License to Learn 2 Pages

A License to Learn
Receiving the Baptism in the Holy Spirit
It was over twenty years ago that, as a businessman with customers located from New York to Oklahoma, I was faced with a real problem. It was getting to the point that I could not provide the quick response time to customers that they desired. The tremendously long drive (14.5 hours) to the Conoco Ponca City Refinery in Oklahoma was almost too much of a strain, especially if it came just after a return drive from Niagara Falls, New York, which was a 12 hours the other direction. Something had to be done. Ever since I had been a small child I had dreamed of owning and flying my own small plane, but it had always just seemed an impossible dream. Now, however, it seemed that it would be a necessity. It would be necessary if I was to properly service my customers needs and have any chance of expanding my business more. Up to this time I had often spent ten days on the road going from customer to customer inspecting and doing required service work whenever necessary, and then have four days at home doing office work, spending time with the family, etc. I would often take the family with me when I could, and I enjoyed doing that. But this Oklahoma project was something that just couldnt fit into the old traditional way of doing business, and something had to change. The lessons would cost around $3,000, and though that was expensive, it was a necessary expense if I wanted to keep my business growing. It would take about three months or so to accumulate the 40 hours or so of flying time, both dual, with an instructor, and solo. Finally the day came when my instructor told me, Tomorrow you fly with Brownie. Now Brownie, which was the nickname for Herman Brown, the owner of Sky King Airport, was also a certified Flight Examiner. Tomorrow would be the big day! I was both excited and nervous. Now we were flying a Cessna 152, a very small two-passenger training aircraft. Both Brownie and I have large, stocky builds, and I know were at the extreme of our weight limit when we took off that day. Though I was nervous somewhat, the flight went really very well and in just 45 minutes or so after my third landing, Brownie told me to park the plane and come inside with him. He already had all my papers, my logbook and my learners permit. We went into the office and, without saying a word, he wrote entries in the log-book and on the permit, and on another sheet. Then he handed the log-book and the permit with his signature affixed back to me and smiled broadly. He then said words I will never forget. Now, son, he said, you have a license to learn. Over the next few weeks and months I learned over and over again the truth of those words, as I encountered situations and experiences we had never mentioned during the time of training. My training, however, had been really pretty good, and with that, and even more the Grace of God, I did well and continued to learn. That time of learning never stopped as long as I was flying. And if I ever get a chance to begin flying again, I know it will continue. Now I could have taken that license and had it framed or laminated, and taken it everywhere with me showing it off to everybody I met. I could have talked of how
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License to Learn 2 Pages

blessed I was to have it and how wonderful it was. I could tell everyone of all the limitless possibilities it opened up to me, many that most people never dream of. But if that is all I ever did with it, I would be a laughingstock, and the time and money I spent for it would have just been wasted. I had to use it, putting it in my billfold and taking it out only when required. Having it would never help me or anyone else if I did not get into a plane whenever it was needed and fly to where I must go. Having it gave me the ability to take care of more customers and help more people than I ever had before, while all along fulfilling dreams I had since childhood. With it I traveled the length and breadth of the United States and experienced many things that I never could have even dreamed of any other way. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is much like that. The only thing it does not take $3,000 worth of lessons and several months of work to get. It is a free gift, the promise 1 of the Father, to any of His children who will simply ask2 in faith and receive. Yes, you must be His child, truly born again, but that is the only requirement, other than just asking and receiving in faith. Receiving that infilling is, in the spiritual realm, much like it was for me in the natural realm when Brownie handed me the papers for my pilots license and said that I had a license to learn. Just going around talking in tongues all the time is, in many ways3, like taking the pilots license, putting it in a frame, and going around everywhere with it hung around your neck for people to see. We must learn to do what that license of the baptism of the Holy Spirit enables4 us to do. The infilling of the Holy Spirit is just a doorway, a license if you will, that gives us both the legal authority and the power to do what Jesus said we would. We then must begin to learn to do and to be that which Christ has proclaimed of us. All the manifestations of the Spirit are available as they are needed and the Spirit wills. As we learn to yield to His leading, He will work through us the works of Jesus, and we will see things happening in our lives that we never dreamed of. There is nothing I cannot do if the God leads me to do it by the Holy Spirit. We will then be true witnesses of Christ Jesus, bearing witness of the Father as Jesus did 5. It wont be instantaneous. It wont be automatic. We must learn to yield ourselves to God6, because in so doing He can manifest his presence through us. His love and His power can flow through our hands. His love and His words can come forth through our voices, as we learn more and more to yield ourselves to him. He is willing and able, if we will learn to allow Him to do the work.
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Acts 1:4-5 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me; "for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." 2 Luke 11:11-13 "If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? "Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" 3 Praying in tongues in private prayer is a very important means of personal edification as is noted in the following Scripture reference, but if that is all we ever do, we are missing the most important reason for it. 1 Corinthians 14:4 He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. 4 John 14:12 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. Acts 1:4-5 See Footnote 1. Acts 1:8 "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." 5 John 14:9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 6 Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2