Only by Grace

I find religious people find it hard to receive the grace of God because their thinking is, “I’ve got to do something to earn it.”

Now, when I got saved, I’d ceased to be religious, so I just plunged in and got everything: saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit, got gifts of the Holy Spirit within a week. At the same time, the other soldier that went with me to the same meeting was a very earnest, religious type, and it took him weeks to get what I got in a few days.

Because he kept trying to earn it. See, he thought he had to be good enough to get it. I’ve talked with scores of people who don’t receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit because they think they’ve got to be good enough to earn it. You will never be good enough to earn the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Nothing you can do will ever make you good enough for God, the third person, to come and dwell in your physical body. It’s grace.