Holy Spirit - Part 6: Being Filled with the Spirit

All the Old Testament prophets foretold the coming of Christ. Upon His arrival, he would perform glorious blessings – binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, healing the sick, and building a new church.

Isaiah 61:1

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach the good tidings … and the opening of the prison to them that are bound”.

Jesus knew He would have to have anointed ministers. After His ascension back to heaven, he made provision for that ministry. At Pentecost, He poured out the Holy Spirit, sanctifying and empowering both sheep and shepherd. The Bible says that Peter, Stephen, and others like them were men “full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom” (Acts 6:3) and “full of the Holy Ghost and faith” (Acts 11:24).

Paul asked the important question to the Galatians in Galatians 3:5 :

“He that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth it he by works of the law, or by the hearing of faith”?

The only effective ministry of preaching and teaching comes by the Spirit alone, flowing out of the Spirit, with words given by the Spirit, brought by the power of the Spirit.

At the Upper Room, the Lord poured out the Holy Ghost on the faithful who had gathered there to wait as commanded. Acts 2:4 teaches they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and in that moment Peter became the channel of the Holy Spirit, ministering to multitudes in Jerusalem, and literally thousands were saved. The reaction to Peter was not by himself, as no conviction of sin comes by human power. These conversions were of the power of the Holy Spirit, supplied by the Lord, flowing out of a renewed and sanctified vessel.

Phillip demonstrated the same filling of the Spirit in power in Samaria, sending devils fleeing the city and stirring an entire city.

When these Spirit anointed men arrived, the Holy Spirit fell upon every one they touched by hand or word. Christ had promised that His church would be victorious  and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. These early lessons for us showed that there is only one kind of servant who is prepared to minister the Holy Spirit to others. That is the trusting and fully dependent servant.

In our day, in our modern church, how can we ourselves become filled with the Holy Spirit and minister to those in need by preaching or teaching or simple witness?

The Bible allows us to understand that there are three important steps outlined for each of us to seek that filling.

UNDERSTANDING

There are certain things we must know and understand in truth clearly revealed to us in the Word. The first truth we must understand is that God has given us the Holy Spirit, and that He dwells within us. If I have accepted Christ as my Savior, the Spirit of God dwells within me.

We accept this truth by faith.

It is the will of the Lord that we be filled with His Spirit.

Luke 11:13

“If you then, being evil, know hos to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him”?

At the moment of indwelling (and forever after) there reside within us two natures. There is the old sinful nature that wants only to live for self, and there is the new nature, freed from sin's dominion (Romans 6:14), a spiritual nature which wants to live for God.

The question is which nature will rule?

So to accept the filling of the Holy Spirit the Lord wishes upon us, we must deal completely with sin in our lives. This is one of the hardest missions of the believer as it is an ongoing and forever process of confession and repentance.

Confession must be as broad as our sin.

We must not only be honest about the confession of the various sins that afflict us, but we must also get down to the place in our heart that lays open our greatest sin, which is our failure to allow Christ to rule our lives. As long as we try to keep “self” at the center of life, we will practice habitual sin.

Jesus was clear on this matter and placed one condition upon us as we try to follow Him. 

Luke 9:23

“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me”.

Only when we understand this matter, so well taught in God's Word, will we be able to then move onward to the second step.

SUBMISSION

This second step means we will renounce our own way and seek above all else to submit to Christ as Lord and be ruled by Him in all areas of our lives.

How does submission become reality?

It does so first by true confession and repentance in which humble confession opens our weak and sinful side to our Lord. A promise has been provided for each and every time we do so.

1 John 1:9

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”.

It does so then by secondly a most important step, yielding ourselves to God and His will. Confession and repentance might be thought of as the negative side of submission which rids us of all things that hinder God's control. Yielding is the positive side of submission, placing ourselves totally and completely (as best we can still having two natures within us) into the hand of God, humbly and of broken spirit, seeking only His will, not our own. 

WALKING IN FAITH

The last step necessary toward the infilling of us by the Holy Spirit is walking in faith (no longer by sight). No person who is filled with the Lord's Spirit goes out and brags about it, or seeks attention to himself. When the filling arrives, it is seen by the life we lead. In that Spirit filled life, arranged by the first two steps, we come to bear the fruit of the Spirit promised to us, and that fruit comes only by faith (the evidence of things not seen). 

Sin remains a reality in the Spirit filled life, but the closer relation to the Holy Father, and the Holy Son, brought into evidence by the Holy Spirit, means we are no longer controlled by sin. Yes, it exists still, but it has no dominion over us.

Finally we must realize and accept that the filling by the Spirit is NOT a one time thing, NOR a one day happening. It is a continuous realty every day of our lives. When Paul wrote of this matter in Ephesians 5:18, “... Be filled with the Spirit...”, he wrote using a Greek verb meaning to keep on being filled.

We are already the temple of the Spirit, indwelt as new creatures, but He wishes us to continue to be filled. That constant renewal is holy and sweet, and found again and again by those who wish to be emptied of self and yielded to Him. Active surrender must  continue day to day, concerning every part of life.

We draw closer and are more filled when we give up us and take up Him!