Chapter 22. The Holy Spirit #3. Be Filled with the Spirit.
Even though regeneration and indwelling are marvellous they are not the fullness of God's intention for us in the “in” relationship of the Spirit. His desire is for us to be FILLED with the Spirit. We are indwelt in order to be filled.
TWO TYPES OF “FILLING” OF THE SPIRIT.
The phrase, “filled with the Spirit” is used in two quite distinct ways in scripture.
This is not clear in the English translations but in the Greek it is crystal clear. We need to know the difference so that we don’t end up being confused by them. The difference is indicated by the Greek tenses.
(a) Firstly, to denote a temporary experience - a special gift of power and inspiration from the Spirit to meet a need or crisis. The end aim of such experiences is the proclamation of Christ.
Luke 1:41,67. Greek: “Filled with the Spirit (temporarily)”
Acts 4:31. Greek: “Filled with the Spirit (temporarily)”
In modern jargon this is called an "anointing". It is an empowering for a particular purpose and a particular limited time. This time can last as long as the need is there. This can be only minutes or it can be for months or years. In this sense the temporary "filling" of the Spirit is really related to gifts and ministry and is like an outflow from the empowering of the Spirit given through the Baptism in the Spirit. I have experienced this many times in giving prophecies, preaching, or when counseling or at other times. One doesn’t always feel it at the time but others recognise the anointing on you, or afterwards you realise you were specially empowered at the time.
It is in this sense that the OT talks about being “filled with the Spirit”. Really it is a coming on the person and the person is empowered and filled with the Spirit temporarily rather than a permanent dwelling in the person. This type of “filling” can give prophetic inspiration, ability to speak, do miracles, special feats of strength and so on.
Examples:
Deuteronomy 34:7
Judges 3:10, 6:34, 11:29, 14:6,19, 15:14.
Some of the judges were empowered in this way and the “filling of the Spirit” lasted their whole lives.
We will all experience this from time to time and for different lengths of time, but it is not the thing I want to discuss here.
Because it is also called in scripture “being filled with the Spirit” it is often confused with the other kind of “Filling with the Spirit” referred to in scripture, but it is not really the same sort of thing.
(b) Secondly, the phrase “Filling of the Spirit” is also used to denote a permanent experience.
Luke 4:1. Jesus.
Acts 6:3. The original 6 deacons.
In both of these the tenses indicate a permanent filling.
This is to do with the permanent manifestation of Christ in our lives.
The Ultimate Aim.
John 7:37-39.
“On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”
God's aim is that our lives be so full of the Spirit that he is able to gush out of us like a mighty river or spring. This brings blessing to others.
THE NEED TO BE PERMANENTLY FILLED.
The need is expressed in the fact that it is commanded of us.
Ephesians 5:18: The Command:
“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit...”
"filled" Greek verb here is a continuous imperative.
(i) Imperative, means that it is a command. Hence it is not an option. God wants this to be true of us. We need to obey it. Not to be filled is to miss out on God's intention and actually is a sin, it is disobedience.
But having said that it is not an option, it is an option in the sense that we have to choose for it to happen and obey the conditions for it.
(ii) Also an imperative means that it is our responsibility to do so. We must therefore find out how it is done and live in it. God doesn’t do it for us.
(iii) Continuous, means we must experience this all the time. This is not to be an occasional experience, nor is it to be restricted to only a few. It is not to be a high we feel from time to time - such experiences are called "anointings" (see below).
(iv) The fact that this is a command to be continuously filled with the Spirit indicates that it is a real possibility that we could be Christians and not be filled with the Spirit. In other words it doesn’t happen just because you become a Christian
(v) The fact that this is commanded as something we must do means that there must be a way we can tell if we are filled with the Spirit or not. There must be some sort of criteria for describing being “Spirit-filled”. This is a fact that eludes many people, but it must be true – otherwise how can we know whether or not we are fulfilling the command?
