There is a longing in every believer to receive the Holy Spirit, and so they run frantically from church to church, convention to convention, meeting to meeting, anointing session to anointing session, in hope of receiving Him. Most fast and pray for days on end, longing to be filled with the Spirit. But the truth is that we seek God and confess Jesus as Christ because the Holy Spirit already dwells within us—and we remain ignorant of this truth because we crave outward signs of His manifestation. When we receive the Holy Spirit yet see none of those signs, we assume His Spirit is not within us, and though filled, we feel an emptiness in our spiritual life.
Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:3 (NIV)
It is worth noting that the Holy Spirit is given to us so that we may continue believing in God’s work of redemption and confess that Jesus is Lord.
Not by Fasting, but by Believing
After the resurrected Jesus had met His scattered followers, they came together, always praying and fasting. This brings us to a question that many believers assume Scripture answers the other way: was the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost because the disciples were fasting?
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
Acts 2:1 (NIV)
What united the hundred and twenty in one place was not a fast, but a restored faith, and the road to that restoration is worth tracing. In the days after the crucifixion, the disciples were not confident believers waiting expectantly — they were, in every practical sense, unbelievers again.
But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.
Luke 24:21 (NIV)
Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.
John 20:25 (NIV)
The two travellers on the road to Emmaus spoke of Jesus in the past tense, their hope already buried with Him. Thomas would not believe the testimony of the other disciples without physical proof. Even Jesus’ own family had struggled to believe in Him during His ministry.
For even his own brothers did not believe in him.
John 7:5 (NIV)
When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
Mark 3:21 (NIV)
It was the risen Christ Himself—appearing, showing His hands, inviting Thomas to touch His side—who restored belief to a group of people who had scattered into doubt. Jesus’ brothers and mother likewise had their faith restored when the resurrected Christ met them. That restored faith is what brought them together in one accord, and it is that unity of faith, not a shared fast, that Pentecost describes. Where there is real unbelief, there can be no lasting unity, because everyone is following their own private doubts and opinions. It is only faith—one faith, in what God has already done through His Son—that makes people truly one in heart and mind.
The Spirit Given Through Faith
The same pattern appears again at the house of Cornelius, where a group of Gentiles had gathered to hear Peter preach.
All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.
Acts 10:43-44 (NIV)
Cornelius and his household had been misjudged by others, who assumed Cornelius’s good deeds alone had earned him some special standing with God. God corrected that assumption by sending Peter, and as Cornelius’s household believed the message that everything had already been accomplished in Christ, the Holy Spirit fell on them immediately—before baptism, before any other rite could be performed.
The Misconceptions
“Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So, he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
Acts 10:47-48 (NIV)
This account is often read backwards. Because Cornelius’s household began speaking in different languages and praising God, some concluded that speaking in tongues is what produces the Holy Spirit, and so they encourage people today to keep speaking, keep repeating words, keep calling out, as though enough noise or repetition will bring the Spirit down. But the text shows the order running the other way—they believed the word, the Spirit fell on them because they believed, and speaking in other tongues and praising God was the result of receiving the Spirit, not the cause of it.
This is the same mistake the prophets of Baal made on Mount Carmel. They shouted, cut themselves, and worked themselves into exhaustion, and no fire came. We ought to be operated by God through His Spirit in every area of our lives, and we are certainly not created to operate God according to our own whims and fancies.
Elijah simply repaired the broken altar—the heart of worship—and prayed once, and the fire fell immediately. The fire did not respond to noise; it responded to a heart set right. In the same way, it was not fasting, shouting, or ritual that brought the Spirit to the disciples or to Cornelius’s household—it was a heart made right through faith in what Christ had already done.
Some deceivers teach their crowds about supposed signs for receiving the Holy Spirit, such as cold waves, shouting at the top of their voice, and jumping and clapping to make believers experience goosebumps, and people come to expect such reactions as the sign of receiving the Holy Spirit. Goosebumps are caused by the involuntary contraction of tiny muscles at the base of hair follicles, called the arrector pili muscles. This reaction is triggered by the sympathetic nervous system in response to cold temperatures, strong emotions like fear or awe, or an adrenaline rush. Mainly this happens because fear, shock, or stress activate a “fight-or-flight” response, releasing adrenaline. People should also realise that this kind of experience is common while listening to powerful music, watching a moving film, or feeling deep inspiration, and can equally trigger the reflex.
