You Will Be Changed into Another Man

When the Holy Spirit falls upon our lives, the spiritual gifts are activated. In this case, the prophetic gift that enabled Saul to speak powerfully, inspired by the Holy Spirit, was activated in him. And so it is in our lives: if we want the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit to be activated in us, there must be that invasion by the Spirit of God and that activation of God’s dynamic power in our lives.

And that is what enables us to go from being mere observers of people who are anointed to participating alongside them, because Saul is no longer simply a layman watching these men who live a supernatural life. He, too, begins to prophesy with them and becomes a man filled with the Holy Spirit and with the anointing of God.

It is interesting because this passage traces what happens in the life of a man or woman who receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It says, “And you will be changed into another man” First Samuel, chapter 10, verse 6. You will be changed into another man.

What happens when a person receives the fullness of the Holy Spirit? There is, precisely, a change, a transformation. When the Spirit of the Lord is within us, divine strength begins to manifest itself in our lives. Our character flaws, the weaknesses within us, the voids, the things that are missing, the structural faults in our personalities begin to be changed.

Many people who have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit testify that it changed the way they were and the way they saw the Word and the Christian life, as though something new had begun within them. The first disciples also experienced that change, that being changed into another man or another woman.

The Bible says that when, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fell upon Peter and the other apostles, and upon all those people who were in the upper room, they were supernaturally changed. We see that those timid, demoralized, cowardly disciples who abandoned Jesus when He was arrested and taken to be tried and crucified, who fled and hid—like Peter, who denied the Lord three times—those same disciples, later filled with the Holy Spirit and baptized with the Holy Spirit, were changed, completely transformed, and became people filled with power.

Peter and John, for example, in one of their first public encounters, come upon the paralyzed man at the Beautiful Gate, and we see the authority with which Peter ministers to him, and his famous words: “I have neither gold nor silver, but what I have I give you in the Name of Jesus. Get up and walk.” And this man received that surge of power that came from Peter, leaped up and walked, and became a great testimony to the whole city of Jerusalem.

How interesting that this man, Peter, was changed into an effective disciple and servant at that moment. We also see his first sermon after the baptism of the Holy Spirit, when all the people gather around the upper room and hear these disciples testifying with power and proclaiming the prophetic Word of God. Peter delivers that great sermon in which he points out that what is happening here is what the prophet Joel had already prophesied concerning the descent of the Holy Spirit. And we will, in fact, have occasion to study this passage later.

And Peter delivers that word of preaching, that prophetic Word, with such effectiveness, such eloquence, and such anointing from God, because what he was doing, in reality, was prophesying under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. What a difference, what a difference in those disciples who are now filled with joy, who are now consecrated to the Lord, praying in homes and seeing the Power of God manifest itself in powerful ways, bearing witness in so many ways, and giving their belongings and property to the Lord—a community changed into another person, changed by the Presence, the baptism, and the moving of God in their lives.

The only way we can experience that change in our lives—if we want to break the bonds that are tormenting us, if we want to live a powerful life and get out of the mire in which we so often find ourselves, if we want to escape material failure, if we want to enter into the full manifestation of the gifts we know we have within us—is that we need the Holy Spirit to come into our lives with power, just as Saul needed Him at that moment.

Every baptism of the Holy Spirit comes as the result of an encounter with people who have already received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, who impart their anointing to us and let it rub off on us. It comes in an atmosphere that recognizes the power of worship and praise. It comes through a supernatural falling upon us and also an activation from within of the Power of God that is already in us because we have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. Then that dramatic transformation takes place, enabling us to do great things, great exploits, and it will truly be as though we have been changed and made into different people through that Power of God moving within us.

God bless you, and until our next meditation.