First hand Experience

Imagine people who have read about swimming. They may think they know how to swim. But regardless of their intelligence or imagination, they can only provide a secondhand account, without the conviction of real experience. They’ve never known the feel of the water…the challenge of breathing correctly…or the exhilaration and exhaustion of the process.

Such things can be observed by others, but only can be described accurately by those with firsthand experience. It’s not enough to know about swimming if you’ve never actually done it.

The same principles apply to our spiritual lives. Although we can gain a certain understanding from study, we ultimately must have personal experiences. This applies to being born again and forgiven…to experiencing God’s power…to knowing that the Gospel is true…and to being led by the Holy Spirit.

Paul knew what it meant to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and he knew that the Believers in Ephesus still needed the Spirit’s power! So he laid his hands on them and “the Holy Spirit came on them.” This must have been a life-changing moment for these Believers, when they experienced the full reality of the Spirit with dramatic evidence.

Can we imagine the conversations these men later had with friends and relatives? Perhaps some people argued with them about their experience. Others may have doubted what had happened. But these disciples knew they had been changed by this encounter with God’s Spirit.

Some people today have had the same kind of supernatural experience as these Ephesians. They have “received” the power of the Holy Spirit, and they know it. Yet many others are like the hypothetical skeptics. Content with their own experiences and explanations, they’re reluctant to embrace something that seems new or different.

Today, be filled with the Spirit, and let Him change your life.