Did You Receive

Acts 19: 2

And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said to him, “No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”

Paul visited Ephesus and found some believers there. In fact, verse one says that he found “disciples” in Ephesus. He must have been well pleased to find believers there. I imagine that they exchanged stories and that they told him about all they were learning and experiencing. Then Paul asks them this significant question. Do you know about the Holy Spirit, have you received the Holy Spirit? Here was a group of believers but they knew nothing about the Holy Spirit. They didn’t even know there was such a thing as the Holy Spirit but they sure had the right person there to teach them.  

Reading this passage made me wonder if there are modern day believers who know little to nothing about the Holy Spirit and of course, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The New Testament believers first had to learn about the world after the coming of the Messiah. That was a big book by itself but there was a whole other chapter that they needed. I have said before that this is the third age of discovery. The Old Testament is mostly about the father. The gospels are mostly about Jesus, the Messiah but as Jesus began to transition out of the earth, he began to speak to his disciples about the coming of the third age, the age of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was promised in the Old Testament but it took Jesus to bring him into the earth. Now we come to know the Father and the Holy Spirit through the person of the Lord Jesus.

So the question is posed to us, “Have we received the Holy Spirit since we believed?” This passage shows us that once we become believers we still have to receive the Holy Spirit. Some people debate about receiving the Holy Spirit but if you ask me, it is a fruitless debated. We debate and argue about some of the silliest things. The thing we need to know is that it only takes an invitation to the Holy Spirit for him to come live with you. Why not ask him everyday to fill your life and your day? Let’s not get tied up in useless theology. The advice we get from both Paul and Jesus is to receive the Holy Spirit and so that is all that we need to focus on. Receive all that the Holy Spirit has for you every day and you will surely be blessed.