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BAPTISM IN THE HOLY SPIRIT:
Suggested reading and resources:
Spiritual Gifts Handbook, by Dr. Mary Healy
Overcome by the Spirit, by Francis MacNutt
Gifts of the Spirit, by Derek Prince
Book/leaflet orders through NSC Pentecost Today USA: https://www.nsc-chariscenter.org/books
Begin NOW with:
1) prayer to the Holy Spirit-invite Him into your life and become more aware of His presence
2) Surrender to the Holy Spirit, be open to receiving spiritual gifts-reflect on various gifts
3) Attend Mass, receiving sacraments of reconciliation and communion
4) be forgiving of past hurts- unforgiveness is an obstacle to spiritual growth
5) reflect on scripture verses: the book of Acts shows the Holy Spirit as the "life principle" of the early church and provides five separate and dramatic instances of its outpouring on believers: Acts 2:1–4, Acts 4:28–31, Acts 8:15–7, Acts 10:44 and Acts 19:6.
Life in the Spirit Seminar Topics:
1: God’s Love
2: God Saves Us
3: New Life
4: Receiving God’s Gifts
5: Receive Baptism in the Holy Spirit
6: Growth
7: Transformation
*Below are optional reflections and bible verses to take to prayer and journal with as a preparation or follow-up to Baptism in the Holy Spirit
Topic One God's Love
Reflect on God's LOVE for you as you slowly read the following points:
- *We need to know and experience God’s love if we are to develop into the people He wants us to be.
- *This is especially important if we do not love ourselves as we should. Knowing our faults and failures and our sinfulness, we may question how God could really love us. His love is pure and unconditional. He knows us and welcomes us in His love.
- *By praying with Scripture verses (see verses suggested below) we will become more aware and convinced of God’s total and unconditional love. This is a conviction that God loves us with an infinite love and that nothing we do can change that fact. God's LOVE should be the foundation of our relationship with Him.
- *We will come to know Him as a loving, kind, forgiving Father who welcomes His straying children with open arms. He is a Father who loves us more than we could ever imagine being loved. He is the BEST Father and WANTS to be our father.
- *God, the Creator of the universe, the person who made all things out of nothing, loves us. He wants to care for us, share His divine life with us, and bring us into perfect union with Him, for all of eternity.
- *When we are convinced that we are loved, only then can we be open and honest. Then there is no need for pretense. Then we will begin to live in freedom and in sincerity.
- *An awareness of God's great love for us can lead us into a greater depth in our prayer lives. Try to surrender and allow Him into all areas of your life. He CARES!
- *When we're aware of His loving presence we want to whisper within our hearts, "I love You too." This type of prayer of the heart is the beginning of contemplative prayer.
- *As we experience His loving presence within us, we no longer require words or thoughts. We simply rest in His presence. We are aware of God; we are known and loved at the very core of our being. This becomes the basis for our whole spiritual growth. NOW we begin.
- First, we know with our minds that God truly loves us, but then we must become convinced in our hearts so that we can respond to His great love. This conviction will be ours when we hear God Himself telling us of His great love for us. Listen to His word in the Scripture readings: Isaiah 43:1-3 Psalm 139:1-6 Ezekiel 34:11-16 Isaiah 49:1-6 Jeremiah 31:31-34 1 John 4:16-18 John 3:1
- Topic 2 Salvation
- We know that God is in control of our lives but embracing that idea in our hearts and seeing the freedom that it brings takes some time. This is really a daily requirement. When we wake up in the morning we have to say yes to Jesus all over again. Salvation can be talked about in three words:
- The first is justification, or being made right with God. This happens initially at our Baptism. Perhaps for many people who have gone through the motions growing up in the church but not really making the faith their own, it happens more fully when we have an adult conversion.
- The second word is sanctification, sometimes used to describe the ongoing process of building virtue and growing in holiness.
- The third is glorification, which is what will happen when we persevere in the faith to the end of our earthly lives and join the saints in heaven.
Some of you may be saying, yes, I know all this, I’m on the journey already. The Life in the Spirit seminar is intended not only as an introduction to the Holy Spirit’s activity in our lives, it is also used as a means to deepen the experience of the Holy Spirit. There is always more, we can never get to an end of God, He is infinite. I would encourage you to reflect on each of the topics and have the expectation that the Holy Spirit will bear you up to greater heights in life in the Spirit.
