Acts 4:23-37

Filled Again

My dog doesn’t always drink his water. Actually, he much prefers creek water when he can get it. Even a nice rain puddle seems to be more in keeping with his manly tastes than a shining clean bowl of sparking clear water. Yet, even when he ignores his water bowl for days on end a strange thing happens. The water disappears! You may call it evaporation, and perhaps you would be right, but I say it disappears.

Over in John 7:38 Jesus says, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” Verse 39 then goes on to explain, By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. The Spirit is like water. You can drink it. You can use it to refresh others. You can let it evaporate. But you cannot just stand pat and say, “I’ve got it. I’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit and that’s that.”

When Peter and john came back to the believers they all prayed and it says that after they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. But wait! Weren’t the filled with the Spirit back in the second chapter of Acts? Why do they need to be filled again? The answer is simple. The same reason that you may need to put more petrol in your car even though you filled it up 300 miles ago apples here. Even if you haven’t “done anything” there is that evaporation thing.

Many believers have been reintroduced to the wonderful blessing of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the past century. Unfortunately, many have been taught that it is a once time event. They have been taught to pray until they speak in tongues or “feel” something and then they have “got it”. Well, yes they have got their bowl filled, but what about tomorrow? And next week? And next year?

The baptism of the Holy Spirit isn’t a stopping point, but a starting point. Being filled with the Spirit opens up wonderful new horizons in the believer’s life but left unattended it doesn’t take long for those horizons to fade. Attended and renewed they become stronger, clearer, and nearer with each passing season.