From the devotional: Daily thoughts on Holiness
Devotions for a Deeper Spiritual Life, by Andrew Murray
Eph 5:18 ...Let the Holy Spirit fill and control you. NLT
JANUARY 22
The one thing needful for the church, and the thing which above all others, men ought everywhere to
seek for with one accord and with their whole heart, is to be filled with the Spirit of God. . . .
1. It is the will of God that every one of His children should live entirely and unceasingly under
the control of the Holy Spirit.
2. 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.
3. Everywhere and in everything we see the proofs, in the life and experience of Christians, that this
blessing is rarely enjoyed in the church, and sadly, is rarely sought for.
4. This blessing is prepared for us and God waits to bestow it. Our faith may expect it with the greatest
confidence.
5. The great hindrance in the way is that the self-life, and the world, which it uses for its own
service and pleasure, steal the place that Christ ought to occupy.
6. We cannot be filled with the Spirit until we are prepared to yield ourselves to be led by the Lord
Jesus to forsake and sacrifice everything for this pearl of great price.
The Full Blessing of Pentecost
Every Christian must learn to be led by the Spirit; what does it mean?
First; why is being filled with and led by the Holy Spirit so crucial to every Christian?
Rom 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
Suppose I’ve bee born again as a Christian. This means I have believed that part of the gospel (God’s words) that told me that the sinless Jesus died in my place for my past sins and then rose again a victor over that death. Only because of what Jesus did, God offered me forgiveness for those past sins and I have believed, with my heart, that I am forgiven. The instant I believed God’s words, my spirit, or as the Bible often refers to it my heart, was made clean from sin. And so it was that part of me, my spirit or my heart, which was born again. The other two parts of me, my sinful flesh or human nature, and my soul, consisting mainly of my will, were not born again, only my spirit or heart was made new.
Ezek 36:26 I will give you a new heart and (hence) put a new spirit within you…
Jesus is now my Savior from the penalty for my sins; but now He wants to become, and it is imperative for me to let Him become, my Lord. Simply put, this means for Him to have complete and total rule over my life. This requires an irrevocable decision of my will or soul. Before being born again my will was dominated by my human nature which is full of sin and was under the influence of the god of this world, Satan. Spiritually, I was his child. In order for Jesus to become my Lord and for me to live as a son of God I must make an absolute surrender of my will to God, meaning I intend to always obey Him in all things.
The moment I do this I am asking God to become my Lord, and God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, enters into and fills my spirit. To be filled with the Spirit of God simply means to be under the direct influence and control of the Holy Spirit. Prior to this my spirit only contains those of God’s words that I have truly believed including those by which I was born again:
1 Pet1:23 Being born again…by the word of God… KJV
Luke 11:13 (Jesus)…How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (and we only ask sincerely if we are fully surrendered).
If we choose not to totally submit our wills to God, who purchased us back from the Devil, so that our spirits can become filled with (under the influence of) the Holy Spirit, then we remain what the Bible calls “carnal Christians”. These are born again Christians whose wills – their choices and decisions – continue to be dominated by their own sinful human nature and subject therefore increasingly to the influence of the Devil. They are without the Holy Spirit, and if their condition does not change the Bible makes it clear that their new born spirits will eventually die and consequently they will spend eternity with the damned.
Rom 8:6-7 (To Christians) To be controlled by human nature results in death; to be TEV controlled by the (Holy) Spirit results in life and peace. And so a person becomes an enemy of God when he is controlled by his human nature…
Rom 8:9-13 But you do not live as your human nature tells you to; instead, you live TEV as the Spirit tells you to — if, in fact, God's Spirit lives in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him (though born again)…For if you live according to your human nature, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you put to death your sinful actions, you will live.
Secondly; given now I’ve surrendered to God, how do I learn to be led by the Holy Spirit?
To this point in my life virtually all of my decisions have been taken on the basis of information I received through my five physical senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell) and the reasoning ability of my natural (or carnal) mind to process that information. That’s what living according to my human nature means. By submitting my will to God I am about to learn an entirely new and heavenly way of living, in which what my natural eyes see, my natural ears hear and the reasoning of my brain no longer dictate my decisions:
Rom 8:16 For His Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts (or spirits)… TLB
Pro 20:27 The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD…(where we receive God’s light)
Isa 11:3 His delight is in the fear of the LORD, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears; (He’s led by the Spirit)
1 Jo 2:27 But the anointing which you have received from Him (the anointing always refers to the Holy Spirit – Luke 4:18) abides in you, and…teaches you concerning all things, and is truth, and is not a lie…
In this new way of life God’s Spirit lives in and speaks to our spirits telling us what to do.