The devil imparts lies into our hearts through emotions, and God never imparts anything to us while we are emotional. Our Father God encourages us not to fear and when we hear Him, He calms our mind and gives us His peace and then He teaches us. The very apt invitation by God in the Old Testament is
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.” The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Psalm 46:10-11
Furthermore, our brother Jesus called us as below:
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)
God gives His Spirit in the most calm way; we will not feel anything about His coming in, but we will feel a tremendous change in our lives in understanding His Word and truth after the Holy Spirit comes in.
The Self-Made Anointers Choose the Already Anointed
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 1:13 (NIV)
God gave them the Holy Spirit because they had received faith. The Holy Spirit is given to us as soon as we start believing. Peter and his team, instead of attributing this amazing provision to God in order to protect the young faith of the believers, wanted to claim it for themselves, and so led the believers—who had already been given the Holy Spirit by God—into the act of immersion baptism. Peter was keen to claim the work of God as his own work, and the misconception that the Holy Spirit is received through men was successfully initiated by the devil on that day. And they were immersed into the water once more, to mislead them into believing that this act produces the Holy Spirit.
Believers who died with Jesus and were raised by the Holy Spirit (Colossians 2:12), carry out a considerable amount of ministry with truth and power, because the Holy Spirit who dwells in them manifests Himself as needed. Yet pastors who do not understand their freedom in Christ, coax them into immersion baptism, in order to claim these workers of God as their own products. Sadly, the person within whom the Holy Spirit has dwelt since he first believed is now convinced by these self-made anointers that the immersion baptism he underwent has empowered him with more power and opened an avenue for doing more miracles. This seems similar to the leaders of the Galatian church who led believers back to the law and forced circumcision.
This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.
Galatians 2:4 (NIV).
The Purpose of God Giving Us the Holy Spirit
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:13-14 (NIV)
This is the clearest word Scripture gives us on how and when God gives us the Holy Spirit. It is through hearing and believing the gospel, nothing more. Not through fasting, not through days of shouting and tongues, not through the permission or blessing of any human authority standing between a believer and God. If hearing and believing the word was enough for Cornelius’s household to receive the Spirit immediately, then no further human step is required for anyone. The purpose of God giving the Holy Spirit is to secure our salvation until we receive eternal life, and to help us on this journey know the mind of God, which in turn helps us to forgo our misconceptions about the truth.
For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.
1 Corinthians 2:11-12 (NIV)
God is not moved by performance, whether that performance is public prayer built on other people’s failures, outward fasting meant to be seen, or noise mistaken for spiritual power. What He responds to is faith—a heart that has first dealt honestly with its own sin, that seeks His will rather than its own, and that simply believes what His Son has already accomplished. Everything else, including the true purpose of fasting and the true gift of His Spirit, follows from that. For example, people are motivated to ask for the Holy Spirit, citing the following illustration from Jesus:
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!
Luke 11:13 (NIV)
This verse is not meant to teach people to ask for the Holy Spirit, but to help them understand that God gives them only the Holy Spirit and nothing else. This matters because, in the pretext of striving hard to receive the Holy Spirit, people often receive an evil spirit instead, mistaking it for the Holy Spirit. Again, when Matthew records the same teaching of Jesus (Matthew 7:11), he uses the word “seek” instead of “ask.” This is significant, because Father God gives us the Holy Spirit not because we ask, but because we seek Him in truth and in spirit, believing in His redemptive work.
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
John 14:26 (NIV)
What is promised by Jesus in the verse above? The Word clearly says that “the Father will send the Holy Spirit in my name,” but believers are misled into thinking that the Holy Spirit will be given to them in meetings, when everyone comes together to fast and pray. Through this, people receive some pacifying spirit that makes them revolve around their misconceptions, and they never try to discern the truth through questioning. This prevents them from receiving the promised Holy Spirit, who is given to us when we believe what God has done for us through His Son and our brother, Jesus. We are kept from hearing the truth of the Gospel, which would engrave faith within our hearts and minds. Because of this mistake, we fail to receive the promised Holy Spirit, who is our Comforter, Advocate, and Teacher.
Reply