Many Christians miss out on this dynamic experience because:
(i) They do not know it is God's intention for them.
(ii) They do not know it is possible.
(iii) They confuse the filling of the Spirit with other spiritual experiences, e.g. the Baptism in the Spirit (see a later chapter on this).
(iv) They do not fulfill the conditions.
Question: Why does Paul make it a command for us to be filled with the Spirit?
Answer: Two reasons:
1. Because we leak.
We were created by God as human beings to be filled with the Spirit. We were made “in the image of God” so that God’s Spirit could dwell in us and fill us. Our human spirit was made a bit like a glove. By itself our spirit doesn’t have a lot of substance as it is designed to be a home for the Holy Spirit, he “fills out”, if you like our human spirit so that it is robust and strong. Without the Holy Spirit in it our human spirit is crippled and weak – or as the Bible calls it “dead”.
However the Fall has fractured the “image of God”. We are full of cracks and the Spirit “leaks out” the cracks. This is true even though we are saved. Basically, we are all a lot of cracked pots.
So we need to be continuously refilled to replace what is lost.
This is not an ideal way to describe what happens because the Holy Spirit is a person, not a fluid, but I can think of no other way to explain it. We lose the filling of the Spirit, and this loss can be a gradual thing simply because we don’t maintain it.
2. Because we fill up our lives with all sorts of other things that take the place of God.
Illustrate: Take a glass full of water – start filling it with stones. Is the Glass still filled – yes! But not with water. We have shunted some of the water out of the way to make room for stones. In the same way we shunt the Spirit out of parts of our lives by not allowing Christ to be Lord of that area and becoming involved in things that exclude the Spirit of God from that area of life.
The reality is that when we initially ask God to fill us with his Spirit we already have all these things cluttering up the space. So the Spirit has to just fill up those bits in us that he can fill. The other areas of our lives he leaves for us to control for ourselves. In a sense we are Spirit-filled, but in another sense, if we were to remove all the junk, we would find that we are not very Spirit –filled at all.
A definition: What is the filling of Spirit?
It is to do with possession of our inner nature by Christ. The Holy Spirit comes and fills our spirit. Not possession in the sense of ownership or control. He never overrides our own will or control. But it is to do with the Holy Spirit living in us, being Lord of our lives and empowering us so that the person/ nature of Christ is seen in us.
In Ephesians 1 Paul talks about the Holy Spirit as, “The power that is in us…that raised Christ from the dead” I.e. it is resurrection life.
But to get to resurrection you have to die.
Therefore being “Spirit-filled” works on the principle death and resurrection. We are only filled with the Spirit to the degree that we have died in Christ. When we allow an area of our lives to die on the Cross the Holy Spirit comes in and fills it – but not before. We have to yield each area of our lives in turn for the Spirit to take possession.
Another way of looking at this idea of being “Spirit Filled”.
Source, booklet: Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ called, “How to be filled with the Spirit.”
There are three types of people:
KEY:
Circle = the sphere of our life.
Cross = Christ.
e = our ego, or seat of our will.
throne = the control of our life.
Picture 1: The non Christian. Christ is outside of their life and self (ego) is on the throne.
Picture 2: The Nominal Christian. Christ is in their life but self is still on the throme.
Picture 3: The Spirit-Filled Christian. Christ has been made Lord of their life.
What Bill Bright is saying is this – to be Spirit-Filled is to have submitted your life totally to the Lordship of Christ.
At Salvation we say, “I give my whole life to you, Lord” but in reality we don’t know what that means and we don’t in fact do so. But God graciously fills us as much as he can in those areas we yield to him. Again we do the same at various points of committal along the way – but each time we really don’t understand what “giving our whole life to Christ” means. The reality is we only give our lives to Christ one area, one issue at a time. Being Spirit filled is a progressive series of crisis experiences where we give some area of our lives to Christ and then walk in that death and resurrection.
Being Spirit – Filled is bringing ever-increasing areas of your life under the Lordship of Christ.
