BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

“I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what do I desire, if it is already kindled?” Luk.12:49 

Much is being discussed in strain and in great lack of knowledge concerning this issue of the anointing with the very Spirit of God. Most of what is said about it is either spoken in error or misleadings from the enemy of the soul of man. Many a pastor and many a man of the pulpit, therefore, avoid this issue greatly since there is much confusion around such as preach about it wrongly, carelessly, selfishly and for mere gain. Most of what is being said about the Holy Spirit is either wrong or wrongly motivated, for usually money, strange powers, too many words and too many lies are fully and visibly involved with what deceitful men link to it at random.

First of all: let’s take the meaning of HOLY Spirit at heart. Once knowing what that little word means in the whole of His work and anointing, one has little chance to mistake it for something else. Secondly, that anointing never means to take away human collaboration (for one has to gather with Him), for in my perspective it means precisely the opposite, for it frees man to be morally, spiritually, daily, continuously and eternally under blessing and as he was created originally, I mean, in the full image of the Lord he has now been baptized into again and to whom God may still say “Do not eat from that tree”. Once baptized with the Holy Ghost in truth, one will only reflect what God is like, as far as he is (being a sure witness of God this way), and man will find how to move towards what man should be like in God – both in full measure and joined together. Thirdly, this anointing does not exclude man from falling (even eternally), since one, just like Saul (1 Sam.8-15), can fall even irreversibly into some kind of disobedience or sin. This anointing just turns it easily and fully possible for man to stand always, from a point on, even among fires of temptations and devilish powers fiercely darting and charging at him – it never means the absence of temptations at all.

Man should not attempt to do without the Holy Spirit in his whole life, even if he can. The anointing with God is not synonymous of immediate freedom (unless from demons or devilish powers), for it means also an entrance into a real kind of freedom from self and sin – especially that. And we all assume that the entrance is seldom the end of any kind of road or door, just as much as after the narrow door a certain kind of narrow way is still outlined to walk upon to the end – and to the end alone. Just as much as one can and may grow into any kind of sin – I mean that one can grow from bitterness to wrath, from it to murder and even to terrorism and guided killing – one can also grow from a perception of truth into such a holy being as this earth has never seen. But, one has first and above all to deal with past sins, confessing and putting them aside by name one by one, no matter how long one may have been a Christian already; even if such is an old, experienced preacher, past sin has and needs to be dealt with fully and in a detailed version first this time (and not just pray “Lord forgive me my sins” generally at all anymore), so the anointing can deal with the body which used to breed those sins in man, now taking consciousness of all sin from within man since consciousness of guilt and sin breeds sin too.

We read here that God assumes that His Spirit is fire from on high, which burns where it falls. Sodom and Gomorrah have been, so to speak, anointed with the Holy Spirit of God and those ceased to exist since His Spirit found none in willingness of heart towards the Holiness of this HOLY Spirit of God. But, just as much as His Spirit makes to stumble into irreversible death, as happened to Ananias and Sapphira in times of the New Testament we live in ourselves (Acts 5), in the same way He can just fall on sin merely (and not on sinner) if He finds in such a willingness and disposal and commitment to be fully freed from himself along with sin and sinning, to be fully identified and again conformed with God into His His full image (and never just half-freed) instead of smearing it in the face of God by assuming and preaching that a Holy God will abide with sin in any of us seeing we feel ourselves to be something special. This is a pathetic assumption people usually give, reason out and even preach themselves into and the main reason they easily get away with it is that God’s Holy Spirit is not present there - at all.

The Holy Spirit is, so to speak, the very essence and the very Face of the most Holy God, Who can change, resurrect, make new both in skill and in essence, or just kill eternally. I recall that when I had been dealing with these findings on my knees (for a whole while, even days or months perhaps since I was a most confused person because of the many sermons I preached and heard about it), I instantly feared to die on finding God as He really is and said “Lord, I will forget all I may have heard or learned about it, or imagined of it”, for in my mind it would be God as He really is or nothing else. A strange fear took hold of me, and eventually I said, “whatever it is, I am in great need of it and at least I will die finding my God, however Holy He is”. When this blessed Lord got hold of me that day, I did not fall – I rose from my fear and from death of mind and of spirit and soul. To describe what happened is just as impossible as to describe what happens to a baby who is conceived in a womb, for the opposite of whatever I dared to challenge myself into (loosing my life), happened to me, for I thought I was going to die at first and I lived as never before. There is no such freedom as the freedom from sin and from self being fully blessed by a Holy, anointing God. Love and deity filled my soul and life from bottom to top and I knew “now I am in the very presence and essence of God and my life has scarcely started off this time – and I did not die, I am living!” A strange fear to mess up again, even just for once in a small way, was so vivid before my own eyes I sought out for things still in my possession which could separate me from that new and found Life. In the years that followed, God had great trouble dealing with my confusions still, but in the overall end holiness was the essence of this Life which I had found then (burning in me till now even like real fire which burns, Luke 24:32).

God, by coming, will melt into Himself whatever He finds. His Spirit moved upon an empty earth (Gen 1:2) and He transformed it within six single days. He found a valley of skeletons and He put Life into them, (Ez.37). He can change your whole soul in as much time as it takes to make yourself fully available to Him – and to Him alone. If you take one minute to turn your whole being to His leadings once and for all, it takes but that minute from Him to carry it out for you. In the same manner, it may take a month or even a year to such as do not cease to pray for it by giving up on God for any other (holy) reason whatsoever. It may also be hindered to take place because people have not an eternal commitment fully settled in their minds and hearts. It should be an eternal seal to a FULL commitment once and for all, which God will gladly carry out for us ALONE and by Himself, as He best wishes to and best knows how. Many a Christian is joyless and empty, feels bad (even if they show it off otherwise), and walks alone among the winds of doctrines around them, still neglecting a powerful Life which is to be fully theirs through Christ. And this is real and far above going to church and far above these last days’ church teachings - of any and all of them.

The manifestations of this fire baptism, however, is seldom any kind of gifts (even though there are), for it will be mainly the fruits of the Spirit it will turn visible and accessible. This Freedom is not feeling even though one feels it coming our way, it is not joy even though it turns us into the most constant joyful beings, eternally. This freedom is the very presence of God as He is, of which we read like this: “Repent you therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, so that there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord”, Act 3:19.

People get married for life for better and for worse; this is more than marriage, for it is something that never ends, may never decrease but only increase and which not even death may break apart, which is to implement Itself to a fullness and to be fully settled there, feeling eternally at home in man’s heart (for always, alone). What God has joined this way, may no man separate ever again, for It is more than marriage, since it is an eternal melting of oneself with God into how He is and always shall be. This Fire melts the heart of man to mould it His way fully, something harder and more difficult to melt than gold itself. And when fire melts gold, it means only to take impurities from it. Amen.

José Mateus
zemateus@msn.com