Acts 19:19-1-2-While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2 and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when[a] you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
Paul went on to place his hands on them and the Holy Spirit came on them as well. When I considered the various instances in the book of Acts where people received the Holy Spirit, I came away with the reminder that a full Gospel message is not only about Jesus Christ crucified, buried, risen, ascended, and coming again, but a full Gospel message includes the message of a personal experience with the Holy Spirit.
Paul thought it was critical that these new believers knew that there was a Holy Spirit to receive. Why? Because it is the Holy Spirit who empowers us and enables us to change. Paul had experienced that transformation firsthand.
When Jesus revealed Himself to the Apostle Paul, whose name was also Saul, when he appeared to him, Paul was a murderer. He was killing Christians. If anyone was committed to their position and their life’s purpose of stamping out those who were preaching and teaching Jesus, it was Paul. But Jesus met him on the road to Damascus with a bright light from heaven that flashed around him. It was so powerful, so dramatic, so demonstrative that Paul fell to the ground.
In addition to the light, there was a voice from Heaven, a voice which was the Lord Himself, asking why Paul was persecuting Him. It was a lot to take in. Paul asked who was speaking, and the voice said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Jesus went on to say, “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” He got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he was blind. The people with him had to lead him by the hand into Damascus.
In Damascus, there was a disciple, a guy named Ananias, who heard Jesus speak to him in a vision. Jesus told Ananias he had prepared Paul in a vision for what was about to happen. In Paul’s vision, he saw a man named Ananias coming to lay hands on him to restore his sight.
Paul was about to have a personal Pentecost, and it would change everything. So, Ananias went to the place Jesus told him to go. We pick up the text in verse 17, Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized.
Look at verse 19, Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. 20 At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. This is a brand-new Paul with a brand-new heart and with brand-new authority and with a brand-new mission. A man who hated Christians and got up each morning living for the opportunity to make life as awful as possible for them became one of them and gave every ounce of his energy and passion to helping others become one as well. That’s incredible!
21 All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” 22 Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.
Listen, when you have a personal Pentecost, the Holy Spirit will do something in you that will baffle everyone who thought they knew you. Paul was a changed man. No wonder that when Paul got to Ephesus, he asked them if they had received the Holy Spirit. Paul knew it is both, an encounter with Jesus and an encounter with the Holy Spirit that provide the power needed to change and to live for Jesus. And you’ll want others to know about and experience the same transformation.
Paul said this in II Corinthians 3:18, 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Have you had a personal Pentecost? Are you being changed? I think the word for today is Don’t settle for a religious affiliation when you can experience a complete transformation. Surrender to the work of the Spirit in your life and see how God will work beyond anything you could ask or think in your life.
Your relationship with the Holy Spirit begins at salvation. Titus 3:4-6 says, 4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.
That anger that grips you and puts a strain on the way you relate to people is like filth on the inside. It needs to be washed away. That lust that keeps you driven to obey fleshly impulses, that is like filth on the inside. It needs to be washed away. That propensity to lie, even about stupid stuff, just to save face or to make someone else look back, that is like filth on the inside. It needs to be washed away. The pride that keeps you in the judgment seat of others, that hatred in your heart that causes you to think less of someone because of the color of their skin or the occupation they choose or the amount of money they don’t appear to have, it is filth on the inside. It needs to be washed away. The Spirit does the washing, y’all. Step one of a personal Pentecost is a good washing on the inside.
Once the filth is cleansed, a new intimacy with God begins to happen. We can see Him working in our lives in ways we couldn’t before. We can hear Him speaking more clearly as we pray.
We cannot experience God in ways that are close apart from the Holy Spirit. Look at Paul’s words in Ephesians 3:16-19, 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
There is a knowing of God that only the Holy Spirit enables. When you begin to grasp the dimensions of the love of God and when the Holy Spirit begins to fill you up, it is the greatest physical, emotional, and spiritual experience a person could ever have. You don’t have to settle for just knowing about God. You can know Him, intimately and experientially.
In addition to having the filth cleansed and knowing God intimately, as you are changed by the Spirit, your desires and motivations will change. You will start to want to say, “No,” to sin and you will be given supernatural help to do so. In addition, when we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive someone who won’t allow our lives to go unchecked and unchallenged. We will have someone who will steer us away from sin by helping us to know what is sinful and to avoid it. The Holy Spirit will convict us about sin, not just convict us after we sin, but will convict us about avoiding it altogether, John 16:8.
The Holy Spirit gives us power to be self-controlled, to be Spirit-controlled, II Timothy 2:7 and 2:14. The Holy Spirit will warn us of activities and actions that offend the holiness of Christ, and because we will have experienced the fullness of Christ’s love for us in an intimate way, we won’t want to treat that love with disrespect or disregard. We will want to fully love Jesus back because of His perfect love for us.
In addition to all of these wonderful things, the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the truth. The reason the world is in chaos is because so many people aren’t governed by the Spirit. People without the Spirit are left to navigate and interpret life on their own. The self isn’t capable of leading people to truth. If you don’t have the Holy Spirit, you don’t have a handle on truth. John 16:13 tells us that the role of the Holy Spirit is to be our guide for Truth.
Did you know there was a Holy Spirit to receive? Have you received Him? Have you had a personal Pentecost? Are you being transformed from the inside out? Have you been washed of any filth that hinders you from having a close, intimate relationship with God? Have you witnessed a change in your desires and motives? Do you find yourself wanting more and more of God and to be used more and more by Him? Do you live with an awareness that the Holy Spirit is guarding the holiness of Jesus in you by the way He warns you of sin or convicts you of sin when you do compromise? Are you walking in the Truth of God’s Word and ways, or do you live with ongoing confusion and doubt?
Every person can be filled first the first time or filled again with the Holy Spirit. Every person who wants to be washed by the Spirit can be. Every person who wants to be renewed by the Spirit can be. Every person who wants to be changed by the Spirit can be. Every person who wants a Personal Pentecost can have one.
