This podcast covers Lesson 8 of the Graceful Living Bible Study.

Being Filled with the Spirit

The filling of the Spirit

• Spirit Baptism occurs once, at salvation, as the Holy Spirit connects us with Christ so that He is with us and in us Every Christian is permanently indwelled by the Holy Spirit and added to the Body of Christ. You have all of Him, not part of Him.
• After we are saved, the Holy Spirit living within us empowers us to live the kind of life our God desires for us to live. When we walk in submission to and dependence on the Spirit by faith daily, that leads to the filling of the Spirit.
• The filling of the Spirit is not getting more of the Spirit inside of us. We have all of Him with His indwelling. It is also not something magical or mystical.
• The filling of the Spirit is you choosing to be more influenced by God than by yourself or anything else.
• Paul’s comparison of being filled with the Spirit to drunkenness is a metaphor (picture) of control that is internal. What things take control of you from the inside? Ephesians 5:18
• Being filled with wine refers to excessive intake of alcohol which fills your bloodstream and influences every area of your life as long as you consume it. Drunkenness results in ungodly behavior. That’s the fruit.
• In the same way, when you trust and obey Jesus as His Word directs for you to do, the Holy Spirit will have more influence over every area of your life. Any Christian who allows the Spirit to influence and direct her thinking and behavior will experience His control as long as she yields her will to the Spirit. The results will be godly behavior. That’s the fruit.
• Being filled with the Spirit is an ongoing choice and responsibility. We are to continually desire more of the Spirit’s control in our lives and choose to give Him more control in our lives. He responds by doing it!
• Being filled with the Spirit is a privilege for every child of God. We don't earn it. God still chooses to do this to us based upon our responses to Him. It is a fruit of our dependence upon Him and yielding to His control in our lives.

The daily choice of yielding

• Just like choosing to trust in Christ in the first place is a choice, staying dependent on Him after salvation is also a daily choice. Romans 12:1-2
• To yield to God means to give Him the right-of-way in your life. You yield to God at salvation, then continually yield to His Spirit’s influence over your thoughts, attitudes, words, and deeds. Coming from your heart, you present your body as an act of worship. That’s yielding your body to God for His control and purpose.
• Yield your mind to God by yielding to the Word of God. You yield your mind to God as you desire to know His truth through Bible reading and study of its teachings and truths.
• Yield your will to the sovereignty of God and His will. This may include submitting to one particular truth or command in the Word that you don’t like. It may also include God bringing into your life situations or experiences that are not pleasant or desirable.
• Your body, your mind, your emotions, and your will belong to Christ. Yielding those to God is living dependently on Him. The fruit of living dependently is Spirit filling and all the Christ-like behavior the Holy Spirit will produce in your life.

The fruit of yielding

• When you choose daily to yield to the Spirit’s influence instead of your own self-dependence, the Holy Spirit fills you with Himself. The Bible calls that kind of life choice, “walking by the Spirit” or “living by the Spirit.”
• “Walking by the Spirit” or “being filled with the Spirit” means having a conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit. As you live the Christian life, face temptations, and make decisions, He uses that to transform your life to become more like that of Christ. The fruit of that is what we usually consider the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But, it is a lot more. It is sharing Christ with others. It is courage and boldness and using God’s Word to speak and convince others. It is being the visible representative of the invisible God.
• Our willingness to let the Spirit control and transform us requires us to recognize that we are weak to do anything of spiritual significance on our own. That goes against the western mindset that you must be strong on your own, stand on your own two feet. But, our weakness is more useful to God than our self-determined strength.

“God is attracted to weakness. He can’t resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need Him. Our weakness, in fact, makes room for His power.” (Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire)

• When you live in conscious dependence on Jesus Christ, choosing not to rely on yourself and your own strength, experiences or ideas, God’s Spirit will fill you. Then, your thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions will reflect the life of Christ in you. And, oh my, what comes from that will be graceful living for sure!

Let Jesus satisfy your heart with His grace so that your life overflows with His grace every day. You will experience a life of freedom and joy!

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