The challenge of our Holy Spirit experience

September 5, 2006

By Kevin Senapatiratne

How is your relationship with the Holy Spirit going?

My wife, Jennie, and I have been married for over nine years. We look forward to our 10th wedding anniversary in December. Now someone might say that the “initial” point in our married life was our wedding day. Like other married couples we celebrate that event. In our living room and throughout the house we have pictures or mementos. Over the years during hard times, we may look back on promises we made that day to encourage us.

On the other hand, if we only had the same depth of relationship we had on our wedding day, our marriage would never have lasted. We have grown in our relationship through our experiences together. This does not take away from our experience that day because it was the foundation of everything after that point.

The same is true when we talk about the initial physical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit — speaking in tongues. Those who have been baptized in the Holy Spirit will look back on that “initial” experience with fondness. We may celebrate it from time to time in our walk in the Spirit. It is a point that took our relationship with the Holy Spirit to a whole new level.

The challenge is to continue to grow in our relationship with the Holy Spirit. He wants to deepen that relationship with us. The apostle Paul says, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25, NIV). Isn’t this the picture of two in a relationship growing and deepening in their relationship? Our desire must be to know the Spirit more intimately. It should be a growing passion.

One example of this attitude is found in the command “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy” (1 Corinthians 14:1). The Holy Spirit desires to take our relationship to a whole new level but are we comfortable just looking back at pictures of a past time?

As Pentecostals around the world have celebrated the 100th anniversary of Azusa Street this year, we have had a great opportunity to look back and look forward.

Will we personally allow our “initial” experience with the Holy Spirit to drive us to a much deeper walk with Him? The Holy Spirit visited us in the past. Will we ask Him to reside with us again today? Will we ask the Holy Spirit to take us to a new place in our relationship with Him? While always celebrating His initial meeting with me, I pray that He would continue to deepen His relationship with me. Will you do this, too?

Kevin Senapatiratne is an Assemblies of God minister and director of Christ Connection ministries in Coon Rapids, Minn.