There are degrees of maturity and we believe the same order is followed for everyone. First:
Matt 3:11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fireThis indicates that the baptism by fire is at the point of regeneration. This occurs further on as I'll explain below.
We understand "belief" as:
"Believing in the Lord is not just a matter of acknowledging Him, but includes keeping His commandments. Merely to acknowledge Him only demands some thought on the part of the understanding, but to keep His commandments requires acknowledgment too on the part of the will. The human mind is made up of the understanding and the will. It is the function of the understanding to think, of the will to act. So as long as a person's acknowledgment is merely in thought on the part of the understanding, he approaches the Lord with no more than half his mind; but when he acts, then he does so with his whole mind, and that is what believing is. " (TCR 151)
So right there this implies that we are to compel ourselves to repent our lives to make the commitment to the Lord and to cooperate with Him. The time this takes is up to the individual, but it's never instantaneous with conversion. Bad habits are hard to break.
"Those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are to receive those spiritual benefits, because He Himself is salvation and everlasting life. He is salvation, because He is the Saviour, for this is the meaning of His name Jesus; He is everlasting life, because those in whom He is, and who are in Him, have everlasting life. This is why He is called everlasting life in 1 John 5:20. Now since He is salvation and everlasting life, it follows that He is also every means which leads to salvation and everlasting life. Thus He is the whole of reformation, regeneration, renewal, quickening, sanctification and justification, cleansing from evils, and finally salvation. In the case of every single person the Lord confers these benefits, or rather, He attempts to impart them; and when a person makes himself ready and suitable to receive them, He does impart them. The activity of readying and making oneself suitable comes from the Lord too, but if the person does not receive them with spontaneity of spirit, then the Lord cannot go beyond the attempt to introduce them, and this attempt is constantly kept up." (TCR 150)
Note that salvation is at the end of the process. Again, some years may pass and the regeneration process lasts to eternity -- it's not a 'one time deal'.
“Matt 3:11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
“Note that salvation is at the end of the process. Again, some years may pass and the regeneration process lasts to eternity — it’s not a ‘one time deal’.”
What you profess is an example of cultic exegesis. You have taken a statement in the gospels and then interpreted them inconsistent with the whole of the New Testament. Nowhere do we see that regeneration - that being conversion and the possession of the Holy Spirit - takes a lifetime for anyone to receive. It make take that long for some to come to Christ, and the effects of regeneration are progressive.
I do not doubt that men can receive a “2nd work of grace” such as holy men as D. L. Moody or Duncan Campell testified of (and i yet seek), and which perhaps is what Eph. 3:14-21 is speaking of (may all that is within me cry glory), but the only manifestation of a “Baptism by Fire” is that of Acts 2:1-3, which Holy Spirit reception is then promised to those who confess the Lord Jesus by baptism in his name (Acts 2:38), and which same baptism Cornelius and household received in Acts 10 (cf. Acts 15:7-9).
“We understand “belief” as:”
Who is “we”? Yes, belief must not be superficial, but the cry of a broken heart an contrite spirit, which God promises to save. But you ignored the sample of Scriptures that i supplied and to which more can given, that show the reception of the Spirit is instantaneous, and comes as conversion. And as pointed out before, if the reception/possession of the Holy Spirit is not the same thing as conversion, but is a result of ongoing unregenerate dying to self, then souls such as the Corinthians could not have bodies that were the temple of the Hoy Ghost. Nor could the backsliding Galatians. We may possess the Hoy Spirit without allowing Him to fully “possess” us. Thereby limiting the Holy One of Israel (Ps. 78:41).