When you are born again, the Holy Spirit comes to take up residence deep inside you in your spirit. We have looked at this before.

Once the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you, He makes influences available to you, which come from deep within.

The Bible calls these influences the Fruit of the Spirit, but there is also an anointing involved. I am not going to give a detailed teaching here on the anointing, because that is covered under our teaching on the Doctrine of the Anointing.

The Internal Anointing

From the moment you are born again, the Holy Spirit comes to live permanently inside your spirit. You then have something that is available to you that I like to call the Internal Anointing.

Most non-Pentecostal or non-Charismatic people seem to think that when you are born again, you receive the Holy Spirit and therefore need nothing more than that. They say that all you need is in the Holy Spirit, and in a sense that is true.

Every supernatural gift and ability that you need is resident in the Holy Spirit. And as we saw earlier, that Spirit flows outwards, through your soul and body to manifest.

God then causes the influences from His Spirit to flow out. And He will take your gifts and abilities and highly amplify them, by adding some of His own influences to them.

The External Anointing

There is another anointing of the Holy Spirit and I like to call that the External Anointing. This is an anointing that comes from the outside. You can think of it like this.

The Internal Anointing is like a container, such as a bucket or bottle that is filled up with water from the inside. That container can then be partly full or very full, but it varies at different times.

This is how our spiritual life is. We have a certain amount of influence or 'fullness' of the Holy Spirit, depending on whether we walk in the Flesh or walk in the Spirit. We have a degree of being full of the Holy Spirit.

The External Anointing is different to taking the bottle and filling it from a tap. It is more like a downpour of rain, or taking that bottle and dropping it into a pool, where it is totally surrounded with water.

The term used in the Old Testament for the External Anointing was the Spirit 'coming upon'. So the Holy Spirit was said to have come upon the prophets and caused them to prophesy.

The Holy Spirit came upon Gideon or Samson, and it added something to them. Samson got great strength from it. All of these spoke about the External Anointing coming upon a person.

You have the Internal Anointing from the moment you are born again, but the External Anointing is not automatic. You have to enter into it, and to do that you must go through an experience that we call the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

If you have been in Charismatic or Pentecostal circles you will know this term. If you are not familiar with it then it is time that you do.

This is because you will need it if you want to work in ministry and move into the supernatural gifts; the power that God has available for you.

The Doorway to the Gifts

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the doorway you have to walk through before you gain access to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. You only need to open and walk through that doorway once. But that door is not opened automatically when you are born again.

It has to be opened at a point in time, during a specific experience that you have. At that point the door is unsealed, and after that you may go in and out of that door whenever you please.

How does it happen? You come to an experience with God, where you allow Him to immerse you in His Spirit.

Baptism always means immersion, contrary to the teachings of traditional churches that baptism is done by sprinkling.

Water baptism is total immersion under water. But the Baptism of the Spirit means total immersion in the power of God and the influence of His Spirit.

It is like taking a bottle and holding it under water so that it is totally surrounded. When this occurs, there is a breakthrough that takes place between the outside and the inside and a bypass takes place.

Normally the spirit flows out from within, via the soul and body. Influences from deep within come into your thoughts (in your soul) and then to your brain (in your body). From there they come into the physical world.

The Bypass

The baptism of the Holy Spirit carries out a kind of bypass, because it bypasses the mind. The External Anointing comes in and bypasses the mind completely, by going directly through the will.

Then what is in your spirit begins to cause some effects directly on your body. When this takes place, you feel something in your body.

The External Anointing not only affects your soul with its thoughts and emotions, but it also affects you physically on the outside.

The most obvious symptom of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, which clearly shows the effects in the body, is when your language begins to change.

However as we have seen, the spirit is expressed in two different ways – through words and actions. So when the Holy Spirit begins to manifest under the influence of the External Anointing it is usually seen in speech and action.

On the Day of Pentecost as the disciples were waiting and the Holy Spirit was first given, flames of fire came down and something began to take place within them.

The first thing we are told is that they began to speak in different languages to what they normally spoke.

This is known as speaking in other tongues, but that is not all that happened. It was not only their words that changed, but their actions also changed.

We do not know exactly what they were doing, but strangers coming in from the outside said,

"It is only nine o'clock in the morning, and you people are drunk already?"

They must have been acting like drunken people.

How can see when someone is drunk? The most obvious way is through their actions.

So when the Holy Spirit manifests through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, there is a very clear release of something that affects both the words and actions of the person involved.

Not Only Tongues

Some people do not have the full liberty of speaking in other tongues right away. But their actions will usually be seen, and something will take place physically.

Some people may find it hard to speak as they lose control of their tongues and stammer; others might shake under the power.

They may just stammer and shake, but it is a sign that something is happening. The Holy Spirit is manifesting and taking control of their body.

It does not come through the mind. It cannot be controlled with the mind, but it can be stopped by an act of the will.

If you have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit you will know what I am referring to. It is a very distinct experience, and from the moment you receive it, there is a breakthrough from spirit to soul and body.

The beautiful thing about the baptism is that it bypasses the mind. Here is where we have a problem when it comes to tapping the inner anointing of the Holy Spirit. We sometimes have thoughts coming into our minds.

