Have I ever come to a place in my experience where I can say, \u201cI indeed . . . but he\u201d? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means. It means that \u201cI indeed\u201d am at an end; I can do nothing more. \u201cBut he\u201d begins right there\u2014he does what no one else can do.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry\u201d<\/em> (Matthew 3:11). Am I prepared for his coming? Jesus cannot come to me as long as there\u2019s something inside me blocking his way. It doesn\u2019t matter whether the thing is bad or good, sin or something I consider a personal quality. When he comes, I must be prepared for him to drag everything into the light. Wherever I know I am unclean, he will put his feet. Wherever I think I am clean, he will withdraw them. Repentance doesn\u2019t bring a sense of sin but a sense of total unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am completely helpless; I know that no part of me is worthy even to carry his sandals. Have I repented like that? Or do I have a lingering urge to defend myself? The reason God cannot come into my life is because I haven\u2019t entered completely into repentance.<\/p>\n \u201cHe will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire\u201d<\/em> (Matthew 3:11). John doesn\u2019t speak of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience. He speaks of it as a work performed by Jesus Christ. The only conscious experience those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit ever have is a sense of being absolutely unworthy.<\/p>\n \u201cI indeed\u201d was unworthy, \u201cbut he\u201d came, and a marvelous thing happened. Get to the place in the margin where he does everything.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have I ever come to a place in my experience where I can say, \u201cI indeed . . . but he\u201d? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism …<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":2206,"template":"","collection":[],"class_list":["post-2666","modern-classic","type-modern-classic","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/modern-classic"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=2666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}