This does not mean that we have to know all there is to know or be perfectly holy but:
(i) Our general attitude must be one of submission and obedience to Christ as our personal Lord.
(ii) We must be committed to PROGRESSIVELY increasing our knowledge of God's will and be seeking ways of doing it.
(iii) We need to be in a process of removing the things in our lives that stop the Spirit really having full reign in our lives.
The things in our lives: Four main areas of problem here:
1. Sin – this is obvious. Sin displaces the Spirit until it is confessed and we ask for refilling.
2. Other activities that are not sinful in themselves but squeeze God out of our lives. It might be sport, or computer games, or romance or some other thing that is not in itself wrong or sinful but takes a priority in our lives to the detriment of our relationship with God.
3. Areas of our lives that we have not yet submitted to the Lordship of Christ. The Spirit is a gentleman. He only fills those areas of our lives that we submit to Christ. When we become Christians we are Spirit-filled at that moment. The same is true when we enter into the Pentecostal experience. But we are only Spirit filled in a limited sense – to the degree we have submitted our lives to Christ.
4. Pollution. By virtue of the fact that we live in a fallen world we get exposed to things that pollute us and so restrict the life of the Spirit in us.
* TV
* Billboards
* Music
* Books
* News reports.
These are not “sin” but are defilement. We get polluted by our contact with the world.
Illustration: In the outer court of the Tabernacle were two items of furniture. The Laver and the Altar.
The Alter speaks of salvation – accepting Christ as Saviour. We only have to do this once as the priests only had to offer sacrifice once at the beginning of their priestly service. There the blood cleansed from sin.
The Laver speaks of the need for continual cleansing on a daily basis. Every day the priests had to wash at the laver before they performed their daily duties.
Because we get polluted, either by sin or by the grime of this world, we need to ask for cleansing every day.
The filling of the Spirit thus has various depths of experience; it is relative to our growth in Christ. We enter into a deeper infilling as we learn greater submission and conformity to Christ. The more we learn to die in Christ, the more his life will show through us.
Spiritual growth is nothing more than giving ever increasing areas of our lives to Christ to come under his Lordship and be filled with the Spirit.
It is a process and it is unlikely for any of us that we will ever get to the point that we are filled with the Spirit in the way Jesus was. But we can be “filled with the Spirit” in as much as we are submitted to the Lordship of Christ and allow his resurrection life to flow through us.
The upshot of this is this: If you are tempted to say, “I got filled with the Spirit “x” number of years ago” then you are clearly misunderstanding what the Filling of the Spirit is. You are confusing it with the experience of the Baptism of the Spirit – and you may now not be Spirit-filled at all. You may be missing out. You will have leaked and it may be that sin or other things have pushed the Spirit aside.
The filling of the Spirit is a command to be obeyed continuously and this simple fact means it cannot be identified with any single experience that will last forever. Any such identification is wrong and will lead to not being “filled” sooner or later.
HOW TO BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT - CONTINUOUSLY.
(a) You have to want to be filled with the Spirit.
Matthew 5:6.
"Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled."
If we have no thirst for God he will not come and fill it. The Holy Spirit is a gentlemen – he will never invade your life or any area of your life without an invitation from you. This is quite unlike the Devil who will invade your life whether you want him to or not.
We need to express this desire for more of God verbally. Express our need of him.
(b) Practice Spiritual Breathing.
Illustration: Try breathing in and out.
Breathing is amazingly simple – eh? But do we do it?
In the same way we need to learn spiritual breathing.
Breathe Out: Confess all known sin – be a cleansed vessel.
1 John 1:7-10.
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”
There are three areas of cleansing we need:
1. Cleansing from addictive or habitual sin.
2. Cleansing from specific acts of disobedience.
3. Cleansing from the pollution of the world.
How do we get cleansing?
(i) When we walk in the light the blood of Jesus automatically cleanses us from all sin.
What does it mean to walk in the light?
