What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit?
Answered by New Wine
Filled With a Person
To be filled with the Spirit is to be yielded to, and saturated by, the Holy Spirit himself, so that his presence and power shape your whole life. It is a command, and it is ongoing.
"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit."
Ephesians 5:18
Paul sets two influences side by side. Something will govern you; the question is what.
The Biblical Case
The verb is a continuing command, not a one-time transaction. Paul writes to believers already indwelt by the Spirit and tells them to keep on being filled.
Acts shows the same rhythm. The believers filled at Pentecost are filled again in Acts 4, and every major advance of the gospel is marked by fresh fillings.
Jesus told his disciples they would receive power when the Spirit came upon them (Acts 1:8). That is the empowering for witness we call the baptism in the Holy Spirit, a distinct experience after salvation, which fresh fillings then continue and deepen.
What It Looks Like
Andrew Murray makes a pastoral point worth holding onto. Fullness does not always arrive as a flood of emotion. He pictures a river that thunders over a waterfall in one place and rises quietly and gently in a lake somewhere else, the same fullness expressed differently.
Some people sense a mighty touch. Others find their whole being gently filled with God's presence and power. Murray's counsel is simple: offer yourself as an empty vessel and trust God to fill.
Smith Wigglesworth stresses the same hunger from another angle. He urges believers to yield every part of themselves and to press on from fullness to overflow, since falling short of that is falling short of God's plan.
The Heart of It
Bill Johnson draws attention to what theologians often miss. He says walking in the Spirit's fullness is a way of life that values the Person, not merely the service or the miracles. Service should flow from relationship, not replace it.
That guards us against reducing the Spirit to a resource. He is the third person of the Godhead, and his filling conforms us to Christ.
- Tongues, prophecy, and boldness commonly accompany the experience, as the pattern in Acts shows, and all believers may expect them, though tongues is not a test of whether someone has genuinely received.
- Unforgiveness and bitterness grieve the Spirit and stop up the channel.
Be filled, and keep on being filled, because the Spirit wants more of you than you have yet given.
Come hungry, ask, and let him have all of you.
Sources
New Wine drew this answer from these teachings.
- The Deeper Christian Life — Andrew Murray
- Learn How to Recognize the Presence of God - Bill Johnson Sermon | Bethel Church — Bill Johnson
- Life in the Spirit — Smith Wigglesworth
- Concerning Spiritual Gifts — Smith Wigglesworth