Where is my spirit or my heart located, in which God’s Spirit lives and wants to lead me? A key question, I need to know where my spirit or my spiritual heart is - it’s not in my chest:
John 7:38-39 (Jesus) KJV He that believes on me…out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this He spoke concerning the Spirit…[Same verse NKJV - He who believes in Me,…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.]
1 Pet 1:13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind…(loins means the procreative part)
Eph 4:23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind…
Gal 4:19 …I am going through labor pains (in my spiritual womb) for you again... NLT Our spirit resides in the lower part of our abdomen, in the vicinity, the Bible indicates, of our belly, loins or womb. The world has unknowingly long been aware of this, when it often asks people “what does you gut say?” in other words “what does your spirit say?” It’s the same as “what does your conscience say?” because conscience is the voice of our spirit.
What are the evidences that the Holy Spirit is leading or communicating with my spirit?
The leading of the Spirit is described by mature Christians as a prompting, an impression, or an inspiration. The Bible describes it as receiving a desire, an inward witness or work of God (at the gut level) as to what His will is for me. Together with this awareness of what God wants me to do, a desire in my heart to actually do it, is also imparted by God to me.
Ps 37:4 Delight yourself also in the LORD (loving Him and His will), And He shall give you (place His desires in you to become) the desires of your heart.
1 Jo 5:10 He who believes (currently) in the Son of God has the witness in himself…
Phil 2:13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
The inward witness of God’s Spirit to my sprit directing my path is God’s still small voice. At all times God wants to tell me, in my heart, what I should do. But if I harden my heart as a result of sin, my spiritual ear becomes dull of hearing so that I won’t hear God’s voice.
1 Kings 19:12 …the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.
Isa 30:21 Your (spiritual) ears shall hear a word behind you (within you), saying, "This is the way, walk in it,"…
Heb 4:7 …"Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.”
This is an inaudible voice to my natural ear, it is a living person within me communicating silently with my innermost being, one to whom I must constantly listen and always obey. It is very different from both a feeling in my human nature, or a head thought. God speaks to my heart, Satan speaks to my head. Can I choose to disobey God’s voice? Yes, He gave me a free will, but that is sin, and it immediately separates me from God and puts me back under the control of my human nature and exposed to Satan. If I love God who first loved me, why would I disobey, ever? This is the delightful Spirit led life of a true child of God. As I do obey, often then my feelings line up with my will. I must learn to utterly rely on the leading of God’s Spirit, for as 1 John 2:27 above says, the Spirit is truth and is not a lie. If I start to entertain doubting thoughts I must immediately bring them into captivity and affirm that as a child of God I am led by the Spirit of God. And the Holy Spirit will always, if I ask, direct my heart to a word of scripture to confirm His leading and to eliminate those doubts.
John 16:13 …When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth;
Must I be led in all my decisions big and small and at all times – even if carnal Christians ridicule me? What does it take to do it, and avoid my flesh faking being led to get its way?
Col 3:17 And whatever you do no matter what it is in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus and in dependence upon His Person… AMP
Isa 58:11 The LORD will guide you continually…(but what must I do to be so guided?)
Prov 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart (for real) and lean not on your own
understanding (meaning, keep your intellect in submission to your heart); In all your ways acknowledge (involve) Him and He shall direct your paths.
1 Co 2:15 …The spiritual man (woman) judges (meaning discerns from God) all things…
John 7:24 (Jesus) “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment" (what does it mean to judge or discern righteously; Jesus explains)
John 5:30 (Jesus) “I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear (God’s Spirit) I judge and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father...” (how to make right decisions? seek, hear and obey God’s Spirit).
1 John 2:6 He who says he abides (lives) in Him (Christ) ought himself also to walk just as He walked (God says I must and so I can live the same way Jesus did) Jesus was always led by the Holy Spirit; to be the children of God you and I must be too.
