Having an encounter with the Holy Spirit and His fire

It is a great experience to have an encounter with the Holy Spirit and a bad experience to have an encounter with the devil. Any time you have an encounter with the Holy Spirit, good things happen to your life. You experience something spectacular, supernatural, something beyond the imagination of men. I remember when I received the Holy Spirit into my life: it was a wonderful experience for me.

 

If we want to have an encounter with the Holy Spirit we should be ready, because the Holy Spirit can come unexpectedly to meet us any time at any place at His own given time and place.

We also need to have the right attitude, just like the disciples. When Jesus asked them to wait in the upper room for the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit. They were in the state of expectancy as they were waiting for Him. If God has given you a promise you, should always be ready in your heart and mind to receive, because God is faithful.

In Matthew 3:11-12 our Lord promises not only to baptize us with the Holy Spirit, but also with fire. Fire is good for so many things. Fire is good for cooking, for warming ourselves and can consume as well. Our God is a consuming fire: Hebrew 12:29. The day we gave our lives to Christ we became candidates of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. When the Holy Spirit comes on us with His fire, all the ugly side of us are consumed by the fire of God if we permit Him. God can not deal with a carnal man. No carnal person comes face to face with the fire of God and remains the same. After having an encounter with the fire of God, we need not to live like worldly people again, because it burns out of us every desire of the world. So we move from being a carnal person to the place of spiritual people.

The only time you will know whether you are baptized with fire or not is when you are faced with a challenge about your identity as a Christian. Like Peter who was confronted by a little girl with his identity as a Christian. When Jesus was arrested, a little girl came to Peter. By that time everybody had deserted Jesus and He was alone. The girl recognized Peter and said to him: you, I know you! You have been with this man, I have seen you following him every day where ever he went, you were with him. Immediately Peter denied and said: I don't know him. At that moment Peter was running away from his spiritual identity. Peter denied Jesus because he was not attached by the fire. That is what happens to so many of us. Because we are not baptized, because the fire has not consumed our natural side, we are always dodging. Although we carry our Bible we try to hide it. We are only Christians when it is Sunday and after Sunday we are no more Christians.

He is a consuming fire and when He comes upon you, He will consumes you, you wil be able to come out and declare His name. Peter couldn't stand for his Christian identity and allowed a little girl to frighten him. Today, little dreams are frightening all of us. You panic about everything, do you know why? Because you are not grounded in your Christianity; you are not stabilized in your Christianity so you are wavering and moved anywhere according to the words of men.

Romans 3:11-12

"No one has real understanding, no one is seeking God. All have turned away from God all have gone wrong no one does good not even one." Naturally it is not in our character; it is not in our personality to serve God. So if you are a natural man you will have interest in God. That is why God gave a part of Him into our life which is the Holy Spirit so that we will be attracted to Him. So if you are a Christian and you are not baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire, you don't have interest in the things of God. Sometimes you don't feel to come to church, you don't see the things of God as important and interesting as you should. When the part of God comes upon you, you want to go everywhere and you want to do everything to please God in your private life and in your public life. You want to make every body aware that you are a Christian. And because I am baptized in the Holy Spirit, I'm not afraid to declare my identity in the midst of any people, whether they are Buddhist, whether Muslims where ever I go. Because I believe in God and I know that Jesus is the Lord and the savior of the world.How many of us go out there and tell people about who we are?

When you are baptized with the fire of the Holy Spirit your interest will change. Maybe you used to dance to a certain tune of songs but when you are baptized with the Holy Spirit when they are playing worldly songs you don't even have the feeling for it. There is nothing wrong going to parties, but there will come a time when you don't even have the desire to go to certain parties and to dance to certain songs. That part of you that reacts or that responds to those songs will die when the Holy Spirit is in you and when you are baptized with fire. Many of us are still struggling whether we have to stand with God or stand with the world. We are caught in the middle: sometimes we are dancing to the tune of the world, sometimes we are dancing to the tune of God. There will come a time when you don't even feel to dance to worldly music because you will be consumed by the Holy Spirit.

And you don't even feel like walking in sin because that part of you that respond to sin will be consumed by the Holy Spirit fire. Then you will know that you are on the path of righteousness. That you are on the way to heaven. But when that part of you is still responding to the world, you've got a problem. Today you need the fire of the Holy Ghost. And the Bible says when you have the fire do not quench it.

2 Thessalonians 5:19

So it is better for us to allow the fire of God to consume the other side of us that is not godly, that does not respond to God but to the flesh. If we don't allow the Holy Spirit to consume that part of us now, there will come a day when the consuming fire will consume us. God wants to bless you and the only time you can receive the fullness of His blessing is when you walk in His Spirit. Then He will be able to preserve your soul, spirit and body blameless on the Day of Judgment. You can only attract God to yourself when you are baptized by God's fire. When you attract God you attract the blessings of God.

AMEN