The video above will excite you to live in greater dependance on the person and work of the Holy Spirit!
It’s important for us to realize that being filled with the Spirit is not a onetime thing for the Christian. Being filled with the Spirit is meant to be, by God, a continual, repeated experience of the Christian.
In fact, Paul would write to the church in Ephesus, in chapter 5 verse 18, and said, “You should all be being continually filled with the Spirit” (paraphrase). And here they were, filled with the Spirit once again.
But I want you to notice the impetus for their praying and the filling. It was that there was great need.
Here was a group of people who were determined to live out the purposes of God even in the face of opposition. So they knew that they then needed the resources of God. And the Person of the Holy Spirit is God resourcing us to live out the life in the kingdom of Christ here in our world. And God always has resource for us when we’re endeavoring to live as faithful Christians. And so they’re filled with the Spirit once again.
The common prayer of the Christian ought to be, “God, fill me with your Spirit.”
When there’s trouble in your marriage and it’s in danger, “God, fill me, fill us with your Spirit.”
When you’re seeking to raise your kids and you don’t know what to do, “God, fill me with your Spirit.”
When you’ve been suffering with sickness and disease and you feel weak, “God, fill me with your Spirit.”
When you’re at work and there’s a chance to stand for righteousness, “God, fill me with your Spirit.”
The common cry of the Christian would be, “God, fill me with your Spirit.”
Wayne Grudem is my favorite modern theologian, and he has a neat explanation for what it is to be filled with the Spirit. He says, “To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with the immediate presence of God himself. And it, therefore, will result in feeling what God feels, desiring what God desires, doing what God wants, speaking by God’s power, praying and ministering in God’s strength, knowing with the knowledge which God himself gives.”
Now, who doesn’t need that? And who doesn’t need more of that?
Jesus said it was the promise of the Father—the gift of the Father—to us.
I think we could all grow in dependence upon the Person and the power of the Holy Spirit.