Topic 3 New Life
Center your minds on the promise of new life in Jesus. It helps to realize the goodness of this gift being offered to you. An explanation of how Jesus lived in the Spirit is given. The baptism of Jesus becomes our model.
The Baptism of Jesus John 1:29-34
29 The next day John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to him. He said, “See! The Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world! 30 I have been talking about Him. I said, ‘One is coming after me Who is more important than I, because He lived before I was born.’ 31 I did not know who He was, but I have come to baptize with water so the Jews might know about Him.”32 Then John said, “I saw the Holy Spirit come down on Jesus as a dove from heaven. The Holy Spirit stayed on Him. 33 I did not know Him then. But God sent me to baptize with water. God said to me, ‘The Holy Spirit will come down and stay on Him. He is the One Who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I saw this happen. I am now saying that Jesus is the Son of God.”
Let's also reflect on 1 Cor 2:12-14
"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned"
Topic 4 Receiving God's Gift
“Be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
Some points to consider about receiving God's gift:
1. Wholehearted Desire for the Spirit Firstly, it is true to say that there is no blessing or growth in the Christian life without preceding desire. The deep and stronger that desire the greater the openness to grace. As Jesus said in John 7:37-39a, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. By this he meant the Spirit.” There is a verse in Deuteronomy 4:29, “From there you will seek me and if you seek me with all your mind and all your heart and all your strength, you shall surely find me.” That is where scripture is guaranteeing. If we seek with all our heart, then we will find – maybe a better way of putting it is that ‘we will be found by the Lord’ and God’s grace will break through.
2. Obedience to God’s word The second quality we need is obedience to God’s word. St Paul said in Ephesians 5:18, “Be filled with the Spirit.” Instead of being advice, this is a command of the Lord. In order to obey that command, it is important to rely on the infallible promises of God to send the Spirit to Session 4: Receiving God’s Gift because those whose desire prompts them to ask for it. Here is just one of many possible New Testament examples. In Luke 11:13, Jesus said to parents, “If you then, though you are evil,know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" As Catholics, we pray to Mary, the mother of Jesus, to be worthy of the mighty promises of Christ. The promise to send the Spirit surely is the greatest of all those promises. So, when we ask for the Holy Spirit, we are asking for something that is in accordance with the will of God – that’s what God wants for us.
3. Repentance Thirdly, in order to prepare for the coming of the Spirit, it is important to be willing to remove obstacles to the Spirit’s coming. One of the phrases used in scripture is, ”Avoid grieving the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:30). The truth is, however, that many things in our lives tend to grieve the Holy Spirit. The principal one would be our lack of love which reflects our attitudes, our words and our deeds. All unrepented sin is a barrier to the Holy Spirit. One must be willing to turn away from such things as spiritualism, occult and new age beliefs and practices, reiki, sexual sins, robbery, lying, slander, drunkenness, pornography, drug-taking, etc. – the list could be a long one. One must be willing to turn away from them. We won’t be able to turn away without God’s help and often it is only when we are baptized in the Holy Spirit that we have the power to turn away from sin, but we can confess sin in our hearts and say to the Lord, ‘I am willing to turn away from all the obstacles to your Holy Spirit.’ One of the greatest single blockage to the infilling by the Spirit is unforgiveness and resentment. So, it is important to ask for God’s help to remember who it is, either living or dead, who still needs your forgiveness. As Colossians 3:13 says, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Then with God’s help forgive that person/s. Sometimes when you look into your heart and ask, ‘is there anybody I resent?’, someone will come to mind. You become aware that you are consciously resentful and unforgiving towards someone who may have done you a great injustice or hurt you deeply. Sometimes when we were hurt in the past, we did not forgive the person who hurt us at the time. What happened was we forgot the hurt, or repressed it in our unconscious, together with the negative feelings, but that memory and negative feelings do not go away. We have to ask God for help in remembering – is there still someone who needs my forgiveness? “WHEN YOU FORGIVE, YOU DO NOT CHANGE THE PAST, BUT YOU DO CHANGE THE FUTURE!”
4. Asking with expectancy The next way we prepare for the coming of the Spirit, is by asking for the Spirit with expectant faith. When you ask for the Holy Spirit, you are asking for something that is clearly in line with God’s will. Being filled with the Holy Spirit is always in accord with God’s will. Remember Ephesians 5:18 “Be filled with the Spirit” – that is a declaration of God’s will. That being so, scripture assures us: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 Jn 5:14-15). That further reminds me of a promise of Jesus in Mark 11:24, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believing you have it already, it will be yours.”
