THE FILLING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT: WHY THEY NEEDED IT THEN AND WHY WE NEED IT NOW

A/ Why Do God Give His Spirit?

God give of his Spirit so that people who are recipient of his power may serve him. In the Old Testament God gave of his Spirit to a limited number of people because only a limited number of them had responsibilities.

Before that Israel was led by human monarchs God gave of His Spirit to prophets, Priests and Judges and when the monarchy was introduced the Holy Spirit was given to prophets, priests and kings. And during the construction of the Tabernacle some artists were filled with the Holy Spirit in order to be able to do beautiful artistic design and all kinds of crafts (Exodus 31).

Here is how John Eldredge in his best-selling book ‘Wild at Heart’ puts it:

You remember that wild man, Samson? He’s got pretty impressive masculine resume: killed a lion with his bare hands, pummeled and stripped thirty Philistines when they used his wife against him, and finally, after they burned her to death, he killed a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey. Not a guy to mess with. But did you notice? All those events happened when ‘the Spirit of the LORD came upon him’ (Judges 15:14).

If one just has an overview of the Old Testament, he will notice that the coming of the Holy Spirit was often correlated with dynamic activities. So it is with the New Testament. At Jesus baptism by John the Baptist we are told that He was filled with the Holy Spirit and being LED by the Spirit in the desert to confront his enemy for 40 days and came back from that confrontation with the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:1,14). That is when his miraculous activities begun in ancient Israel. Even in the Acts of the Apostle, the word Holy Spirit is correlated with works in the lives of the apostles and other disciples. Jim Cimbala in his book “Fresh wind, Fresh Power” makes the same remarks about the action of the first disciples. When the Spirit came, some people converted, other people got angry, and others were healed while other fell into dramatic judgments. To speak of the activity of the Holy Spirit without anything happening is an oxymoron. It is a contradiction of term. The Holy Spirit is a spirit and the only way we know of his presence is when He manifest himself, if He does not manifest himself we can only believe that He is present by we can not know that for a fact. So when the Holy Spirit fills a disciple/Christian something MUST happen in that disciple’s life. Thus, when I hear people saying that they are filled with the Holy Spirit while nothing unusual in their lives is happening I find it incredible to the point of being ‘miraculous’ by itself.

B/ The Meaning of Acts 1:8

Among the Last words of Jesus we read this: “But you will receive POWER when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8 NIV). Just as in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit was given to some selected folks in order to represent God in their divine mission on earth so it is in the New Testament. The difference being that ALL disciples are being called to exercise a particular divine responsibility, which is why ALL of Christ’s disciples/Christians need to receive God’s power. Even though our calling is different from each others just like the difference between Prophets and Judges in the Old Testament, we do have a unified mission. In the epistle of 2 Corinthians 5: 18,20 , we are told that we are all Christ Ambassadors and as such we need power in order to effectively serve him and represent him effectively in this age while waiting for his return.

The international bible teacher Derek Prince in his book ‘Foundations for Righteous Living’ says that the Greek word for power found in Acts 1:8 is ‘dynamo’ and Professor Wayne Grudem in his volume of "Systematic Theology: An introduction to Biblical Doctrine", give the same translation of the word as ‘dynamis’ which in both case are the root term of our English word dynamic and dynamite.

Why is it important? For the reason I said above. No one can say to have received the ‘dynamo’ and still be inactive and unproductive. For a matter of fact, that empowerment is what makes a difference in God’s followers. When Goliath was insulting the God of Israel, I’m sure all those Israelite soldiers were in indignation but no one dared to confront him. However David who had no formal military training went into the fighting field because the anointing he had received prior to that event from Samuel was dynamically moving him to do exploit in the name of the Lord even in front of impossible challenges.

Can I also suggest, when things get tough and challenges seem insurmountable that is exactly where the ‘dynamo’ we have received is the most needed. We have all seen how the dynamite is used. It is not used on soft field, dynamite is used where hard rocks are founds. Jesus knew that we will meet incredible challenges as his gospel goes all over the world, therefore He gave us the Power of His Spirit so that the task given to us be effectively completed. BEING FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE DYNAMITE OF GOD.

Before I finish I need to raise some important point otherwise my presentation will be incomplete. At the conversion, the Holy Spirit is given to the converts. He receives authority. In the gospel of John 1:12, it is said that new convert receive the right to be called child of God. That right is also his authority. The Greek word, Derek Prince says, for that is ‘exousia’, which means that the one who were under satanic authority is now translated out of it into the divine authority. This is what the Spirit do at our conversion, when we are regenerated. We are exalted in position of authority in Christ. However we should not confuse authority (exousia) with power of execution (dynamis). In human affair those who have received authority also get means that makes their authority effective. Soldier receives weapons, military commanders get battalions and presidents receive armies. And Christians receives the power of the Holy Spirit. Even Jesus who was Son of God needed power to start executing his divine mission. Even the disciples were told by Jesus himself after they had received the authority (the right) to preach the gospel that they should wait until the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon them (Luke 24:49).


We do not only need the power of the Holy Spirit to be able to do God’s work, we also need it in order to have the courage, strength and audacity to do what we know God expect of us. Even to our Christian martyrdom. In Acts 4, we read how the disciples spoke with courage (verse 13) and how they received more audacity as they asked for boldness (verse 29) in prayer. All these are connected with the word ‘Filled with the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 4: 8, 31).

C/ Conclusion

I end this by saying that we need God’s power in order to serve him. Where the Holy Spirit is active we will always see that. One of the ways He (Holy Spirit) manifests himself it’s through one of the manifestation of the spiritual gifts (1 Corinthian 12) or powerful exercise of the ministry gifts (Ephesians 4:11-13) or (Romans 12: 6-8). All these are gifts by which the Holy Spirit manifests himself to do the impossible and the amazing works of God through Christians’ lives. We need all of them to manifest as much as possible, because if God gave them to us it is because it has the ability to impact this generation and to build the body of Christ.

God Bless you all in Jesus' name.
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