The Most Important Business of This Life

The most important business of this life is the receiving of the true baptism with the Holy Spirit.

But how few, today, understand what that baptism really is! Your eternal salvation depends on it! Let us come very humbly, prayerfully, to a study of this all-important subject.

It is one fraught with prejudices on both sides. Let us remember that the Holy Spirit is, first of all, the Spirit of LOVE—of PATIENCE—of TOLERANCE. So let us, if possible, come to this study, each admitting that he may have been wrong, and very humbly, prayerfully, seeking instruction from GOD out of His Word. And let us see this study through to the end.

Salvation means, simply, the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the very LIFE of God. Jesus said: “That which is born of the flesh is FLESH . . . Ye must be BORN AGAIN”—born of God’s Spirit!

“But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, IF so be that the Spirit of God dwell IN YOU. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, HE IS NONE OF HIS . . . But IF the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead DWELL IN YOU, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall ALSO quicken your mortal bodies BY HIS SPIRIT THAT DWELLETH IN YOU” (Rom. 8:9, 11).

Unless, then, we have received the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, God’s LIFE, to dwell within us, we are LOST—utterly without hope of eternal life! Surely, then, the receiving of the Holy Spirit is the most important business of this life! But what is the difference between “receiving” and being “baptized by” the Holy Spirit?