5. Submit to the gift of God (surrender)actively desiring, obeying, repenting and asking. Now you give yourself over to God, as you submit and surrender to his action within you by the power of the Spirit.
SOME NEGATIVE DOUBTING THOUGHTS MAY ARISE: "I wonder if all this is real? I know others receive the Spirit but I’m unworthy to do so .Will I lose control of my life if I receive the Spirit? – what will be the outcome? Will God ask me to suffer or to do something very difficult?"
They are all typical thoughts and temptations. However, remember what James 4:7 says, “Humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” So, once we identify that these negative thoughts are coming from the dark side, we can resist them. If you resist them, relying on God’s power, the devil will flee from you and will have no hold over you.
Topic 5 Baptism in the Holy Spirit
1. When a prayer team lays hands on you and prays for you to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. You can also pray in advance on your own and ask God to fill you with His Spirit and give you your prayer language of tongues. Acts 8:14, Acts 9:17,Acts10:44, Acts191:7
2. During prayer for baptism in the Holy Spirit, linger in God’s presence for a while and see if you sense the Holy Spirit. It may help you to wait in silence in God’s presence for a few minutes. Sometimes the gift of tongue occurs during praise and worship. Don’t put pressure on yourself, just yield to the Spirit; just do what you feel prompted to do in that moment.
In that moment you may be experiencing the following:
- *Do you sense God’s presence? Do you sense any words in tongues in your mind? Do you feel a prompting in your spirit to speak out about anything? Acts 2:1 If so, take a step of faith and speak it out. Don’t stop speaking right away. Give yourself a few minutes to get comfortable with it and let your language mature a bit
- *There are some consistent signs in the Bible of what may happen when a person is filled with the Spirit, but there’s not a perfect formula to what it can look like for a Christian to receive this experience. So, don’t get discouraged or too locked in to one idea of how it may happen for you. God knows how to meet you exactly in the way that you need.
- *Keep in mind that speaking in tongues is an evidence of being baptized in the Spirit, not the only one. You may even sense in an unusual or more tangible way God’s presence and power comes upon as you pray to be filled. That can be a sign of His work in you as well.
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Topic 6 Growth
“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
Not to go forwards is to go backwards. When we begin a new life, we have to grow, or we will always be stunted and incomplete. You have been given a new life, now you must grow to maturity in it. Being baptized in the Spirit is only a beginning. It is a first step. It should not be the spiritual highpoint of your life. It should be the low point – from this time onwards. The Lord wants it to be the beginning of a better and better life. You have a seed of new life in you. With the right soil and the right care a seed will grow naturally. Learn how to care for it and have no fear; it will grow.
Topic 7 Transformation
It is the Holy Spirit’s purpose to produce a Christ-like character in you.
The Bible says, “The Lord makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)
This process of changing us to be more like Jesus is called sanctification.
You can’t reproduce the character of Jesus on your own or by your own strength. New Year’s resolutions, willpower, and best intentions are not enough. Only the Holy Spirit has the power to make the changes God wants to make in our lives. Philippians 2:13 says, “God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”
- *When we are baptized into the Church, we receive the same gifts and power as the apostles. At Confirmation we are called to begin using these gifts for God’s work. Unfortunately, at that time in our life most of us are more interested in the gifts of our friends and family than the Gifts of the Holy Spirit!
- *The most important reason we do not use these gifts is that we do not understand what they are or that we have received them. In addition, we were never taught how to let the Holy Spirit operate through us. We know that we want to serve God but if we go ahead and act on our own power, we will not succeed in doing His work as He wishes it done.
- *Catholic doctrine defines the gifts of the Holy Spirit as “charisms” and teaches that they are distributed according to God’s will to renew and build up the church. The fact that someone has these gifts is not a sign of personal holiness but of the Holy Spirit working in and through him or her. The two important things to remember are that the charisms are given to empower us to perform the work God wants us to do, and that they are granted for the good of the whole body of Christ
- *THIS IS NOW THE BEGINNING OF A NEW LIFE IN THE SPIRIT! Praise God for this important first step to discipleship. It's important to seek fellowship and actively start learning about the various gifts and become engaged in using these gifts. Seek out prayer groups to attend and reach out to prayer team ministers and prayer group leaders for guidance and mentorship on your journey. We are one body in Christ, PRAISE GOD!