Quotes about Holy_Spirit-Filled_with

1

Spirit filled souls are ablaze for God. They love with a love that glows. They serve with a faith that kindles. They serve with a devotion that consumes. They hate sin with fierceness that burns. They rejoice with a joy that radiates. Love is perfected in the fire of God.

2

To be filled with the Spirit is to be controlled by the Spirit – intellect, emotions, will, and body. All become available to Him for achieving the purposes of God.

3

Being filled with the Spirit means to be filled with the immediate presence of God to the extent that you are feeling what God Himself feels, desiring what God desires, doing what God wants, speaking by God’s power, praying and ministering in God’s strength, and knowing with the knowledge that God Himself gives.

4

Benefits of being filled with the Holy Spirit:

1. Spiritual counsel and edifying praise – Eph. 5:19.

2. Frequent worship of God – Eph. 5:19.

3. Constant attitude of thanksgiving – Eph. 5:20.

4. Humility and submission to those in authority – Eph. 5:21-6:9.

5. Greater victory over concentrated spiritual attack – Eph. 6:10-19.

6. More spiritual gifts in the church since the Spirit is the one who gives gifts.

7. More specific understanding of God’s will in the decisions which face us in life – Eph. 1:17, Gal. 5:18.

8. Greater holiness in life – Rom. 8:13.

9. More answers to prayer – Eph. 6:18.

10. Amazingly fruitful ministry – Zech. 4:6.

11. Much greater peace in our hearts – Rom. 8:6.

5

It works like this: we hunger spiritually and are then filled and become supremely satisfied. The satisfaction then makes way for a deeper spiritual hunger, a further filling and blessed satisfaction. And so it goes on in sublime paradox: hunger – filling – satisfaction, hunger – filling – satisfaction. We become more and more full of Christ.

6

Nothing in Scripture teaches that the filling of the Spirit is accompanied by ecstatic experiences or external signs. To be sure, being filled with the Spirit does bring the believer tremendous exhilaration and joy, but the New Testament epistles reveal that being filled with the Spirit brings forth the fruit of the Spirit, not the gifts of the Spirit.

7

When we consider the New Testament epistles, where believers are given prescriptive instruction for church life, we find that being filled with the Spirit is demonstrated not through ecstatic experiences but through the manifestation of spiritual fruit. In other words, Spirit-filled Christians exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, which Paul identifies as “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23). They are “led by the Spirit” (Rom. 8:14), meaning their behavior is directed not by their fleshly desires, but by the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit.

8

Obeying the command to be filled with the Spirit does not involve emotional hype or mystical encounters. It comes from reading, meditating on, and submitting to the Word of Christ, allowing the Scriptures to permeate our hearts and minds. Said another way, we are filled with the Holy Spirit when we are filled with the Word, which He inspired and empowers. As we align our thinking with biblical teaching, applying its truth to our daily lives, we come increasingly under the Spirit’s control.

9

To be filled with the Spirit…is to yield our hearts to the authority of Christ, allowing His Word to dominate our attitudes and actions. His thoughts become the object of our mediation, His standards become our highest pursuit, and His will becomes our greatest desire. As we submit to God’s truth, the Spirit leads us to live in a way that honors the Lord.

10

Significantly, spiritual gifts are not the sign of being Spirit-filled. Sanctification is. As believers are sanctified—coming under the Spirit’s control—they are equipped to use their spiritual gifts effectively for the purpose of serving others.

11

As the New Testament makes clear, being a “Spirit-filled” Christian has nothing to do with uttering mindless gibberish, crashing to the carpet in a hypnotic trance, or any other mystical encounter of supposed ecstatic power. Rather, it has everything to do with submitting our hearts and minds to the Word of Christ, walking in the Spirit and not the flesh, and daily growing in love and affection for the Lord Jesus unto the service of His whole body, the church.

12

To be filled with the Spirit is to live in the consciousness of the personal presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, as if we were standing next to Him, and to let His mind dominate our life. It is to fill ourselves with God’s Word, so that His thoughts will be our thoughts, His standards our standards, His work our work, and His will our will.

13

[In Ephesians 5] Paul was not suggesting that we can possess the Spirit in varying measures. The Holy Spirit is an indivisible person – one of the divine persons of the Trinity, which means that He Himself is God – and He either indwells a person or not. No one has the Spirit of God in partial measure. But to be “filled with the Spirit” is to be controlled by the Spirit. The contrast Paul made proves the point. To be drunk with wine is to have your faculties controlled by alcohol – to be so given over to its influence that the wine governs you in a negative way. To be filled with the Spirit is simply to be controlled by Him so that His power dominates you in a positive way.

14

I believe firmly that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and everything that is contrary to God’s law, the Holy Spirit will fill every corner of our hearts. But if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God. We must be emptied before we can be filled.

