The Holy Spirit: The Missing Ingredient
BOOK REVIEW

By Stanley O. Williford
Director of Publications

For those who would like to know what catapulted Apostle Frederick K.C. Price’s ministry to worldwide prominence after seventeen years of struggles, it was the baptism with the Holy Spirit.

He says so in his introduction to the book, The Holy Spirit: The Missing Ingredient.

“The Lord showed me that in order to serve Him with my full life, I must have power. And He is the only one who can give that power. . . .

“The joy and victory in prayer and in every other area of Christian life I never knew until I came into the baptism with the Holy Spirit,” he writes.

The frustration with mediocrity, he says, had begun as “a nagging sensation within me that something was wrong, something was missing.”

It was a frustration born of the fact that he was not seeing the “greater works” that Jesus spoke about in John 14:12. No doubt his was the same frustration that many other ministers and lay Christians feel today, a feeling that they can’t seem to quite get over the spiritual hump.

Apostle Price read books by Kathryn Kuhlman, and others who seemed to have the power manifested in their ministries.  But whatever they had had eluded the pastor of Crenshaw Christian Center.

In January 1970, he attended a Kuhlman service at the Shrine Auditorium and the experience was so moving that tears streamed down his face. “Here were miracles happening right before my eyes!” he writes, “. . . here was power, here were the greater works that Jesus had referred to so many centuries before.”

His quest to experience the source of that power for himself would be delayed. However, in researching the Book of Acts, he “noticed that every time the Holy Spirit manifested Himself, something happened – something definite and spectacular happened.”

“In many references, the scriptures plainly states that those who received the Holy Spirit spoke in ‘unknown tongues’ immediately.”

 “I had been taught that everyone who received Christ as their personal Savior automatically received the Holy Spirit at the same time. Therefore, every time I read these passages in Acts about “unknown tongues” being related to the initial receiving of the Holy Spirit, my mind drew a blank.”

In the meantime, he came in contact with others who discussed how the baptism with the Holy Spirit had revolutionized their lives and empowered their ministries. He read several books concerning the Holy Spirit, and with each reading became more and more convinced that God was leading him.

“This was the doorway into that supernatural realm of the manifestation of the power of God.

“In order to do the works and ‘greater works’ that Jesus did, we must have the same enabling power that He had,” he writes.

“. . . What I discovered after reading these books and checking the scriptures again was that in reality the Holy Spirit receives us into the body of Christ and forms Christ within us.  He takes up His residence within us and a well of water begins to bubble up into everlasting life within our lives. In other words, the Spirit baptizes us into the body of Christ.  But in order to really live the overcoming, joyous, and victorious life in Christ, we must go one step further and allow Jesus Himself to baptize us with the Holy Spirit. Then and only then does the well that was established at conversion burst forth and become rivers of living water.  That is when the power comes . . . .” 

One book he read called Face Up with A Miracle, stated clearly that “anyone can receive the Holy Spirit in the privacy of his [or her] own room. All that is necessary is to ask Jesus, by faith, to baptize you: then open your mouth and speak in other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance.”

As easy as it seemed, it proved difficult for Pastor Price after several attempts to speak in tongues in those early days. He admits that the fault was his own. He had been filled with the Spirit from the moment he prayed and asked Jesus to fill him.

“My problem was that I wanted to feel something before I would be willing to accept what God, very plainly, says in His Word is received by faith and faith alone. The dark clouds began to roll back and the sky became as clear as crystal.  This was it!  I had indeed received the gift of the Holy Spirit the very first time I prayed and asked the Lord to baptize me, after reading those first books.”

“I had my own mind made up as to how it would happen, and because of that I had missed the joy and blessing.” Knowing that, he made his next attempt.

Voila! The tongues began to flow and have been flowing ever since.

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