• ESPAÑOL: ¿Has tenido una fuga? ¿Necesitas ser llenado nuevamente con el Espíritu Santo?

It is hard to tell how much time had passed between when the Holy Spirit fell on the Day of Pentecost and Acts 4 when Peter and John healed the lame man lying in the temple.

I think that it was just a matter of a few days.

With that in mind, we read an intriguing verse in Acts 4, when Luke forgot to add one keyword, ‘again’ to the verse when he talked about what happened at a prayer meeting recorded in that chapter.

“And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.“

(Acts 4:31 NASV)

Luke writes that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit at the second prayer meeting.

But technically, he should have added the word ‘again’, because just a few days earlier, we read that on the Day of Pentecost the 120 in the upper room, “were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with different tongues, as the Spirit was giving them the ability to speak out” (Acts 2:4 NASV)

Now, I suspect that Luke purposefully didn’t add the word ‘again’ because, between the Day of Pentecost and this prayer meeting in Acts 4, about 5,000 people had been added to the church.

Undoubtedly people were attending this second prayer meeting who had not been a part of the original group of 120, so ‘again’ would not necessarily apply to them.

But at the same time, when Luke writes that everyone who attended this prayer meeting was filled with the Holy Spirit, which included people like Peter and John who had been part of the 120.

It seems any of the original 120 who attended the second prayer meeting needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit again.

This implies that they had sprung a leak, which then begs the question, what caused this deflation?

After Peter and John healed the lame man, the authorities actually arrested the disciples and threw them in jail overnight. After an angel broke them out of their jail cell, they were essentially arrested again and brought before the elders.

As Peter addressed the elders, Luke writes that Peter was “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 4:8).

So something happened between the time that Peter spoke to the elders and the prayer meeting mentioned in verse 31.

Luke explains what this was and writes that the disciples had been verbally threatened, “When they (the Jewish leaders) had threatened them further, they let them go” (Acts 4:21).

There is something about the power of words.

In the same way, that faith comes from hearing the word of God, negative, threatening words can have the opposite effect, causing us to be intimidated and fearful

You see the impact these threats had on the disciples when at the prayer meeting that followed, they compared their situation to the time the whole city turned against Jesus (Acts 4:27) and then prayed “And now, Lord, look at their threats,” (verse 28).

These verbal threats had hit their mark. The disciples were intimidated and fearful and this caused leakage, resulting in them needing to be filled with the Holy Spirit again.

Fear, intimidation, worry, and stress can deflate us spiritually. This can happen through direct threats or by simply watching the news and even participating in social media.

Because of this constant barrage of negativity, we need to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit.

How do we get refilled? There are several ways we can do this, prayer, speaking in tongues, and even having people lay hands on and pray for you.

But I believe the most important first step starts with simply acknowledging our need to be refilled.