It is almost unthinkable that God comes to live in us. There is no one like Him in all the earth, in all of heaven, and He chooses to make His home in us. There is nothing He cannot do, and He offers His great power to us from deep inside our hearts. All knowledge belongs to Him, and He speaks wisdom to us our inner man. Who would not want to experience all that is possible with God in us?
In Ephesians 5:18-20, Paul gives us the fifth analogy for our relationship with the Spirit…
“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father…”
We have an opportunity to be filled with the Spirit. But, what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? Once again, Paul uses simple terms to describe our path forward. “To be filled” means to be filled to the brim or to be filled and overflowing. The idea is that when we are filled by Him, we are controlled by Him. He inspires us to be everything God wants us to be. He empowers us to do whatever God calls us to do.
Paul had already laid the groundwork for the principle of fullness in Ephesians 1 and 3.
In Ephesians 1:19-23, he prays that we might know…
19 “…what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe…in accordance with the working of the strength of His might
20 which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,
21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church,
23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”
Because Jesus is on the throne in a place of authority at the right hand of God, He has the right to take everything that He is and pour it into us as believers. Then, as the head He guides us wherever He desires. Jesus fills the church, the saints, the believers with all that He is. Nothing is surface or partial with Jesus. He fills us full.
Then in Ephesians 3:14-19, Paul prays…
14 “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,
16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”
When Christ is at home in our hearts and the Spirit strengthens us with power in the inner man, deep inside our hearts, we experience the love of God together as a body. The church was meant to be a spiritual community, filled with Jesus and filled with the experience in a way that love flows freely among us. This experience with God and each other is what fills us up with all the fullness of God.
It comes as no surprise, then when Paul commands us to “…be filled with the Spirit.”
It is all the Spirit that we are to be filled with, not a portion of Him. It is the fullness of God that fills us because we need Him in His entirety, and He cannot be divided or portioned out.
It is all the Spirit filling every part of each one of us, because we cannot allow even a hint of self or will under the authority of the King. We are completely emptied of self, so we can be completely filled with the Spirit.
If you had a large potted plant full of dirt and I offered to fill your pot with gold. Would you not empty the entire pot of worthless dirt so you could have every last bit of the gold in your pot? Of course, you would. We completely empty ourselves, so we can be entirely filled with the Spirit.
What does it look like to be emptied of self? It is a process, a journey that can only be led by the Spirit. As we travel with Him, He takes us through the release of everything even remotely related to self, including decisions, time, finances, reputation, recreation, pleasure, future, relationships, and career. It is often a journey of months, where He takes us through the release of each of these, one by one.
When the Spirit was taking me through the release of my finances, He started by reminding me that every cent of my money belonged to Him. I had lived most of my life partitioning my finances. Early on I made a decision to give ten percent of the revenue of my company to kingdom work. Then an additional ten percent of my personal income would go to the kingdom. All the rest of the money belonged to me.
As I began to learn release from the Spirit, He asked me to check in with Him on every single purchase. Every penny to my name belonged to Him. Before I would make even the smallest purchase, I would ask the Spirit if it was ok to spend His money on that item.
During that time, I was living in the mountains in Colorado and my hiking shoes wore out. There were several times when I was out shopping where I came across hiking boots that would have worked nicely for me. Every time the Spirit declined my request. So, I waited. Then, when I was about to leave for Italy for three months, the Spirit instructed me to throw out my shoes when I left. He said there would be a pair for me in Italy.
I found a beautiful pair of hiking shoes in Italy, but I immediately thought they were too expensive. As I was walking away from the store, my wife suggested that I check in with God, since that was what I had been learning. When I did, I immediately heard from the Spirit that those were the shoes He had spoken about back in Colorado. It was amazing to be at a point of complete release and to receive a gift from God beyond anything I would have done for myself.
The beauty of being in complete surrender is that it frees us from slavery to anything that would get in the way of our experience of the fullness of the kingdom. In the same way, it frees God to bless us in ways we never imagined. Letting go of self feels difficult in the process, but it is essential to being filled with the Spirit and experiencing the fullness of the kingdom.
When we are finally emptied of self, the Spirit fills every part of each one of us and overflows in ways that are beyond the comprehension of the human mind. It overflows in the experience of “…the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge.” It is “…exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.”
The experience of the fullness of God and the fullness of the Spirit, tunes our heart into the heart of the Almighty and guides us to experiences that are remarkable. The filling of the Spirit takes beyond the natural into the supernatural. It transforms our lives from the ordinary to the extraordinary.
Then, when we experience the fullness, we cannot contain it. We have to share it with others.
According to Ephesians 5:19-20, we begin…
“…speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father…”
What we experience is beyond what ordinary words can describe, so psalms and hymns and spiritual songs overflow out of us. Poetry is what we use when we realize that ordinary prose will not do justice in describing what God has done. So, we sing, we write songs to express the joy in our hearts. Being filled with the Spirit is so incredible that we cannot stop thanking God.
Ask yourself two questions today, “Am I willing to surrender my will to pursue the will of God? Am I willing to abandon fleshly and worldly and selfish pursuits to pursue the fullness of kingdom of God?”
If the answer is yes, then you are ready to be filled with the Spirit. And when you are filled with the Spirit, you will experience freedom and abundant life. And you will know you have experienced the kingdom, because you will not be able to contain it. You will run out to invite others. You will package up everything you have learned and give it away. This is the kingdom.
WORSHIP: God longs to bless you with blessings beyond anything you can imagine. He wants to fill you with His Spirit and bring you fulfillment over and above your wildest dreams. He has put His Spirit in you to guide you toward a more glorious life where every single day is better than the day before. Worship this God.
PRACTICE: Go through the list of areas to release and ask the Spirit to point to a starting place: decisions, time, finances, reputation, recreation, pleasure, future, relationships, and career. When He reveals one area, write it down in your journal. Then describe everything in this area that is important to you today and where you desire things to go in the future. Spend some time listening to the Spirit for any special instructions for how you might process through to release. Plan to be work on this with the Spirit for at least the next few weeks.
MEDITATION: Like yesterday, your starting place for being led by the Spirit is not in the mind. This concept is easy to understand. Your battle ground in in your heart. Do you believe it? It is okay if you do not fully believe it at this point. As you meditate on being filled with the Spirit, ask God to help your unbelief, to give you a gift of faith to get this forever settled. You may or may not resolve this today, but this is a good starting place. Continue to work this through until you believe in the power of the Spirit to produce amazing fruit in you. You will know, because you will experience the fruit, all of it.
ABIDING: By this time, it is very possible that the Father, your Spiritual Director, has led you to a place in Scripture where He wants you to abide. As you go back and read through this teaching one more time, ask the Father if there is anything in these passages specifically for you. Look for the things that reinforce what God is teaching you at this time. Write down anything you hear from Him. Spend some extra time listening to see if the Spirit has anything more to say to you or if there is a deeper teaching for you today. Write down whatever you hear. Ask the Father if there is someone, He wants you to share this with and follow through with His assignment.