Sources of Thoughts

How do thoughts enter your mind? They come from two different directions.

As you receive influences from the world around you and hear people speaking, you receive input via your five senses. All of these produce an influence which enters the mind.

However you can also put something into your mind by closing your eyes, shutting yourself off from the world and blocking the five senses. You can still have something coming into your mind from deep down inside of you.

So your mind can receive influences from deep down inside, or from the outside. What makes the Baptism of the Holy Spirit so powerful is that it allows you to tap into that power before your mind is ready.

You do not need to wait until your mind is ready and listening. Otherwise you need to shut your eyes and ears, get into a dark place, and meditate until you tap into what is coming up from deep inside.

The anointing of the Holy Spirit allows you to bridge that gap immediately, because you can cause your spirit to directly control your lips.

You can by choice open your mouth and begin to speak in other tongues. But you can only do it after you have been through that doorway.

You may speak in other tongues and your spirit takes control, flowing from deep within and out into your body. It is coming through the soul, but not the mind.

As you continue to speak in tongues for a while then eventually your mind is also influenced and you begin to receive things from within into your mind.

There is a reason why I am emphasizing all of this. You can also receive influences into your mind from the outside that involve more than the senses. Thoughts can be place into your mind by a demonic power.

Demons do have access to your mind, but that does not mean they can read your thoughts. However the enemy can inject thoughts into your mind from the outside.

This means that if an idea comes to your thoughts, you will need to learn and know where that thought came from.

Did it come from the world around you? Did it come from a memory or something deep down inside? Did it come from your spirit? Or did it perhaps come from a demonic spirit influencing your mind and implanting it there?

We will look at this in more detail in the next series, where you will learn how to develop and demonstrate your gifts. You must learn to tell the difference between these.

You need to firstly understand why the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is so important. It allows you to tap into a new power from the outside that is so strong you do not need to wonder where a thought came from.

The anointing of God will come upon you and you will sense God's power coming on you physically.

When God begins to move upon you to put thoughts in your mind, there is a far greater confirmation. This is only part of the Gifts of the Spirit.

You know that the thought was not just your imagination, nor was it a demonic power. The thought came as you sensed and felt this influence of the Holy Spirit, so that thought probably came from God.

How to Receive

Let's look finally at how to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is one of the most confusing subjects being taught. Some people get it by accident; others struggle for years to get it and just cannot seem to have success.

My own experience was that nothing ever fell into my lap. I got it neither by accident nor in the normal ways. I had to fight for it and struggled for years to get it. It seemed like everyone else got it except me.

I would go to meetings and people would pray for me, but I wouldn't receive it. So the Lord taught me how to receive the Baptism correctly. I would like to share that with you quickly.

By Faith

You must firstly realize that the Baptism is received by faith, which is actually how we receive everything from God. Everything we receive from God has to be received by faith.

That means you have to be fully convinced that God wants you to have it. Is that not what faith means?

Faith means to be fully persuaded in your mind; to commit yourself and to receive something. All of these are involved in faith.

So to receive the Baptism, you must firstly be convinced that it is for you. To do this you need to get into the Word. The Scripture that did it for me was a very simple little one.

When I looked to the Lord to speak in tongues and was battling to get it, I found a Scripture that said,

For you may all speak with tongues.

I knew then that if all could speak with tongues, that included me and I had a promise to put my faith on. I believed that this was for me, and I could then reach out and take it.

You do not receive tongues, but you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is where many people go wrong.

You are not simply receiving an experience, but you are entering into a new relationship with God the Holy Spirit. You get to know Him in a way that you did not know Him before.

When you were born again you received a relationship with the Holy Spirit which enabled you to know Jesus as your Savior. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to us.

When you are saved and have the Internal Anointing, the Holy Spirit is revealing Jesus to you. But when you have the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, you come into a new relationship directly with the Holy Spirit Himself that you did not have before.

So firstly you need to know that God wants you to have the gift of the Holy Spirit. Once you have that, all you need to do is ask Him for it. You simply reach out and say,

"I believe that this is for me. I reach out and take it; thank you Lord. I receive it now by faith."

It is essentially a very simple act for you to carry out. You may need a little help along the way. So even though you could receive it all alone like that, one of the things that does help is impartation.

By Impartation

This means you can have someone else pray with you. You can be in the presence of other believers in a meeting where they are all flowing in the External Anointing.

With all that water splashing everywhere, you are likely to get wet. An influence comes to you that opens you up to the anointing.

Try them all. Go to meetings where the anointing of God is manifesting. Ask other believers to pray with you and lay their hands on you. Then simply reach out by faith and say,

"Lord I receive this now by faith. This is the gift that you have for me and I reach out and claim it."

Then as you claim it, and you enter into this new relationship with the Holy Spirit, you will go through a doorway. As you walk through that doorway, you will see before you things that were never available to you before.

What is available to you now? The Bible calls it the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

This doorway leads to the supernatural and it is the only doorway into the supernatural that a Christian should go through.

This is the doorway that will prepare you to have supernatural gifts to do the work of the ministry. We will look in the next section at some of those gifts and how they operate.

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