Filled Up or Filling Up?

You'd think I'm gonna talk about gas huh?

Nope, the Holy Spirit. Last Sunday I talked about that one of the fundamentals of following Jesus is relying on the power of the Holy Spirit. Since then I've had some great conversations.

And most of those have revolved around what it means to be filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:18 says: "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit."

First of all the verb used 'be filled' is a continuous active verb. It's a daily, moment by moment filling. We are to be continually filled. (Just like, in the verse, we've gotta drink more to stay drunk . . . but just to be clear, I'm not recommending that!)

Secondly, it's not about quantity . . . but about submission. In other words, you don't get more (quantity) of the Holy Spirit. It's not like John Coffey in The Green Mile where he inhaled all the evil spirits so others could be healed. It's not getting more of the Holy Spirit from the outside, but it's the Holy Spirit getting more of us on the inside.

Yes, I know that in Acts 2 they were (literally) filled as the wind and fire came from heaven. But that was before Jesus had sent the Holy Spirit to fill His followers. Now, each of us receives our full measure of the Holy Spirit as we invite Jesus to forgive our sins and be the King of our lives (See 1 Corinthians 12:1-13 . . . And like they used to say with Brylcreem - 'A Little Dab'll Do Ya!')

There's no better picture that I know of than a story by Robert Munger called My Heart Christ's Home (you can read the entirety of it here). In it Munger compares our lives to a home. And each room in the home represents an area of our life. And it's easy to ask God just to come into certain 'rooms' of our life. But REALLY RELEASING the power of God requires that we invite Him into EVERY area of our life!

That is being filled by the Spirit. A daily, continual yielding each area of our lives to the control of God's Spirit. At times God will show us areas that we are holding back and holding onto and that just represents opportunity to grow in the fruit of the Spirit.

So as a follower of Jesus you ARE filled up. The question is: ARE YOU filling up?