John 15:7

Being regenerated, recreated and renewed: Titus 3:4-7

Being transformed into the image of Christ: 2 Corinthians 3:18

Becoming one with Christ: 1 Corinthians 6:17

83) In ancient Greece actors ‘clothed themselves with a character’ in the same way that modern actors ‘get into character’.

84) See the commentaries from Barnes and Clarke on Romans 13:14

85) While we cannot force love or pretend to love, we can be active in preparing our hearts to move in love. For example, there may be aspects of our hearts and minds that conflict with love. We can harbor pride, laziness or indifference in our hearts. We can tolerate fear in our hearts and our fear can inhibit our love. For example, we may fear what people may think if we speak and act in true love. We may fear being rejected or judged or pushed away. If we let fear and insecurity determine our actions then we will miss opportunities to love. So to be faithful to our call to love others, we need to fight to overcome every hindrance to love. As we seek the grace of God to overcome the obstacles of our hearts, we will find that our love will begin to flow more freely.

86) So if it is not natural for us to act in love then we need to be honest with ourselves and ask God to change our hearts. Only He can make love real in us. As such, our focus needs to be on establishing the source of love within our hearts so that we might truly live according to the love of God.

87) See 1 Corinthians 10:1-11 and the Types and Realities study in Series Two.

88) For being redeemed and clothed by God in royal or extravagant robes see Ezekiel 16:1-14, Luke 15:11-24.

89) For more on the priests garments see Exodus 28:1-5.

90) Scripture says that the linen garments are the righteous acts of the saints. In the same way that our physical clothes often express who we are on the inside, so our outward acts are the visible expression of the spiritual reality of our hearts. It is in this sense that the fine linen garments represent righteousness.

91) See Revelations 7:14.

92) For sackcloth as an expression of repentance see Jonah 3:1-10.

93) 2 Corinthians 5:21, Matthew 27:45-46

94) See The Holy Place study in Series Two for more on the spiritual significance of oil in Scripture.

95) Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4

96) Psalm 1:3, Jeremiah 17:7-8, Psalm 92:12-14

97) As another example, when a couple are married they do not become each other but they do become one. In marriage the husband and wife both retain their individual identities and yet they are changed through their unity. Through marriage they become more than who they previously were.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Into the Water

Chapter 2: Born of Water

Chapter 3: Present Salvation

Chapter 4: In Water and Spirit

Chapter 5: Into the Spirit

Chapter 6: Testing the Heart

Chapter 7: The Way of Testing

Chapter 8: Preparing the Heart

Chapter 9: Counting the Cost

Chapter 10: Ready, Set, Wait

Chapter 11: Waiting on God

Chapter 12: Filled with the Spirit

Chapter 13: Immersed in God

Chapter 14: Into His Name

Chapter 15: Clothed with Christ

Chapter 16: Earthen Vessels

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Reference Notes