Becky Bacon got bad news at the eye doctor last Wednesday, she has to have surgery tomorrow.  So she stayed the weekend and we have had a blast  doing nothing.  It has been a lot of fun.  We both worked the estate sale my sister and daughter had.  Becky went back and worked a second day because she had so much fun the first day.  Not me.  One morning of that was enough.

I was thinking about what I said about the Holy Spirit last week and came up with another example about people being saved who didn't have the Spirit...and would be is all 11 of the remaining disciples and all of those followers of Christ.  They believed in Jesus.  They believed he died for their sins.  They believed he was risen from the dead, but they didn't have the Holy Spirit until Pentecost.

Just saying.

Now, however, when we accept Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit has come.  The Spirit who is God, in the role of God in our lives.  He leads us with a still small voice.  He comforts us when we are broken.  He does not make us jump up and down and holler.  Nor is it necessary for Paul to lay hands on us to receive the Spirit--which you might deduct from what Paul and the Corinthians had to say in this passage:

"And he (Paul) said to them, Unto what then were you baptized and they said, Unto John's baptism." (which would be how John the Baptist was baptizing--for repentance.)  Paul explained that the Messiah had come, his name was Jesus, the people there believed, were baptized and after that, "...Paul laid his hands on them and the Holy Ghost came on them..."  In this case the Holy Spirit did not come when they were saved nor when they were baptized, but when Paul laid his hands on them.

You have to be careful when you read a passage.  You can't build a separate denomination on one set of verses.  At Pentecost, flames of fire came upon them.  Paul is dead--so he can't lay hands on us, and I haven't heard of anyone lately getting flames of fire.  But I do know people who exhibit the nature of God in difficult circumstances.  That is the work of the Holy Spirit.  God's Spirit is a gift for the saved in Christ.  He changes us.  Bit by bit.