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
