How to Receive the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is the Third Person in the God head and He is Co-equal with the Father and the Son. He is God and those who can receive Him are those who are genuinely saved. Jesus said the people who are still of the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit also comes upon sanctified vessels. These are believers that have purged themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and are perfecting holiness in the fear of God. They are living the crucified life. Such believers need to set apart time to seek the infilling of the Spirit and be attentive to His leading and they are sure to receive Him as they pray with faith. The Spirit announces His arrival by giving the believer a new language (speaking in tongues).

Repentance and salvation

If you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you need to born again. The Spirit of God doesn’t come into the life of one that isn’t saved. In order to be born again, you need to surrender your life to Jesus Christ. You must acknowledge that you are a sinner and need God’s mercy. You need to repent of all sin and accept that Jesus died for you on Calvary’s cross and rose again so that you might be justified. (See Romans 10: 8:13)

Mr Self must be crucified

This is when the old man (referred to as Mr Self or the old nature) is thoroughly taken away. The moment you pray believing that your old man is crucified according to Romans 6:6, God will do the work of inner cleansing or sanctification in your heart. This leads you into a walk of holiness.

Passionate thirst & prayer

In John 7:37, Jesus asked those who were in desperate thirst of the Holy Spirit to come to Him for an infilling. Break up your fallow ground and begin to seek the Lord desperately until His Spirit falls upon you. You have dwelt so long without the power of the Holy Spirit. Today can be your day if you would pray. The disciples of the Lord tarried and they were not disappointed. You will not be disappointed by the Lord. Paul’s question to some believers in the book of Acts was, ‘Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?’ Let that question ring in your heart and drive you to your knees to seek the Lord.

Obedience

As you seek the Lord for this experience, you need to be very sensitive to the Lord about the consecrations He would require of you or some steps He would require you to take. A pastor shared that he received the Holy Ghost baptism during a retreat. In the morning of one of the days, he was asked by the Holy Spirit to join the prayer band. The leader of the band allowed him to join and as they sang to the Lord that morning, he started speaking in new tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. He was baptized in the Holy Ghost and fire.