The  Outpouring

Uranda   May 19, 1954  Class

Confusion patterns must of necessity be changed before there can be much hope of any great outworking of the Holy Spirit through man in the practical expression of daily life. Confused in the consciousness of the mass, there is the wide-spread idea that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, or the baptism of the Holy Spirit, is something which comes in some ecstatic moment when one has reached a peculiarly high level of consciousness, and then it is over—as if one might be sprinkled with water or something of the sort. There is, presumably, a lasting change in the individual's life, but it is not seen as the practical thing that it really is. The outworking or the outpouring of the Holy Spirit relates to the expression of thought and word and deed in the motivating power and direction of the Spirit—not something that is segregated from the practical patterns of life, but something which is in and of itself the true expression of practical life.

We begin to realize that the outworking or outpouring of the Holy Spirit is something that cannot come and does not come except in relationship to activity in the Spirit—ministry, service, living. It is not something that comes to you when you are in some kind of ecstatic or particularly receptive mood as if you were a point in an electrode up here to catch a lightning bolt or something of the sort, but it is rather the movement of the Spirit through you in the realm of Service, in the daily expression of life, in words and deeds, attitudes. So the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a living thing, not limited to a moment or two or an hour or two, but established properly in relationship to a lifetime.

The proper recognition of distinctions involved here, between the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, is something that I think should be clarified. I have already outlined the true meaning, the true implications contained in the expression, “the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.” It is something that we must experience and have as a Reality in our lives if we are to be Servers, if we are to give true attunements, if we are to help others in a thousand and one ways. But the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a somewhat different thing—a different aspect of this same process. It is an initiative aspect. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is that which the individual receives from another who is functioning in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. To bring it down to our particular experience here, if it can be said that I am functioning on the basis of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit when I come before you, here to speak, and if the words that I speak are of the Holy Spirit, then this is, every time I appear before you in Class or in Service, the outpouring is of the Holy Spirit.

Now, if you as a hearer, receive that outpouring and let it have meaning to you, you are sharing then in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, in that moment—in that period of time. And if that attunement with the Holy Spirit that is so established, remains in you so that you begin to have, for all the days to come, the manifestation of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit through you in thought, in word, in attitude and deed, then you have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Any person, anywhere at any time, who hears or feels that which is of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit through another, is to some degree receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The point is that with most people it tends to be a sprinkle instead of a submersion, not because only a sprinkle is offered, but because only that much is received. But the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is through you or through anyone, anywhere, who is allowing that Current of the Holy Spirit to be constant, consistent, and positive, in the expression of life through thought and word, attitude and deed. Consequently, if the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a Reality in and through you, you in your relationship with God are offering the baptism of the Holy Spirit to anyone who will receive it.

© Emissaries of Divine Light