Filled with the Spirit
Jesus promised His followers that they would be empowered by the ‘helper’, the Holy Spirit. In John 14:15-17 we read, ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you’.
We experience that empowering as we walk in partnership with God each day. Notice the partnership principle expressed by Paul: ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure,’ (Phil 2:12-13) So as we ‘work out’, God ‘works in’ - partnership.
The Holy Spirit who facilitated our new birth in Christ. As we hear Jesus say, ‘you must be born again’, He is sharing more than a metaphor. In Christ, we are entirely new people: ‘Anyone who believes in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone! The new has come! (2 Cor 5:17).
And then as we walk with the Lord, it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to have confidence before God: ‘You didn’t receive a spirit that makes you a slave to fear once again. Instead you received the Holy Spirit, who makes you God’s child. By the Spirit’s power we call God “Abba.” Abba means Father. (Romans 8:15).
Paul repeats that principle as he writes to the Galatians: ‘Because you are his children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. He is the Holy Spirit. By his power we call God “Abba.” Abba means Father. So you aren’t slaves any longer. You are God’s children. Because you are his children, he gives you what he promised to give his people’ (Gal 4:6–7).
In a sense, feeling at home with the Lord and being confident to approach Him doesn’t come ‘naturally; to us - we need the work of the Holy Spirit in us to enable us to enjoy the intimacy and closeness to the Lord that a child feels when they say, ‘daddy’.
The Holy Spirit is also at work shaping us to become more Christlike: ‘We are being changed to become more like him so that we have more and more glory. And the glory comes from the Lord, who is the Holy Spirit, (2 Cor 3:18).
Writing to the Christians in Ephesus, Paul encouraged them: ‘Don’t fill yourself up with wine. Getting drunk will lead to wild living. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph 5:18). A closer look at this verse reveals that the call to ‘be filled’ is in the present, continuous tense in the greek - that means Paul was saying, ‘Keep on keeping on being filled!’
Wherever we are in our circumstances today, let’s ask the Holy Spirit to strengthen, empower and fill us. We are not left alone in our lives of faith. Help is ours!