Huge respect, GE.
@BarnyFife, this shows the power of the Holy Spirit inside us to make us bold. There will be no cowards in heaven. They do not have the Holy Spirit.
Revelation 21:8 But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
So many people, especially carnal men it seems, find it impossible to say they are sorry. But we have power after the Holy Spirit comes upon us.
Revelation 4:29-31
29 Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, 30 by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”
31 And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.
Look at the difference the Spirit made in Peter who had been so cowardly, he denied Christ three times! But on the Day of Pentecost he gave a sermon after receiving the revelation from the Spirit that part of the prophecy in
Joel 2 was coming to pass in their midst.
But the FIRST thing that happens that shows the evidence of being baptized in the Holy Spirit is power over sin. That is what Jesus came to do. Not to save us from punishment, but from the
need for punishment - SIN. The Spirit makes us dead to sin,
Romans 6:1-2, and alive in Christ's power. We are no longer in the old carnal nature called the flesh, but in the Spirit where we are no longer a slave to sin, but powerful to live in righteousness.
Romans 8:9. Otherwise, those who are still carnal, and just follow a set of rules, find it hard to keep like the person struggling under the law in
Romans 7:14-23. WE MUST BE BORN AGAIN! The eternal laws of God to Love God with all your heart, mind and body, and love your neighbor as yourself, is part of the divine nature that the Spirit within us leads us into partaking.
2 Peter 1:2-4 Grace is divine POWER
2
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His
divine power has given to us all things that
pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (Free from SIN).