John the Baptist did not know who the Messiah was, but he witnessed the Spirit descending like a dove and remaining on Him (John 1:32–34). Notice the process—descending and remaining. We are looking for the Spirit to be in us and remain because we are sons of God following the same pattern as Yeshua (Jesus). Do not see this experience as a little dove coming down and sitting on Yeshua’s shoulder. Instead, see it coming down out of heaven from the Father as a flow that was constantly pouring down upon Him as He walked the earth.

We relate to the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the moment we receive the Spirit and speak in tongues or receive other spiritual gifts. But it was not like that for Christ; He had the Spirit without measure. Somehow, we have developed the idea that Yeshua had everything, and we only get a little bit. But we must get over that way of thinking. How was it possible for Yeshua to always do those things that He saw the Father doing (John 5:19)? It was because the Spirit descended and kept descending upon Him until He heard what the Father was saying, saw what the Father was doing, and went where the Father was going. We can have this same outpouring of the Spirit.

We cannot excuse ourselves from the responsibility to walk as Yeshua walked. We believe that the fullness of God dwelled in Christ, yet somehow, we have come to believe that this fullness dwelled in Him from His infancy. Yeshua laid that Deity aside (Philippians 2:5–7). This is a crucial issue of faith because if we do not believe that He was human—just as we are—then we will always have some excuse. We repent of the barriers in our minds that keep us from appropriating all that Christ is and all that we are supposed to have. Repent for thinking Yeshua had a special advantage that you do not have. Christ was the fullness of God, and we have been made complete in Him (Colossians 2:9–10). We are looking for a continual outpouring of the Spirit so that we can start walking as Yeshua walked. “As He is, so also are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).[1] What Yeshua did was accomplished by the Holy Spirit as a living reality within Him. This is not impossible to obtain because the surpassing greatness of God’s power is directed toward us who believe (Ephesians 1:19).

God wants an outpouring more than we can imagine, and He has given us everything we need. Through our salvation, Christ has put His resurrected Spirit within us. God has given us His Spirit. By the Holy Spirit we can cry out, “Abba! Father!” until we receive the fullness of the outpouring (Luke 11:9–10). As the sons of God, we reach for an outpouring of the Spirit until the fullness of Christ and the fullness of the Father are continually poured out upon us in our bodily form. We must have the Spirit without measure as Yeshua had. Then we will go where the Spirit drives us. We will see what the Father is doing and hear what the Spirit is saying. Yeshua paid the price so that we can walk as He walked (Romans 8:32). There is only one Body of Christ, and that is the fullness of Him that fills all things. We move into that fullness, in the name of the Lord. 

[1] Unless stated otherwise, all Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).