A LIFE BAPTIZED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
By Ernest O'Neill
A Life Baptized With the Holy Spirit
By Rev. Ernest O'Neill
You're driving along. It's your life. Jesus stops you. Some preacher, some Sunday school teacher, some dad or mom, a Billy Graham crusade, a little tract somebody gives you, something in your life like a death causes you to stop. You stop. You see that Jesus is God's son, that he has died for you and that he wants to come into your life. You pray to receive Jesus and you receive Him in. He sits beside you and then you drive on and He says, "Turn left." And you turn left. He says, "Turn right." And you turn right. Then He says, "Go up that hill." But you say, "Well, it's very steep Lord. There's an easier way around. We do not need to go that way."
Some of us keep on saying that. We come to the next hill and we say the same thing. We come to the next sharp turn and we say the same thing. We come to the next place where we have to give somebody a ride in the back because Jesus tells us and we say the same thing. We keep saying, "No, no, no." Eventually we can't hear anything coming from the person beside us at all. That's one way to go.
If you go that way, your life gets more and more boring and more and more static and more and more dead. There's another way to go. You're driving along. Jesus says, "Go up that hill", you say, "I'll go Lord." He says, "Now go down, see that muddy road there, go right down through that. It doesn't matter about how the car will look or what people will think of you. Go down through it." You go down it. He says, "Turn left" and you turn left.
Then you say, "Lord, I don't need to be doing this. I am going to get out." And so you get out and say, "Lord, will you come around?" Then you come around and sit in the passenger seat. You put Jesus in the driver's seat and you say, "Lord, wherever you want to go, that's where I want to go. Whatever you want to do, that's what I want to do. Whatever you would like to do with my life this afternoon, that's what I want to do." And you give Him the right and the freedom to carry you where He will.
Now, loved ones that's the life baptized with the Holy Spirit.