Jesus said to His disciples in Luke 9:23, “ ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me’ ” (emphasis added).1 He indicates that discipleship has to do with a fundamental surrender of our life to Him and a daily renewal or affirmation. Bible scholar Frank Hasel stated, “We need to seek the infilling of the Holy Spirit every day. We can’t live off a powerful experience that we had last year or last month or even yesterday. We need the infilling of God’s Spirit each day, for each day brings its own challenges.”2 We are created for daily relationship with God. From a spiritual perspective, we are vitally dependent on that daily relationship.
What did Jesus do?
Our whole lives are shaped by the rhythm of a 24-hour period. We eat daily, drink daily, exercise daily, sleep daily, and so on. It follows what the Bible says: “The inward man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16).
What did Jesus do while on earth? Ellen G. White says: “Morning by morning he communicated with his Father in heaven, receiving from him daily a fresh baptism [infilling] of the Holy Spirit.”3 So we should ask ourselves: If even Jesus needed the Holy Spirit every day, how much more do we need Him?
Jesus shows us in the parable of the vine and branches in John 15:1–8 that we need an uninterrupted connection with Him. In Jesus’ prayer, we clearly see the importance of a daily constant connection. And that connection happens through the Holy Spirit.
God’s Word clearly shows us how important it is to take advantage of each day: “Exhort one another daily” (Heb. 3:13). Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “ ‘But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow. . . . Sufficient for the day is its own trouble’ ” (Matt. 6:33, 34).
The daily baptism
Pastor Dwight Nelson underlines the necessity of daily asking for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He says: “In all my years of schooling, preaching and teaching, nobody ever told me or taught me that the Bible and Ellen White teach us to DAILY petition God for a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit. How could I have gone so far through pastoring and preaching and never learned so compelling a truth!”4
The book Seventh-day Adventists Believe says: “The baptism of the Spirit [the same as being filled] is not a one-time event; we can experience it daily. We need to plead with the Lord for that baptism, because it gives the church power to witness and to proclaim the gospel.”5
I did not know to daily plead for the Holy Spirit for most of my ministry. I now ask myself: “Could it be that Satan is trying to hide this vital truth from us?” In the last 10 years of my ministry, I have been praying daily for the infilling of the Holy Spirit. I have been seeking a daily and continual connection and total dependence on the Holy Spirit. It has changed my life and ministry.6
God is calling His people, moreover pastors, to seek a daily baptism of His Spirit, especially in the times we live. “To the consecrated worker there is wonderful consolation in the knowledge that even Christ during His life on earth sought His Father daily for fresh supplies of needed grace.”7 Only by His Spirit can we be renewed and revived. Only by His Spirit can the work be finished. Make this your daily priority.
- Scripture is from the New King James Version.
- Frank M. Hasel, The Holy Spirit and Spirituality, Adult Sabbath School Study Guide (Jan.–Mar. 2017), 40.
- Ellen G. White, “ ‘After That Thou Shalt Cut It Down,’ ” Signs of the Times, Nov. 21, 1895.
- See Dwight Nelson's full testimony at "How 'Steps to Personal Revival' Has Changed My Life," Steps to Personal Revival, accessed May 18, 2023, https://steps-to-personal-revival.info/testimonies/9/.
- Seventh-day Adventists Believe, 2nd ed. (Silver Spring, MD: General Conference Ministerial Association, 2005), 244.
- I underline this truth in more detail in my book Steps to Personal Revival (Vienna, Austria: Top Life Center, 2015), https://steps-to-personal-revival.info/.
- Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1911), 56.
