“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:38-39)
Repentance fundamentally starts with the son opening his heart to his father’s love. This is the story of love. ‘The distance between God and I’ is simply ‘my heart’s distance from God’. The salvation is to restore a loving relationship with God. We can only reconcile this relationship by stepping down from our own exaltation and thereby changing our acknowledgement of God from a ‘loving God’ to ‘A God who sincerely loves me.’
However, repentance is not attained by our own will and understanding only. Like I said in previous Echoes of Love, when we desire to kneel down in front of the cross, the Holy Spirit starts to work to dwell into our hearts. The Holy Spirit helps us begin our journey to repentance, and through our open hearts, the Holy Spirit completes it. When we repent to restore our relationship with God, the Holy Spirit will again shine His light into our hearts and bring us into deeper repentance. Through this journey, we will experience the forgiveness, love and grace of Jesus. We will be confident of God’s absolute love for us. Then amazing things will start to happen: our spiritual senses will revive, the Holy Spirit will draw God’s love closer to us, the words in the Bible will come alive, the Holy Spirit God’s inner voice will be heard, our life will be led by Him, and His power will be experienced.
Jesus explained the moment when all these will start to happen in John 3:8.
“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound,
but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.
So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Some people experience this starting point as clearly as a physical experience. However, this is not the case for others. Some will sense the Holy Spirit moving like wind and air, but some don’t. This could be the case especially for those who went to church at an early age— they are likely to believe in Jesus although they might have not yet experienced Jesus with their senses. Since the work of the Holy Spirit is spiritual, it is also likely that we may not experience him with our five senses. In this case, the work of the Holy Spirit can be confirmed by the fruits we bear rather than our senses and memories.
However, there still are moments when our senses can clearly identify the work of the Holy Spirit. In the Bible, the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” is shown as the ‘moment when we are fully immersed into the presence of the Holy Spirit God’. This event is so evident that we can feel it with our senses. It is the moment when the presence of the Holy Spirit God is poured out and overflows in us like a glass of water overflowing. It is the moment when the heart of the Holy Spirit God is poured out and overflows into our hearts. It is the moment of completely becoming one with God’s love. It is the moment of realization that I am in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is in me. Usually, a moment like this is accompanied with the supernatural work and power of the Holy Spirit.
“[Behold,] I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)
On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 1:4-5)
Jesus said that baptism by the Holy Spirit was God's promise that He had already planned to give to us. Thus, we must follow the command of Jesus which tells us to wait and pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit by faith.(To be continued..)
Following the shepherd
Pastor Jiwon Choi