And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Acts 2:4.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
The sanctified life is a life made holy by My Spirit in you and on you. When I saw how evil man had become because of Adam’s rejection of My Word for a lie, I was grieved, but I offered hope. I said there would come a day when My Spirit did not strive with your spirit, Genesis 6:3, but that our spirits would join as One.
But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 1 Corinthians 6:17.
And that has happened in Jesus. I was in Him reconciling the world to Myself, not counting your sins against you but accounting them all to Him. In Him, you become a temple of My Spirit, and you are holy, for I am holy. Filled with My Spirit, you are made holy, you are sanctified.
Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17.
I promised you eternal life before the world began, and I kept My promise even when you lost it by sin. My Son took all your sins upon Himself and released you from them by His blood. He came to undo the works of the devil and set you free to be the wonderful YOU I made you to be. Do not go back into slavery a second time.
When you are filled with My Spirit wonderful things happen—healings, signs, wonders, miracles, and everyone is blessed. And once you are sealed in Christ by My Spirit as a pledge of the resurrection to come for you in your mortal body, you cannot go to hell for My Spirit can never go there. My Spirit has no communication with the unclean spirits. My Spirit can only raise you up.
When you receive My Son as Lord you become My child and what was spoken from Me into the earth by My prophet Ezekiel takes place:
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. Ezekiel 36:25-27.
By the death Adam unleashed into the world by sin your spirits had become dead to Me and alive to sin. But in Jesus, I switch you back so that you are alive to Me and dead to sin, for the death He died was death to sin once for all. In Him you have died to sin and been born again from above by the truth of My Word to newness of life. You are born again from above by My Word in baptism of water and the Spirit, as I set forth to My prophet Ezekiel. I cleanse you from all your filthiness and idols by the blood of Jesus and the washing of water with My Word, remove your dead stony spirits and give you a living spirit, and then My living Spirit can join with your born again spirit, and I can pour My love into your heart by My gift of the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit in you will raise you up on the last day, and even now will give life to your mortal body.
Everyone born again from above by receiving Jesus as Lord and believing in their heart I raised Him from the dead with all your sins paid for in full and gone, has the Holy Spirit in them. But you can also have the Holy Spirit on you, as happened at Pentecost. Jesus at the Seder meal had breathed the Spirit into His disciples but on the fulfillment of Pentecost the Spirit fell on them and clothe them in power from on High.
David had the Holy Spirit rush on him at his anointing as king, and My Spirit never left him after that, but My Spirit was not in him but only on him.
And this was the Covenant in those days, My Spirit on you and My Word in your mouths. And this was enough to make My people of excellence, skill, power, and might. You see this in Moses, Bezalel, Oholiab, Joshua, Samuel, David, and I could go on. But that was only a shadow of the good things to come that are made yours in Christ. Now you not only have the Spirit on your but also in you and not only in you but on you. YOU CAN BE FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT TO ALL THE FULLNESS OF THE GODHEAD.
Filled with the Spirit you have the fullness of the Spirit. And that is the beauty of holiness that is the sanctified life. And it can be yours all day every day and all night every night. That is living free and being the wonderful You I made you to be—above and not beneath.
How do you get filled with the Holy Spirit? It is not automatic, as you recall there were certain believers, such as Stephen, that I specifically tell you are filled with the Spirit. There are also times that I tell you a whole group of believers gathered together are all filled with the Holy Spirit.
On Pentecost I tell you that all were filled with the Holy Spirit and gave evidence of this by speaking in other tongues. How did this happen? Let us go to that day, for I explained to you exactly how to get filled by the inspired words of My apostle Peter who became My spokesman on that day, and often times after that as well. And the way Peter explained it was by going back to the prophecy of Joel whereby he released My Word spoken to him into the earth so I could perform it.
So let us consider the prophecy of Joel, the word of wisdom I gave him that set it all into motion, for I watch over My Word to perform it.
In the prophecy of the outpouring of My Holy Spirit on all mankind you will find how the sequence of being filled with the Spirit operates: You repent, return, and rejoice with the result being restoration of all lost by sin and being filled with My Spirit. Let Me show you:
Repent and return:
“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and mourning; and rend your heart and not your garments.” Now return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil. Joel 2:12-14.
And how do you return? I explain in through the prophet Hosea:
Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the LORD. Say to Him, “Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously, that we may present the fruit of our lips.” Hosea 14:1-2.
The word translated “fruit of our lips,” in Hebrew, is actually the word “par” of our lips,” which was the young unblemished bull that was offered as a sin offering for the priests. You come to Me offering spiritual sacrifice by your words. You overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony. You return to Me as you repent with an offering of your words speaking to Me of the sacrifice of Jesus on your behalf and on behalf of those you are interceding so I may cleanse you of all unrighteousness. This is pleading your case with Me.
“I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Put Me in remembrance, let us argue our case together; state your cause, that you may be proved right. Isaiah 43:25-26.
Repent (metanoia – change your way of thinking to My way of thinking): 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. 1 Peter 2:1-3.
Return: And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5.
Now let us go back to the prophecy of Joel and move on to the next step in the sequence of being filled with the Holy Spirit:
Rejoice:
So rejoice, O sons of Zion, and be glad in the LORD your God; for He has given you the early rain for your vindication. And He has poured down for you the rain, the early and latter rain as before. Joel 2:23.
The early and the latter rains were what brought forth abundant harvests and I liken the outpourings of My Spirit in the spiritual realm to these showers of blessing in the physical realm.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10.
There is cause for rejoicing here. And rejoicing brings restoration! Look at the next step of the sequence approaching the outpouring of My Spirit:
The threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow with the new wine and oil. “Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, My great army which I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; then My people will never be put to shame. Joel 2:24-26.
Repent, return and restore. That also is the story of the prodigal son and of so many lives that once were lost but now are found, once were dead in the hardness of their stony hearts but now are alive with the filling of My Spirit. And that is the next step of the sequence from the prophecy of Joel by which Peter explained the infilling on Pentecost:
It will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth.” Joel 2:28-30.
Repent, return, rejoice, restore and be filled with the Holy Spirit!
And the final outcome in the prophecy of Joel is the same as it was on Pentecost Sunday:
And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be saved. Joel 2:32.
Now look at Pentecost Sunday at the end of Peter’s preaching:
Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” 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.” And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Acts 2:37-42.
I love you. I make you holy by taking out your dead heart and giving you a living heart and then putting My Spirit in you and writing My law in your heart, the perfect law of liberty for it is the law of love. And when I restore you to Myself it is better than it was before you ever sinned. For you were heirs of the world but now I have made you joint heirs with Christ and all in Heaven and earth is His. All I have is His, and now in Him, it is yours. John 16:15; John 3:35; Romans 8:16-17. Life was never meant to be a struggle. Come share your Father’s joy!