Is There A Baptism of The Holy Spirit After Salvation?

What is a Subsequent Baptism to salvation, second baptism, or also called a second blessing referring to?  Simply stated, it is a second spiritual event that takes place after and separate from the moment of salvation where an individual is overcome by the Holy Spirit and exercises spiritual gifts for the first time.  But does the Bible support this and explicitly state A Second Baptism event after salvation?  In this article we will see what Holy Scripture says about the moment of salvation and being baptized by The Holy Spirit.

Is The Church Shrinking?

As we see an increase in the 'non religious' or 'unaffiliated' religious preferences grow in government censuses and religious surveys and the numbers of self identified 'christians' get small each year, we tend to think the Church is shrinking.  Even most denominations and nondenominational churches show a slow but steady decline of church membership.  Does all this indicate the Body of Christ, the people group set aside by God himself as first fruits for his Son and The Bride of Christ; shrinking?

God Does ALL The Work

It is ultimate satisfaction and relief to know and trust in God.  He does all the spiritual eternal work for us. The pressure and burdens of trying to love him, do good, and stay faithful to him all our life is on Him.  When we have faith in Jesus Christ, we experience the peace and joy from God doing all the work in our lives from beginning to end. From before the beginning of time, to us being lead and coming into faith, to us growing in faith, to our bodily death; God does all the work.  This is a deep and hard issue to accept.  It even turned away disciples of Jesus in his day.

Hyper Spiritualism

What is Hyper Spiritualism?  It is a blend of emotional focused worship and subconscious guilt hiding that does not produce true spiritual change in a persons life.   Hyper Spiritualism can be found at seeker focused, emergent, and charismatic churches.  Hyper Spiritualist desire to act and feel a certain way to 'feel' more spiritual and to 'feel' better about the sin they live in.  This form of pseudo-worship makes people focus on their feelings at the moment without ever addressing the deeper need of a heart change in the rest of their life.  What does scripture say about Hyper Spiritualism?

10 Big Churchy Words

The following 10 big 'churchy' words are a big deal.  They describe very key and essential understandings of the over all work and process of God in the world. They are not in order alphabetically but ordered by the process of which they take place. These words are either stated in scripture or describe an idea that is stated in scripture and are not later invented doctrines.  They help in deeper understandings of what God has done and is doing in the world around us.  below are brief outline and definitions of the words:

The Satisfaction of Christ Jesus

All humanity longs for something.  It needs and desires something more than itself.  It invents and subscribes to things that attempt to satisfy that need and desire.  Religions, cultural norms and laws, hobbies and possessions, careers and status.  All these things CAN attempt to satisfy the human longing for contentment and peace.  Even some "christians" are not satisfied with just their religion, they need greater health, more wealth, and happiness too.  But the absolute power of being in Christ is the absolute contentment and peace that only comes from him.

The Beauty of Accountability

It is human nature to NOT want to be held accountable for our wrongful actions.  From the very beginning; Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the snake.  But what if that resistance to being held accountable was actually our sinful nature and that God actually wants us to hold each other accountable;  and what if through that accountability we get to experience grace, mercy, forgiveness, and need for Christ on a deeper level of understanding.  An understanding that would not come otherwise.  What does scripture teach us about accountability and our duty out of love for each other?

The New You Forever

From our physical birth to our physical death there is nothing on the outside besides a change of habits, thinking processes, and locations that make us spiritually alive.  We enter the world as sinners estranged from God.  We are born spiritually dead (Eph 2:1-3, Col 2:13).  We live a life of habits, environmentally and socially learned behaviors and ways of thinking.  One of the greatest results of coming to faith in Jesus Christ is being made spiritually alive and 'born again'.  But what does that mean? What happens?

God's Glory Alone

God is the almighty sovereign and eternal God and creator of all things.  He is perfect is his goodness and righteousness, justice and mercy.  Man, is not.  Man corrupts what it touches and is not good without God. 

So who deserves the glory for what is good in the world?

Faith Without Works is Dead

Let's make this clear;  Christians are saved by GRACE through FAITH in Jesus Christ as Lord God and Savior (John 3:16; Ephesians 2:8-9).   But it is because of genuine faith in Jesus that will defiantly cause the life of someone who just came to faith to drastically change.  A changed life is a sure fact.  To reiterate, it is NOT the changed life that leads someone to faith.  It IS the faith that leads to a changed life.  Faith proceeds the life change but the life change is an inevitable result from saving faith.  This addresses the issue of Lordship Salvation.

