It Starts Small

Writing about Aaron’s robe brought me back to the topic of the fruit of the Spirit. Living the Christian life without the Holy Spirit is like driving a car without brakes. You are going somewhere but not where you are supposed to go and your life has no real control or stop. God wants us to have a different sort of life.

God wants us to live a life in victory and with power. All the power we need has been given to us but we need to learn how to release this power. When we have the Holy Spirit, all of God dwells within me. The creator of the universe, the power that spoke it into existence is dwelling within all true Christians. The same power that was within Jesus is within all of us!

We need to learn to let that power, the Holy Spirit, take up residence and be the president in our lives. We need to not only possess the Holy Spirit, but let Him possess us. We not only need to let the Holy Spirit abide, but also to preside over our lives. When we allow the Holy Spirit complete control, our lives are changes from monotonous to momentous. How do we become spiritual Christians?

I agree with many theologians that God had purpose in writing His Word with Hebrew and Greek. OUr english language is not always exact in its meaning. So to understand how to be filled, we are going to take a quick grammar lesson.

¹⁸ And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Ephesians 5:18

This verse is awesome! On the surface God does two things. He compares and contrasts being intoxicated with alcohol and drunk on the spirit.

Being drunk on “wine” is being controlled by the alcohol. Being drunk is the devil’s substitute for the Holy Spirit. Being drunk controls and possesses a man. Intoxication, being poisoned, is allowing the devil to control your mind, body and spirit. We can testify to watching people getting drunk, or ourselves getting drunk, and saying or doing things that they would otherwise never say or do.

Being drunk of the Holy Spirit is much different!

“BE FILLED”

We need to look at the tense and mood in the greek word for BE FILLED.

It has an imperative mood. This is a command by God. This is not a suggestion or advice from God. This is a command to BE FILLED. If you are not filled you are a rebel. This is not an option in the Christian life. God is saying, do not be filled with the spirit of the world, be filled with MY SPIRIT.

This is written in present tense. Notice it does not say GET FILLED. IT says BE FILLED and this implies a continuous action. You get drunk by drinking and you stay drunk by continuously drinking to stay drunk. The same is true to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Day by day, moment by moment, we need to allow for his spirit to fill us.

This verb is also plural in number. There is no limit, not limit on who is filled. All Christians are to be filled! This filling is not meant or limited to just a select few.

This verb is also passive. If it was active in voice, it would imply you have to do something to GET filled. It does not say GET filled it says BE filled. You do not get filled by living a good life, going to church, tithing, or reading God’s Word. There is nothing you can do to GET the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a promise, a blessing and the work of grace by God. Holiness is not the way to Christ, through Christ is way to holiness by the Holy Spirit. You will never be good enough to get filled. It’s only by yielding, letting HIm have complete control and dominating our lives that we are filled.

¹³ Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. ¹⁴ But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: ¹⁵ For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. Acts 2:13-15

I chuckle at these scriptures, only because I was accused once of being drunk with alcohol because I was excited to share the things I was learning with another person. Sometimes I stumble in excitement in my words and when I get excited about something my brain jumbles up what I am trying to say or the words do not come quick enough. This person thought I was drunk. I was really upset that they missed entirely what I was sharing with them and I wonder if they were looking for a reason to judge me because what I was speaking was truth they did not want to hear. It is a funny situation now, but then it was not.

Carnal men and natural men do not understand spiritual men. Natural men have no discernment, but carnal men see spiritual men as weird. I’m not sure which this person was, but I’m so thankful I have a new kind of drunk! Being drunk of the Holy SPirit is exciting. When the Holy Spirit starts teaching you and revealing our Heavenly Father to you, it is an experience you can not really describe except pure joy!

To understand the pomegranates that Aaron wore on his robe, we need to understand how to BE FILLED with the Holy Spirit. If we want to produce fruit in our lives, we have to allow the Holy Spirit complete control in our lives. To dwell openly in our hearts and have complete control. We need to daily, moment by moment, get drunk in our spirit!