Baptized and Filled with the Holy Spirit

There is a great deal of confusion in the Christian Church regarding
what it means to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and filled with the
Holy Spirit.

The New Testament mentions being baptized with the Holy Spirit seven
times.  The most important reference may be found in 1 Corinthians
12:13.  In this verse we see that all Christians have unity with one
another because of they are all united with Jesus Christ, and we see
that union with Christ involves being baptized with the Holy Spirit.
So, we may safely conclude that everyone who is a genuine believer has
been baptized with the Holy Spirit at the moment they first believed.
Every Christian has the Holy Spirit working in them.

The New Testament mentions being filled with the Holy Spirit fourteen
times.  In these verses we see that the result of being filled with
the Spirit is that a person tells others about Jesus Christ and
demonstrates the fruit of the Spirit.  Being filled with the Spirit
does not mean that a person speaks in tongues.

Sometimes we may wish that we were able to travel back in time to see Jesus and hear him teach. We think that we might be able to know more about him if we could just hear him speak to us in person. Yet, this passage assures us that we can understand him perfectly well right where we are. In fact, we are better off, since we live in the age ofthe Holy Spirit, which is better than the one before. During this age, the Holy Spirit is helping all Christians to understand Jesus properly, and is using them to do great works.

Though Jesus is going away, the disciples will continue his work inthe power of the Holy Spirit during this age. The light of the world will shine through them, exposing the deeds of darkness that people do (Ephesians 5:11). The result is that some people will be convicted of theirsin and be driven to repentance, though others will merely hate the light.