The Holy Spirit Upon You

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” — Acts 1:8

When Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22),  that was the weighty moment the Holy Spirit transitioned from being with them to being in them. Now, man has become the dwelling place of God, and how could it possibly get any better than that?
But according to Jesus, it does get better than that.  According to Jesus, after the Holy Spirit is in you, there is still another level.  Your relationship with the Holy Spirit can get better than Him being in you. After Jesus breathed on them, and before He ascended, He told those same disciples He had breathed on, that the Holy Spirit would not just indwell them, but would come upon them (Acts 1:8). Then He ascended and poured out the Holy Ghost at Pentecost.

This “coming upon” is what we call "the baptism in the Holy Spirit.” The word “baptism” means “immersion.” The idea is that you’re fully immersed in this heavenly substance of the Holy Spirit. Think about the picture here. It makes sense that the “coming upon” of the Holy Spirit is a baptism. When we baptize people in water, we place them into the substance of the water, and after they come up from the water, that substance is upon them. The water is all over them and the surrounding area, and it’s obvious that water is the substance they have been immersed in. Because they’re soaked. Invariably, their friends and family will hug them right afterwards to celebrate their baptism, and suddenly the substance that is upon them gets on everyone else. Now the substance that is upon them gets on everyone around them as well.

That is the picture of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, this “coming upon” of God’s power. He is in you for your sake.  He is upon you for the sake of everyone around you. You will be His witness when you are immersed in His power.