Read
“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…”
(Acts 2: 4)
Think
Have you been filled with the Holy Spirit? The pattern throughout Acts – and, we believe, to this day – is for a person to believe in Jesus, to be baptised in water, and then to be baptised (or filled) with the Holy Spirit.
To be filled with the Spirit is a normal part of being born again for a believer. It means to have the Spirit of God come and make his home in your very heart. It means to have the overflowing joy and peace of God’s presence rest at the centre of your life. It is for every follower of Jesus – not because any of us deserve it, but because Jesus’ death for our sins has made each of us utterly pure and a fit place for God’s Spirit to live.
In Ephesians 5: 18, Paul commands us to go on being filled with the Spirit, and I don’t want you to get bogged down with questions of whether you have or haven’t – how I want all of us to respond is:
- To see that God desires (and commands!) us to be filled with his Spirit,
- To see that because Jesus’ death has made us clean, we can be filled,
- To keep on asking, “well in that case, keep filling me with your Spirit!”
Just like the disciples, our expectation is to be filled with the Spirit of God, and to go on being filled. That won’t always mean the building shaking or fire appearing above our heads, but we do expect his presence and power to live in us, change us from top to toe, and empower us for the life he has called us to and the extraordinary work of building his kingdom.
If you haven’t seem them already, Adam has started a great series of videos looking at what it means to be a people filled with the Holy Spirit and exercising the gifts of the Spirit – you can see them here
Pray
Father God, thank you that we’ve been made clean by the sacrifice of Jesus for us on the cross. Thank you that you now delight to pour out your Spirit on all those who follow Jesus – and we ask again that you would fill us with your Spirit now. Whether we’ve been filled before, whether we know or not, we ask that you would do exactly what you have promised to do, so that we can be all that you have asked us to be.
Amen