It means to be obedient to everything we know of the will of God at that particular point in time. God does not hold us responsible for what we don’t know but only for what we know. If we are being obedient to all we know then God’s grace in the blood of Christ covers and cleanses us from all other sin that we are unaware of.
Is there anything you know that you are not walking in obedience to? Baptism? Baptism in the Spirit? Tithing? The list could go on. Ask God to reveal any area of failure to obey and repent and then walk in it.
Sin is not just the things we do wrong – it is the failure to do the things we know are right. Sins of omission are just as much sins as sins of commission.
(ii) Through personal confession of known sins and uncleanness.
It is often said in this context, “Keep short accounts with God”. But I say, “Why keep any accounts at all?” Deal with sin as soon as possible.
The Spirit can only fill those areas of our lives that are cleansed by the blood of Christ. Any area of uncleanness that has not first been washed in the blood he cannot fill.
This is breathing out: personal confession of all sin and pollution and expression of need of God’s presence.
Breathe in: Three Steps:
a. Ask for the Infilling Daily.
Luke 11:10-13.
“For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
We need to ask the Spirit to come and fill us again every day – several times daily – for three reasons:
* Because we leak.
* Because sin and pollution has displaced him and He needs to come again to fill those areas that have been polluted that we have just cleansed.
* Because we are in a process of learning what submitting our lives to Christ means we keep discovering new areas of our lives that are not submitted and so we need to put them on the Cross and ask the Spirit to fill them – maybe for the first time!
b. Name the Lordship of Christ over specific areas of struggle. Submit them to the Lordship of Christ verbally and in your heart. Give them to Christ so that he can put them to death on the Cross.
There are areas of our life that God can’t fill because they are still operating out of the fallen nature. That which is flesh is flesh and God has only one thing he can do with it – he crucifies the flesh and its desires. When God puts his finger on any area of flesh that he wants to “fill”, any area of our life, then he has only one path to filling it – that area of our life must come under the death of the Cross. We must die in that area so that his resurrection life –the filling of the Spirit – can come in.
This happens in our lives at two levels:
1. A general principle of spiritual life. Daily dying so that his life can be seen in us.
2. Area dying. Each area of our life is confronted by the Spirit so that he can fill it. The general principle is worked out in specific areas one at a time. We need to “put to death” all the deeds of the flesh so that resurrection power can be released in them.
The Holy Spirit only fills those areas that have been yielded to him through death on the cross.
Crucifixion is a long, drawn out death. It doesn’t happen over night in any area. Requires repeated putting on the cross until it “sticks” and even then it will jump down off the Cross at a later date if we let it.
c. Receive the Fullness of the Spirit by Faith.
Receiving the Spirit is a faith step. It is not, in the first instance, a feeling. It is a faith transaction with God.
This is breathing in: Ask, Name Christ as Lord, Receive.
Can you breathe out and breathe in?
Two other keys to a life full of the Spirit.
(c) Commitment to God's People.
Psalm 133.
“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his robes.”
C/f Ephesians 1:22,23 Christ is the head – we are the body.
The fullness of the Spirit is given to Christ, that is, to the Head (Jesus) and the Body (the Church). There is no way a Christian can be filled with the Spirit if they are willingly cut off from the Body or have negative attitudes to the body or to the leadership of the Body.
Hebrews 10:25
“not neglecting the gathering of yourselves together”
A coal in a fire keeps hot so long as one leaves it in the fire. But if it is removed from the fire it will soon cool down and the fire even die out. If we want to maintain spiritual life and fervour we need to stay in close relationship with others who are moving on in God in a local church.
(d) Keep Your Attitudes Clean.
Lovelessness of all forms stops us from being filled.
Genesis 26:17-22. A type.
“So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there.
Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them. Isaac's servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there.
But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen and said, "The water is ours!" So he named the well Esek, because they disputed with him. Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah. He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, "Now the LORD has given us room and we will flourish in the land."
