Justification or the new birth must be of grace, through faith.
Receiving the Holy Spirit must be purely of grace, by faith.
How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him! (Luke 11:13)
It does not happen by trying to earn it by consecration and surrender, but by simple faith in His Word.
It is not trusting in our physical senses, but it is trusting in His simple Word.
And raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:6–10)
For by grace, we have been saved. All that we did was to accept that as our own—and it was ours. We did nothing to earn it; rather, it was a gift from God.
Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. (Romans 4:4–5)
If you work and struggle for your salvation, and pay a price for the Holy Spirit, then you receive the Holy Spirit as a payment on a debt for your work.
But you receive the new birth and the gift of the Holy Spirit by grace through faith.
Now in the process of receiving the new birth, the Father must draw you, and then the Holy Spirit will convict you to surrender your life to Jesus as Lord.
So not everyone who prays to receive Jesus as Lord gets born again, because they are not willing to surrender their life to His Lordship. But if you want to know the Lord, that is what must happen. Because if the Father is not drawing you and the Holy Spirit is not convicting you, then all you will be doing is repeating words, the God is not inspiring you to say.
The evidence of being born again is that you will have the desire for spiritual things, you will want to read the bible and begin to understand it, you will want to go to church.
But once your spirit becomes alive to the Lord you have a yes in it to the Lord, all you must do then is ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, you do not have to wait or tarry, but you cannot let your human reasoning get in the way, you will feel the manifest presence of the Lord, and hear the words in your spirit, but you must speak them.
But these are gifts, not rewards.
You receive the answer to your prayer as a gift of grace. You receive your healing as a gift.
It is all of grace.
“Not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
It is given “to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly.”
This gift of God is “not of works, that no man should glory” (Ephesians 2:9 ASV).
It is not of works, but it is all of grace through faith.
John 20: 21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said this, He breathed into them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
This is being born again.
Acts 2:1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
This is receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit.