How Do You Receive the Holy Spirit
Transformational knowledge of the Holy Spirit is understanding that can deepen your daily walk with the Lord. This blog series will explore important questions about the Holy Spirit: How do you Receive the Holy Spirit, Is the Holy Spirit God, What Does the Holy Spirit Do, and What Are the Fruits of the Holy Spirit. These are crucial questions that can further your understanding of God, enrich your Christian faith, and empower your walk.
The Holy Spirit’s Role in Salvation
The Holy Spirit is the part of the trinity who indwells the believer upon faith in Christ, empowering them for a transformed life, and working to conform them to Jesus’ image. When we have the Spirit, we have Christ. And when we have Christ, we have the Spirit.
Ethnos360 views salvation as a free, everlasting gift from God received through personal faith in Jesus Christ, involving justification (being declared righteous), regeneration (receiving divine life by the Holy Spirit), and leading to sanctification (a lifelong process of spiritual growth) and eventual glorification, secured by God’s promises and Christ’s work, not human works.
Scripture About How You Receive the Holy Spirit
John 3:5 emphasizes the Spirit’s role in salvation: “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.” It’s an immediate spiritual event with eternal implications, providing peace, forgiveness, and eternal life. While our salvation is accomplished by Christ’s work, it is the Holy Spirit who acts mightily in each aspect of salvation.
Ephesians 1:7 and Colossians 1:13–14 show that the Holy Spirit is in every part of our salvation or union with Christ. Union with Christ is the believer’s identification with Christ. The phrases in him and in whom often represent union with Christ. For example, Ephesians 1:7 says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace,” and Colossians 1:13–14 states, “He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Union with Christ is the believer’s identification with Christ in Jesus’ obedient life, death, resurrection, ascension, intersession (sitting at God’s right hand), and second coming.
Romans 6:1-11 teaches that we are united with Christ in his death through baptism and freed from sin’s power.
Romans 6:3 explains that being baptized into Jesus Christ means believers are united with Him in His death, and as those united with Him in death, so too shall they be united with Him in His resurrection.
Romans 6:5 says we are freed from sin’s power and empowered to live a new, righteous life in Him. It emphasizes that believers’ “old self” died with Christ, allowing them to become new creations, no longer slaves to sin but alive to God.
Romans 8:9-10 states, we “…are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God lives in you.” Every believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit and Paul equates the Spirit living in us to Christ living in us. The Holy Spirit, then, is the bond that brings this union about in our lives.
1 Peter 1:2 describes believers as chosen by God, set apart (sanctified) by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ. We are God’s chosen people by the foreknowledge of the Father and for obedience in Jesus Christ but only through the Spirit’s work to make us holy.
The Holy Spirit gives us the knowledge of these truths in our lives and applies these truths to us in salvation. He makes us alive through our union with Christ, seats us with Christ in the heavenly places, and guarantees that we will be with Him always (even until the end of the age). By the Spirit’s power, we are made new creations and demonstrate this newness of life through our empowered faith and repentance. Therefore, by the Spirit’s power let us show Christ’s saving work on full display.
How You Receive the Holy Spirit is through Salvation
If you are seeking salvation through a union with Christ, know that the gift of eternal life is yours by believing that Christ died as your substitute (John 3:16; Acts 16:31). Trust in the promises of Christ for your eternal destiny. If that is something that you have done or are now doing, then on the authority of God’s Word, you have changed your eternal destiny as you have been transferred from death to life (John 5:24; 6:47) and filled with the Holy Spirit. If it is something that you would like more information on, please reach out to us at ebi_advancement@ntm.org.
Holy Spirit Acts Mightily in Each Aspect of Salvation – two examples
From the writings of the Rev. Billy Graham
Example 1:
Only the power of the Holy Spirit of God can change us, but we must be willing to be changed. This often is the stumbling block to people following Jesus as their Savior. Many want to believe in His love, but they don’t want to turn their backs on their sins. This is why the Bible commands, “Do not be drunk with wine … but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). When a person is drunk, we say they are “under the influence” of alcohol because it controls them. Likewise, to be “filled with the Holy Spirit” means to be under the influence or control of the Holy Spirit of God. How does the Holy Spirit release His power to bring about change? It requires repentance of sin; asking God to reveal sin that rules our lives. He then transforms us. We don’t have the power for self-transformation; it comes from the Holy Spirit. During a very cold winter a spring of water can suddenly stop flowing due to ice that forms in the pipe. A workman must come and dig through the frozen ground and use a blowtorch to melt the ice block, restoring the flow. The power of the Holy Spirit is always available—but sin is like ice that blocks a pipe, allowing spiritual coldness to freeze our souls and cut off the Spirit’s power. The psalmist wrote, “Search me, O God, and know my heart … and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23–24). By receiving Christ’s salvation and forgiveness of sin, the Holy Spirit comes in and makes possible the flow of strength, giving guidance, to help us walk a new pathway in continual fellowship with Him.
Example 2:
When a person accepts Christ as Savior, the Holy Spirit comes into that life and dwells within the heart. To be Spirit-filled according to Scripture is to be controlled or dominated by the Spirit of God’s presence and power (Ephesians 5:18). The Apostle Paul was using this as an example when he wrote Ephesians 5:18. As believers in Christ we’re to be filled with the Spirit, or “under the influence” of God’s Spirit. God will not mislead us as we obediently follow Him. But when other things outside of Christ fill us, these “things” can lead us down paths that don’t honor and glorify Him. It’s interesting to note that to “be filled with the Spirit” pictures a continual filling. We’re not filled once for all but filled constantly. Christians aren’t to be emptied of the Spirit to later become full again; rather to constantly draw on the direction and energy of the Spirit. Jesus said, “He who believes in Me … out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). He did not speak of drops of blessings but rather rivers of living water. Consider the Mississippi or the Amazon: much may be taken from them, but they do not run dry. The sources from which they come keep sending water down their course. These rivers illustrate the life of the Spirit-filled Christian. The supply is never exhausted because it has its source in the Holy Spirit who is inexhaustible. This is a tremendous blessing and promise of God.
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