What does having the Holy Spirit mean?

[Felicity]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

Repentance made a HUGE change in my life. My mind was completely changed. I didn't want to do the sinful things I had been doing. I stopped taking the Lord's name in vain. I stopped going to bars, etc. I started reading the Bible. I told everyone I knew about Jesus. I prayed. I was a different person just because of repentance. My mind was turned around and I wasn't the same. Praise the Lord!

Originally Posted by tbpew

This is a hugely important consideration that I believe is a DIRECT answer to Felcity's question. The work of repentance in a person's life can accomplish so much without being born of the Spirit.

This has been my understanding of why my friends who are "good baptists" know that their life changed with they confessed their faith in Jesus as Lord and saviour. It was changed! Any turnabout from pursuit of secular wisdom to pursuit of Godly wisdom would be seen from the perspective of this life as transforming. NOT a new birth --conception, maybe, but not birth.

What you're not getting is that repentance in and of itself doesn'/cannot change a life. Doesn't change a person from being dead in sin to being alive in Christ. Only the Spirit of God can do that.

I can repent and confess all I want ... and say "I'm sorry" till the cows come home. That in itself doesn't cause a person's mind and heart to turn to God, doesn't given them a thirst for righteousness or to please God, doesn't given them a hunger for the Word of God, doesn't in itself free them from filthy habits, carnal mindsets, sinful desire, or other bondages that being unregenerate represent.

Only the Spirit of God can change a man's heart and understanding and will and desire to be in line with the will and desires of God. Only the spirit of God can bring about that kind of change. And this kind of change happens usually before Holy Ghost infilling with the initial sign of speaking in tongues.

What brings a person to a point of genuine repentance IS the Holy Ghost! What brings a man to genuine faith and belief and trust in God .... "fiducial" faith ........ is the Holy Ghost. A man can't come to Christ on his own. It's impossible according to Scripture. It has to be the drawing and working of the Holy Ghost in his life. This is what Scripture teaches.