Should Believers Pray for a Second Blessing of the Holy Spirit?

Depending on the Spirit

Yes, believers should pray for a second blessing of the Holy Spirit, as long as they also pray for a third, fourth, and fifth blessing. What we see in the book of Acts is a rolling pouring out of the Spirit that matches the scope of the book. The gospel goes from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

And so, too, we see the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, going first to Jerusalem to those coming from a Jewish background, but then also going to near-at-hand Gentiles in Acts 10. As those Gentiles become Christians, it’s important that the apostles and the Jews who are there see that the Spirit has been poured out on the Gentiles.

And then in the case of the Ephesian Christians, the Spirit comes to those who are far away as well. And so in that way, God is testifying that these are genuinely his people. So, too, we are told to be filled with the Spirit, which means that we should be constantly praying that the Lord would indwell us by his Spirit.

I don’t know about you, but I often find that I’m overly dependent on myself and that praying and asking God to help me is often the last thing that I do, sadly. But we should be leaning into and depending upon the Spirit. We call this book the “Acts of the Apostles,” but really we could call it the “Acts of the Risen Jesus Through the Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit is at the core and the heartbeat of everything good that’s going on in the book of Acts. And so we should be praying and asking God to fill us with his Spirit, to enable us to exhibit the fruits of that Spirit in our lives and before a watching world.

Iain Duguid is the author of Turning the World Upside Down: Lessons for the Church from Acts 1–8.

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