15

Men ought to seek with their whole hearts to be filled with the Spirit of God. Without being filled with the Spirit, it is utterly impossible that an individual Christian or a church can ever live or work as God desires.

16

Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds you abased and empty, His glory and power flow in.

17

May not a single moment of my life be spent outside the light, love and joy of God’s presence and not a moment without the entire surrender of myself as a vessel for Him to fill full of His Spirit and His love.

18

The goal of the Christian life is not to gain the Spirit-filled experience; rather, THE GOAL IS TO REMAIN SPIRIT-FILLED. That should be the normal Christian life. That is why abiding is so crucial. The believer is to move from “spring cleaning” and the Spirit-filled life to a firm commitment to maintain such.

19

No one whose senses have been exercised to know good or evil can but grieve over the sight of zealous souls seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit while they are living in a state of moral carelessness and borderline sin. Whoever would be indwelt by the Spirit must judge his life for any hidden iniquities. He must expel from his heart everything that is out of accord with the character of God as revealed by the Holy Scriptures… There can be no tolerance of evil, no laughing off the things that God hates (D.J. Fant).

20

Show me a person focused on the person and work of Jesus Christ—never tiring of learning about Him, thinking about Him, boasting of Him, speaking about and for and to Him, thrilled and entranced with His perfections and beauty, finding ways to serve and exalt Him, tirelessly exploring ways to spend and be spent for Him, growing in character to be more and more like Him—and I will show you a person who is filled with the Holy Spirit.

21

Being “filled with the Spirit” as Paul speaks of in Ephesians 5:18 is not getting more of the Spirit, but yielding every area of our lives to the Spirit’s empowering and direction – having our lives filled with God’s Spirit as opposed to self.

22

People notice a difference when someone is drunk… Is it difficult for others to tell who has been drinking of the living waters? It shouldn’t be. There ought to be a noticeable difference in our lives from God’s Spirit being in control… People under the influence of the Spirit of God manifest the fruit of that Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

23

Being filled with the Spirit is not an optional accessory to the Christian life. It is the hub of walking consistently with God… To not be “filled” (directed and empowered) with the Spirit is to disobey a direct command of Scripture and is therefore sin.

24

There is no place in Scripture that indicates we can receive more of the Holy Spirit… The real issue is the release of the already present Spirit to have free reign in our hearts. It isn’t about us getting more of Him, but of Him getting more of us.

25

Spirit-filling is…a metaphor describing our continuous, on-going experience and appropriation of the Holy Spirit. To be filled with the Spirit is to come under progressively more intense and intimate influence of the Spirit. [The] results [are]: power, purity, proclamation [and] praise. Spirit-filling can be forfeited and subsequently experienced yet again, on multiple occasions, throughout the course of the Christian life.

26

1. To be filled with the Spirit is different from being baptized in the Spirit. There is one baptism, but multiple fillings.

2. In no New Testament text are we commanded to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. There is no appeal to do something in order to be baptized; no exhortation, no imperative.

3. On the other hand, we are commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18).

4. It is possible to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, to experience the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and yet not be filled with the Holy Spirit (e.g. the Corinthian believers).

5. To be “full of the Holy Spirit” is to reflect a maturity of character; it is the ideal condition of every believer [see Acts 6:3, 5; 7:55; 11:24]. To be “filled with the Holy Spirit” is to experience an anointing for power, purity, proclamation, and praise.

27

Notice three important facts about Ephesians 5:18. First, it is in the imperative mood. It is not a suggestion or an appeal, but a command. Anything less than the fullness of the Spirit is disobedience to the Word of God. Second, it is a present tense verb. We are to be filled with the Holy Spirit now. And it is a continuous action verb. It could be translated, “Be being filled with the Spirit.” We must be filled daily, constantly, moment by moment. Yesterday’s blessings are not sufficient for today or tomorrow. Third, it is a passive verb. That means that being filled with the Spirit is not something we do, but something that is done for us. We must be yielded. We must be willing. We must be believing. But God does the filling. We simply receive it by faith.

28

Trying to do the Lord’s work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.

29

The Spirit-filled life is not a special, deluxe edition of Christianity. It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for His people.

30

What shall we say, then, about the command: “Be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18)? Doesn’t this imply that Christians are not filled? It looks like it. The verse, however, could as well be translated, “Keep on being filled with the Spirit.” And I believe that is the right way. It brings out the force of the verb tense Paul used. But that translation implies that believers are filled with the Spirit. It says this: you are filled, stay filled. Or, more exactly keep being filled.

31

To be Spirit-filled means to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. While we are yet in this life we may do things that grieve the Spirit. We may assert our own authority. At such times we are not Spirit-filled; we are self-propelled. But God will not leave us in this state. We are to be spiritual Christians. God is determined about that! And He has His means! By whatever measures are necessary, He forces our hands from the throttles of our lives. He re-asserts control. Once more we are Spirit-filled. We are characteristically Spirit-filled, or we are not Christians at all.