Being Filled With the Holy Spirit

In Ephesians 5:18, the Lord tells us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. First, it’s not a suggestion. It’s a commandment. Secondly, it’s not a one-time thing. We preach an experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit, but it’s not a one-time thing. The literal translation would be, “Be filled and keep on being filled.” In fact, it wouldn’t be an accurate translation to translate the verse, “Stay filled with the Spirit.” Even though that’s the goal, that’s not how it works. You can’t get filled and just stay filled. You have to keep on being filled. 

I believe it was Dwight Moody, one of the great evangelists in history, who said, “I have to keep being filled over and over again, because I leak.” I think a good way to think of this is to realize that God never expected you to experience this once. He expected us to experience on a daily basis the Wind of God filling us again. The river, the breath, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, day by day by day, was the expectation. You stay filled by being filled over and over and over again. It is a continuous process. 

So, He is coming to fill us again and again and again. As He does, the wineskin stays fresh and the wine stays new and you always have plenty to give as you are filled and refilled and refilled and refilled.

“Do not get drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18; NIV)

Give Him 15 minutes in prayer:

• Repent of any known sin in your life. Repent if you have held the Holy Spirit at arms length at all due to disappointment or doubt and unbelief.
• Has your love grown cold, your prayer life become brief, or your faith limited? You need a refreshing of the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
• Ask the Lord to fill you afresh with His Holy Spirit today.
• Many in the Church do not believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Pray that their eyes are open to the truth and necessity of this verse.
• Pray that the Church plans to share the baptism with the Holy Spirit with every new convert and that we are comfortable doing so.

A prayer you can pray:

Father, I know that my sins were all washed away by the shed blood of Your Son, Jesus, on the day I received Him as my Savior and Lord. Yet, I know that when I continue to open my life to sin without repentance, I deny the work of the Holy Spirit to sanctify me. I must be filled again with Your Spirit. I must have the guilt and condemnation, the ensuing doubt and unbelief removed from my mind and my heart. I must come close to You again and walk without hinderance in Your power. I must hear the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit clearly. I want to display Your Glory to those without You. So fill me again that I may make You known in the earth. Lord, let my brothers and sisters in Christ know of the fullness of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We can be saved with that measure of the Holy Spirit given at salvation, but to walk in increasing relationship with You, we must have increasing measures of Your Spirit. Let us not limit You! Let us welcome all of You! Holy Spirit, fill us full to overflowing in the power and Glory of the Lord. Let the world be able to see Christ in us. Let us work the works that Jesus did, and greater, as He promised. Let us be fully convinced and comfortable ministering the baptism of the Holy Spirit and power to brand new born-again believers. What a powerful Church the world will see! Such is Your Kingdom, Jesus. Amen.

Today’s decree:

It is time for the Church to be filled anew with the Holy Spirit!