Stones can block the well of our Heart - these ones were called Esek - Enmity, Sitnah -Contention and Rehoboth -Strife. But we could add bitterness, anger and hatred amongst others.
HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT?
Ephesians 5:18-20.
“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
* Being filled with the Spirit will create in you a heart of praise and thanksgiving to God and to others. The joy of the Lord will become your portion.
* The other fruit of the Spirit will also become more evident in your life.
Praise and thanksgiving are the result of being Spirit filled, but they are also a way to being Spirit filled. Maintaining an attitude of praise will help you maintain a Spirit filled life.
A Final Note:
In normal life most Christians can maintain a reasonable level of being filled with the Spirit pretty easily – because we were designed to do so by God. But there are occasions when someone cannot maintain the filling of the Spirit easily on their own. In particular when someone has just been through a rough time – marriage breakup or spouse dying or some other major emotionally traumatic event. Often the person no longer has the resources in themselves to maintain being filled with the Spirit. The reason for this is because the image of God in them – the fabric of their lives has been torn even greater than normal and they are not in a position to restore themselves.
This is important: It is at these times that they need special support. They need the Body of Christ to come around them and fill them with the Spirit for them by supportive prayer.
Often the person who is struggling doesn’t want to admit they are struggling or to ask for prayer continually – often for weeks, months even a period of years on end until they come through into wholeness again. This is when the church around them needs to be proactive and go to the struggler each week at church – or if the struggler misses church – someone needs to visit them and pray with them to be filled with the Spirit again – because they cannot do it for themselves. What is needed is for someone to loves us enough to be proactive in loving and come and pray for us. Not a big deal, not in-depth healing prayer – but supportive prayer for the filling of the Spirit. People often feel that they don’t want to intrude – well that is a possibility if it is done in the wrong way - but the result is that we fail to love and support the struggler by being passive when what they need is active love.
HOMEWORK:
1. Work through the section: How to be Filled with the Spirit. Get yourself filled with the Spirit. Use the prayer at the end of this study to help you.
2. Work out a simple discipline you can use every day in your prayer time to practice spiritual breathing.
3. Don’t forget to keep using the Transformer verses. It is the meditation on the word of God that will transform your life and build your faith. Learn the verses off by heart. Be sure to read the verses out loud as this releases power in the Spiritual realm to bring to pass what the words say.
TRANSFORMER VERSES:
Be Filled With the Spirit.
Ephesians 5:18-20.
“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
PRAYER.
Father, I come to you today to ask again for your Holy Spirit to fill me.
Father I know the dryness of my own spirit. I know how weak and ineffective I am by myself. Like the glove I can’t stand up with out the hand inside. So today I confess I cannot stand for you without your Spirit in me, filling me, empowering me.
Father, today I practice Spiritual breathing.
I breathe out.
I confess, Father, that I have sinned against you in many ways (Pause – If at this time you are aware of anything specific name it before the Lord – out loud!)
I confess, Father, that I have been polluted by the things of this world in many ways (Pause – If at this time you are aware of anything specific name it before the Lord – out loud!)
I confess, Father, that there are areas of my life which I have not submitted to you as Lord in many ways (Pause – If at this time you are aware of anything specific name it before the Lord – out loud!)
Father I lay these before you. I ask for the cleansing of the blood of Jesus and for your forgiveness. I give these areas to you that you may put them to death on the Cross of Christ. Consign them to death O Father, so that I might know in experience the resurrection life of Christ.
Father I breathe in.
I ask that you would fill me anew with your Holy Spirit.
In those areas of particular struggle I name Jesus as Lord. I name Jesus as Lord of this area of …. (Pause – If at this time you are aware of anything specific name it before the Lord out loud!)
In those areas of my life where I have resisted yielding to the Lordship of Christ I now yield to his lordship (Pause – If at this time you are aware of anything specific name it before the Lord – uuit loud!)
By faith in your promise that if we ask for the Holy Spirit you will not give us a stone or a serpent, I receive the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Thank you Father. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment