news to me!

In one of my classes I'm doing a presentation on the Holy Spirit. We're investigating the difference between being baptized by the Spirit and being filled by the Spirit. In my bible-reading I've come to understand them as two totally different entities. We are baptized with the Spirit when we initially accept Jesus as our Savior (1 Corinthians 12:13). It's God's doing. But we are filled with the Spirit continually, this is our doing, our command (Ephesians 5:18)! We are suppose to continually allow ourselves to be sanctified by the Spirit and we are to use His indwelling as a guide to becoming more Godly, to examine ourselves, to pray, to witness to others. I never considered a difference between the two. I was reading into some applicable things we could do with this knowledge and this one person put it this way, if we're a Christian (a true, Christ-follower) we shouldn't ask the Spirit to come. I saw this and had a little 'what the heck moment', I mean, there are so many worship songs that do this!? But it makes sense. We are already baptized by the Spirit. The Spirit already resides in us. Why waste time asking Him to come? We should ask Him to empower us, to cleanse us, to continue sanctifying us, to intercede for us... as an already-believer I should focus my energy on filling myself with the Spirit. Not asking Him to come, but to work!

I feel like we are so wary of the Holy Spirit. And I'm not trying to point to finger at the church, I'll be the first to raise my hand and claim my ignorance. I've been wanting to read Francis Chan's Forgotten God, but just haven't had the motivation or the time. This just sparks my desire to get attt that book even more!

Anyways, this whole baptism vs. filling thing was news to me! So, I thought I'd share (;