NIV Acts 19:1-7 “while Paul was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”…”on hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them…”
As I have mentioned in previous posts, my conservative Baptist upbringing has left me very ignorant on matters of the Holy Spirit. I will give a quick recap of what I have learned the past few months. First, the Holy Spirit is pretty much always there and he constantly implants ideas into our heads. Often we can tell the difference between the Spirit and our own voices based on whether or not it coincides with what we naturally want to do. For instance, if the voice is asking us to do something sacrificial or something that we wouldn’t normally want to do, its more likely to be Spirit driven. On the other hand, if its something that blatantly conflicts with the Bible, or if its something that would benefit me primarily, then its probably of my own mind. A useful illustration might be that the Holy Spirit is pretty much always there whispering things into my ear, but I often drown them out with my own thoughts (which tend to be driven by selfish motives). Although I still don’t always hear the Holy Spirit, I am slowly getting better at discerning his will. 
[Enter Pastor Merv] at Sunday Service
“Good on ya Mate, I wanted you to know that ‘M’ is visiting and he just became a Christian a few days ago but hasn’t been baptized with the Holy Spirit. Be a good bloke and have a chat with him, he’s had a rough past.” Although my mind was filled with mostly questions, I obliged and made a point of striking up a conversation with M right after the service ended. [Recall my previous blog about wanting to gain Merv’s trust]. I soon discovered that he was a 31 year old bookie who was on his second week of kicking a drug addiction. About that time, a teammate approached me and warned me that we were all leaving in 5-10 minutes on a trip into town. A few more dialogue exchanges between M and I somehow resulted in him mentioning that he just became a Christian and had heard something about being baptized with the Holy Spirit but didn’t know anything about it…
Timeout…What in the world am I doing? I don’t even know what I believe about baptism of the Holy Spirit. Sure there is some biblical precedent for it, but I don’t even know if its still works that way in the present time. Maybe there was something special about Paul and the fact that those disciples were completely ignorant on matters of the Spirit. More importantly, I have never seen anyone baptized in the Holy Spirit, and I myself never underwent any formalized procedure. How did I get myself into a situation where I am going to start giving others advice on something I know so little about?
Well, who was I to disregard the sentence that forced its way into my brain. I vocalized it, “Are you free right now? We should go pray about it in the back room.” I quickly grabbed another racer from a different team who had more experience on charismatic topics. The conversation went something like this. “Hey Nate, can you help me baptize someone with the Holy Spirit…right now?” He chuckled a little at the sheer absurdity of the question and after thinking for a couple seconds, he smiled and agreed. So Nate, M and I walked out the room in search of a secluded area to pray. Here we were, two guys who knew practically nothing about the Holy Spirit, and a third who I later found out, didn’t have much experience with Holy Spirit baptism either. But what we lacked in knowledge, we made up for in faith and obedience.
For the most part, Nate led the prayer and I just stood there praying silently to God that something would happen. At one point, I felt like I was supposed to place my hands on him so after overcoming an initial internal struggle, I put a hand on his shoulder. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Then, without warning, Nate stopped talking and said, “I think Brian has a word for you.”
Horrified, a hundred thoughts raced through my mind. I kept thinking, God what am I supposed to say. Then suddenly, my nerves calmed and I began to speak. I went on for a couple minutes and am not completely sure what I said, but from what I could tell, it was good things that M was supposed to hear. God didn’t fail me in my act of obedience but gave me the assistance I needed and the words to say when the time came. Although M didn’t start speaking in tongues or radiate any weird glows, he did seem genuinely touched by our prayers for him and has since come to visit us and speak to us more. He has a new direction in his life and is trying to make amends for some of his prior wrongs.
Please feel free to post your questions and comments, while I still have a way to access the internet I will do my best to respond asap.
Good on you mates,
Brian
