Faith Bible Study Guide
The Holy Spirit comes in to live and dwell in you, and then you must learn to respond to Him. And when you receive the infilling of the Holy Spirit, He will give you utterance, but you are to respond to Him by doing the speaking. Many people fail here because they base their faith on physical evidence. In other words, they’re not going to believe they have received the Holy Ghost until they speak with tongues. That’s wrong. They must believe they have received the Holy Spirit, then He will grant the utterance.
People who believe that, have the cart before the horse. You believe and receive the Holy Ghost first, then you speak with tongues as a result of having received. Some don’t understand that, and that’s the very thing that hinders many from receiving. As I minister to people to receive the Holy Spirit, I tell them, “Believe that you receive the Holy Ghost and then speak in tongues. You don’t speak in tongues first and then receive the Holy Ghost.”
Acts 2:4 says, “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost….” If you stop reading there, it just says they were all filled. But keep reading: “… they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and [THEY] began to speak with other tongues . . .” (v. 4). They began to speak with other tongues after they were filled. That’s the very area where many folks stumble and miss it. They think they’re going to speak in tongues and then believe they have the Holy Ghost. But, you’ve got to believe it first. You receive Him first.
If people seeking the Holy Ghost would put everything out of their minds including all the preconceived ideas they have collected over the years about the Holy Ghost and just go to the Word and study, it would be so easy to say with their mouths from their hearts, “I receive the Holy Ghost now by faith.” Nowhere do you have the manifestation
or the answer and then the faith. No, you believe first, and then you have the manifestation or the answer.