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And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit…Ephesians 5.18
All true believers have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them. That being the case, Paul commands us to make the most of this gift and to be filled with the Holy Spirit at all times. I don’t know a single Christian who doesn’t believe that being filled with the Spirit of God is a good and necessary thing.
But I know lots of believers who don’t have a clue as to what that means.
For some, the filling of the Spirit is a simple formula: breathe out your sins through confession, breath in the Spirit by prayer.
Others insist that the filling of the Spirit is achieved through extraordinary gifts. In some churches you can even find instruction in how to “prime the pump” of your speech by uttering mindless, repetitious phrases until the Spirit takes over and, voilà, you’re filled with Him.
Still others will insist that being filled with the Spirit means don’t drink, don’t smoke, and don’t hang with those that do.
With such divergent views of the filling of the Spirit, we do well to see if Scripture has any clear and complementary instruction to help us understand what Paul means. The Spirit of God, we know, teaches us the things of God by comparing passages of Scripture with one another so that, in their harmonizing tones, we can hear and delight in the Truth of God (1 Cor. 2.12, 13). So, in order to be taught by the Spirit what it means to be filled with Him, we’re going to look briefly at three passages of Scripture that relate to the work and filling of the Spirit of God.
In the light of these texts we can gain a better understanding of what God has liberated us unto in His holy and righteous and good Law.
The psalmist says that the righteous person meditates day and night in God’s Law (Ps. 1). Would like to get started in this discipline? Order a copy of The Ground for Christian Ethics and The Law of God. The first will explain the importance3 of God’s Law, and guide you in taking up the practice of daily reading and meditation. The second provides all the statutes, precepts, and rules of God’s Law organized under their proper number of the Ten Commandments.