James drives this point home in James 2:14-26.  Verse 26 bluntly states "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

Christian Sinners or Christian Hypocrites

Christians are sinners and the world is quick to view them as hypocrites.  Some Christians even embrace the idea of being a hypocrite but the real question is; are Christians hypocrites?  More importantly when people put their faith in Jesus Christ as lord and savior, does God see them as hypocrites?  Lets first look at Jesus' attitude toward those who followed him and those who claimed to love God but did not follow him.

The Amazing Grace of God

Gracious; the greatest characteristic of God.  Without his Grace, we would be nothing.

What is Grace?

Simply put, unmerited favor.  It is God showing kindness and being benevolent to anything undeserving of his kindness and benevolence.  It can not be stressed enough that it is undeserved.  We do not deserve or earn his favor.  We do not deserve blessings; they are given without merit.

Follow Your Heart?

People encourage others to 'follow their heart' as if our hearts will lead us to where we need or should go.  That it will lead us to happiness and all we have to do is let it lead.  It sounds all good and freeing but should we?   Should we 'follow our heart' or is that something more going on in our hearts that we should not follow.

What does our human heart tell us?

To do what is best for you and only for those who could and do encourage what is best for you. Those who would not and don't encourage what is best for you, they are wrong.  Our heart is our standard and test for what is best for ourselves and the world around us.

Its a basic creed that is shared by all people.  But again, should faith in our hearts lead us?  Should we encourage others to be lead by their hearts?  To look much deeper we need to see what our creator has said about our hearts.

If Your Not Fighting Sin, Your Living It.

The war on sin is a necessary part of Faith in Jesus Christ.   We would not even have the sight to recognize sin or the knowledge of sin if it wasn't for God.   We would be unable to resist sin and would forever be dead in sin and slaves to sin if it wasn't for God.  Therefore the fight of sin, is a result of someone who has recognized and acknowledged their sins and have been given the ability to resist sin and are free from its slavery.  If you truly love God, you WILL fight your sin.  Here we list 10 things that are important to fighting sin in your life!

When Our Faith is Just Lip Service

With so much going on in our modern world we are forced to prioritize things in our lives.  Work, school, kids, wife, friends, family, gym, fun... oh ya and God.  But while we are busy running around doing this and that, we have no shame saying that Jesus is Lord.  At work we may talk about our religion to co-workers.  At school we may mention him.  To our friends and family we may also talk about Jesus.  We will share bible verse and talk about God on our social networks.  At the gym he might cross our mind.  But at what point is all that just talk; when he is not actually Lord over our life and we are not actually serving him.

Our actions are manifestations of our heart. 

So if we are not involved in ministries, rarely attend church except on religious holidays or just with friends, rarely privately study the bible but post verses on our facebook, but be unreliable when it comes to fellowship; how then is Jesus Lord? He' not.

Sinlessness and its Dilemmas

• "Go and sin no more" John 8:3-11
• "stop sinning or something worse may happen to you" John 5:1-15
• "be holy as I am holy" 1 Peter 1:16
• "if you love me; keep my commandments" John 14:15
• "until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become perfect" Eph 4:13

Just from these verses we can jump to the conclusion that we can stop sinning, keep God's commands, and be holy with the assumption in this life.  On the surface, this is true.  God does expect us to become holy and sinless and keep his commands in this life.  Coming from the creator and holy God, that is a legit explanation.

But when we look at ALL scripture, we come to some road blocks with the assumption of sinlessness in this life.

Statement of Faith: Salvation

           Salvation is a gift of God’s grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross (Ephesians 2:8-9). Christ’s death fully accomplished justification through faith and redemption from sin. Christ died in our place (Romans 5:8-9) and bore our sins in His own body (1 Peter 2:24).

           The Principle 'Grace Alone' emphasizes grace as the reason for our salvation. In other words, salvation comes from what God has done rather than what we do (Ephesians 2:8-9).  Salvation is received by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Good works and obedience are results of salvation, not requirements for salvation.

Statement of Faith: Humanity

           Humanity came into existence by direct creation of God and that humanity is uniquely made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27). God created the universe and all that is in it by his creative effort.  God brought the universe into existence by the exertion of his will.   Adam and Eve were real people, created by God just as Genesis says.   We believe that all humanity, because of Adam's fall, has inherited a sinful nature, that all human beings choose to sin (Romans 3:23), and sin is eternally offensive to God (Romans 6:23). Humanity is utterly unable to remedy this fallen state (Ephesians 2:1-5,12).  Man is fallen, corrupt, and wicked.