Receiving The Holy Spirit Pt.4
Step Four: Consecrate Yourself To The Lord
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)
This is just an illustration of consecration. The wife loses the name of the family she belongs to. She takes up the name of the man. She gives up something, to keep the marriage covenant. In like manner, with consecration, the believer comes to Christ, and gives up something so that he can take the name and the nature of the heavenly Father. When you are born again, you abandon all the indulgences of the past that do not agree with your new life in Christ, and you come to the Lord Jesus Christ, fully surrendered under His control.
How do you do this?
Imagine that you got a message from God the Father and He told you that He was going to send Jesus down to visit you at your house on a specific date.
What would be the first thing you would want to do? You would want to clean your house from top to bottom.
Why? Because you would want Jesus come into a “clean house” to visit you.
The same analogy can now be used with the Holy Spirit. To receive the Holy Spirit in your life, the first thing you are going to want to do is to make sure that you have a “clean house” for Him to come into. Your heart is your house, which is also the temple of the Holy Spirit. So how do you clean your soul up in order to properly receive His presence into your heart? By fully confessing every known sin that you have not already confessed. You want a “clean slate” in order to really be able to receive the Holy Spirit into your heart.
In the book of Joshua, he tells the people to: "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you." (Joshua 3:5 NIV)
Another translation says, ‘The Lord will do great things.” Jesus and the Holy Spirit are God’s greatest gifts to mankind. I encourage you today to open your heart and make room for the Holy Spirit to come in, and to fill you today to overflow. When you are filled to overflow, out of your belly shall flow rivers of living waters – tongues. (John 7:37-38)
PRAYER:
Father, I now come before You to fully confess my involvement in every known and unknown sin, I confess and renounce them in the name of Jesus.
I receive your precious gift of the Holy Spirit today into my heart in the name of Jesus. Now, begin to pray and give thanks to God for the Holy Spirit.