Hello "Saywhat" :),

As always you make many good and interesting points and challenge people to perhaps re-think some ideas they may be holding to. I do agree with you that many who "share Jesus" do so in a way that is more likely to repel than to attract. As just one example among many: http://youtu.be/nsVc46nxqBA

Before i came to the Lord, i couldn't help but notice that this was sometimes the case. Had someone like Heidi Baker approached me with the Love of Jesus oozing out of them, i would likely have come to the Lord a lot sooner :). I don't say, however, that the majority of Christians were doing a bad job of encouraging me towards Lord Jesus. Several were doing pretty well with witnessing to me through their lives and made me begin to feel that i want what they have.

I also agree with you that being immersed in Lord Jesus first (baptism in the Holy Spirit) ... which aids greatly in being able to "hear" God's living voice and to be led by it... is an extremely important factor in transforming people in such a way that they become much more likely to say and do things that attract people to Jesus the Lord rather than to repel them from Him. Often when people become religious... and "church rules" orientated, they begin to do more harm than good in the area of encouraging others towards Lord Jesus. Knowing what the bible says, but not understanding what it means and not understanding God's heart is generally a very bad combination too. See the pharisees circa 2000 years ago for a good example of this.

But back to the subject of baptism in the Holy Spirit, is this baptism actually a requirement to be an effective witness? One consideration to meditate on is that Lord Jesus sent His disciples out in two's before they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, so it seems clear that disciples can be disciples and also can produce good fruit even before being baptized in Spirit. Disciples were pre-baptized in Spirit in Acts 19:1-6 also. Being baptized in Spirit indeed immensely intensifies every good thing, our love and passion for the Lord foremost, living unto Him and delighting in His will and His ways, so i certainly agree with you very strongly that this baptism in Spirit experience is extremely important and absolutely transformational.

Also, in addition to baptism in the Holy Spirit, there are a lot of other factors which come into play where effective and Spirit led witnessing is concerned. There are many different areas of service the Lord will lead and/or call His disciples into by His living voice and some disciples are not particularly gifted (for whatever reasons) in "winning souls" including but not limited to street evangelism, while being very gifted in other important ways. One person in the body might be much more gifted to help others to get delivered, healed and/or filled with the Holy Spirit so that some of those newly filled disciples are able to be fruitful evangelists ... and as well there are other important and nearly unlimited roles within the body of Christ to be filled. Some servants of the Lord for example are great encouragers, others are great at loving the elderly or with loving children or with having a heart for feeding the poor. Some are writers, some are counselors, some are teachers, some are worship leaders, all essential areas which the body of Christ requires for it to thrive and flourish as fully as possible.

Also important to note is that children of God can have a genuine immersion in the Holy Spirit experience and still get caught up in some of the mainstream church mistakes. Maybe they feel too alone and outnumbered in what the Lord is speaking to them, as was true of many prophets in the scriptures, but unlike these prophets, they allow themselves to be peer pressured into going along with majority opinion which has been popularized by those not baptized in Spirit. A difficult idol to crucify is the need to fit in with the majority. Some who are baptized in Spirit can become convinced of some false doctrines and/or can get to a point where they are allowing flesh and enemy influence to do some of their thinking and talking for them in this ever enduring spiritual battle we each find ourselves in. It's all part of the test. People can be immersed and then get distracted by the things of this world like as one example choosing to work 60 hours per week and allowing themselves little by little to lose passion for the Lord and allowing the Holy Spirit's influence to drain out of them until one day they reach the point where they are hearing too much from the flesh and enemy and not nearly enough from God's living voice and they realize that the deep and beautiful connection they once had with the Lord is gone. Thus once baptized in Spirit, this does not guarantee a lifetime of fruitfulness. This infilling of the Spirit and accompanying transformed life must be protected (including from what flesh and enemy want to do to sabotage it) and if deep intimate connection with the Lord is allowed to slip away, it can be very difficult to get it back, especially if one has become discouraged and doesn't know how.

This is a minor separate point, but i also believe that in addition to getting refilled with the Lord's Spirit which should generally happen at least daily in the lives of passionate disciples, we can also enjoy multiple baptism in Spirit experiences throughout our lifetime, taking us deeper and deeper in our intimacy with the Lord and in His fruits and giftings in our lives (glory to glory experiences) and i believe that in addition to what i have seen and experienced myself, book of Acts and other scriptures substantiate this biblically.

Continued hunger and thirst for the Lord and choosing with the free will we have been given to sow richly to the Spirit with our time (as opposed to sowing to the distractions of this world) is also very important, as is continual Spirit led self examination and continual crucifixion of any flesh that would attempt to rise up. Remaining deeply surrendered to the Lord and seeking to keep ourselves filled to overflowing with His Spirit as sheep hearing and being led by His living voice, all of which are ever essential if we are to remain as branches attached to the Vine which is the only way to continue producing good fruit in our lives as the Lord's true followers.

Also, it is clear that in this religious system we find ourselves in (which man can't seem to break away from), with the emphasis of most leaders primarily on head knowledge of the bible at the expense of deep passionate personal intimacy with the Lord (the same emphasis the pharisees had 2000 years ago with the same lacking interest in passionate heart relationship), the preponderance of christians have absolutely not received this life transforming baptism, the majority of pastors and elders included, and it needs to be a much higher emphasis among (true) leaders in the body to help people to desire and receive this baptism.

This can happen through leaders encouraging believers to going deeper in intimacy with the Lord, into deepened self reflection and repentance and into deepened asking, seeking, and knocking for breakthrough in the Lord. Leaders in the body of Christ (Spirit filled disciples whether pastors/elders or not) can also make an important priority of praying for people including the laying on of hands where possible to receive this life transforming baptism, much the way Paul prayed this baptism for multiple disciples in Acts 19:1-6. Let the body of Christ inspire believers to truly hunger and thirst for experiencing Lord Jesus immensely more fully, deeply and tangibly and then help them to receive this desire of their heart through Holy Spirit baptism.

There are some who understand this, but the body of Christ as a whole needs to become far better at emphasizing to believers the importance of falling passionately in love with the Lord Jesus and to having deepened intimate living relationship with Him, connecting their hearts to His in love every second of every day, wanting only to please and delight Him. Everything else is just religion of man, similar in many ways to what the pharisees had.