How to Live Full of the Spirit

I. A Life Full of the Word

II. A Life Full of Prayer

III. A Life Full of Fasting

Eph 5:15-18, “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not befoolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit…”

One of the trademarks of Pentecostals is that we acknowledge the work ofthe Spirit in the lives of believers, and seek to be sensitive to His direction whether it is in the order of service or the order of our lives. The history of Pentecost is full of men and women who were full of the Holy Spirit.

We hear the stories of people like Alfred Howard Carter who would write and publish detailed prophesies given to him by the Lord to see every letter of it come to pass. We hear of great testimonies of miracles from the healing ministries of A.G. Ward, Smith Wigglesworth, and Maria Woodworth-Etter. We comment out of respect that these men and women were people of the Spirit, full of the Holy Ghost. But what does being “full of the Holy Spirit” mean, and how can we become “full of the Holy Spirit”?

 

 

 

In the original Greek the phrase in Ephesians that says, “be filled with the “Spirit” means to be filled with the Spirit, and keep on being filled, it implies a continuous experience, and not a one time event. Sometimes when we get in awe of something we can only see one side of it. This happens at the thought of being full of the Holy Spirit and everything that it could mean. We actually limit ourselves when we begin to fantasize about it.

When we think of ministries that were filled with signs and wonders, and healings and miracles, and how these ministers were “full of the Spirit” that the ministers were not in control of their lives, that the Spirit sovereignly filled them to overflowing. But without getting too theological, you are no less filled with the Spirit than any one of them.

 

The question is not the Spirit limiting how much of Him you have– it is you.

 

 

 

You

decide how much of your life will be yielded to the Holy Spirit. You make that choice, not the Spirit. If it wasn’t your choice the Apostle Paul would not have said, “do not get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit…” Just as wine doesn’t decide to get you drunk, the Holy Spirit doesn’t decide how filled you are. YOU decide to get drunk; YOU decide to be filled.

 

 

 

Just as being drunk affects your life in every area, so does being full of the Spirit. Your outlook on life, your desires, your attitude, everything about you will reflect the presence of the Spirit in your life, and the work of the Spirit is to point

 

 

 

to Jesus. Christ put His Spirit within us to free us from slavery to sin and to free us to an intimate relationship with God.

We cannot please God without His Spirit working in our lives. The Spirit convicts us of sin, that which disconnects us from God, and shows us how to please Him. The Spirit tenderly calls us to draw closer to Him, to lovingly serve and honor Him in everything that we do. He empowers us to be holy, to live holy.

God repeatedly told Moses and the people of Israel to “be holy for I the Lord your God am holy”. Someone once said that “where the Lord guides, He provides”, and “God’s voice won’t call you to a place that His grace cannot keep you”. In essence, God will give you the ability to do what He tells you to do.

Ideally, though not always the case, just as a mother and father are to be examples to their children of what is right and wrong, to show them what is acceptable behavior and what is not, so God calls His children to be like Him–holy. That is why the Spirit of God is known as the Holy Spirit. God is holy, pure, unstained, and right in everything that He does and says.

 

He does not lie, cheat, steal, murmur, or complain. He does not have hidden agendas for His own personal gain, or ulterior motives covered by a deceitful guise. He is not a man that He should lie, He will not steal, because everything belongs to Him anyway, He will not complain because He is longsuffering and

 

 

 

patient. God is love, God is truth, God is light and in Him is no shadow of turning.

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God’s ways are not our ways, however. He knows that we are weak, and made from dust, but as long as we determine to steady ourselves when we trip, and pick ourselves up when we fall, He will help us along the path of righteousness. He gives us His Spirit to help us grow in His likeness, to form us into the image of Jesus.

The fruit of the Spirit, the evidence that you are filled with the Spirit, is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” Galatians 5:22-23 tells us. The degree to which you are filled with the Spirit, is the degree to which your life is yielded to Him, the extent to which you are full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Along with forming the image of Christ on the inside of us, the Spirit empowers us to demonstrate the work of Christ. The Spirit’s work is both inward and outward. If it were just about changing our hearts, then the world would file Christianity with the other good deed creeds of the world.

 

The Spirit is evidenced by how much we look like Jesus, and how much we act like Jesus. Jesus said in John 14:12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; 

 

 

 

because I go to the Father.” We know the works of Jesus: “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” Acts 10:38 says.

Jesus also promised in Mark 16:17-18 that “these signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speakwith new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” The Early Church experienced many miracles, we see the many times that Paul raised people from the dead, cast out demons, was visited by angels, brought down the jailhouse with his singing, and how his life was supernaturally spared though multitudes wanted him dead. Signs and wonders did not stop with the Book of Acts, but continued down the centuries until our present time.

How much of your life are you yielding to the Spirit? How full of Him are you? Are you allowing Him to permeate your attitudes, emotions, what you say, and how you act? Are you allowing Him to heal the sick through you, to work miracles for His glory? You may desire all these things, but aren’t sure how to be continually full of the Spirit. I believe that there are three key ingredients to be full of the Holy Spirit.

 

 

 

First, we must be full of the Word. 2 Peter 1:20-21 says that we should “know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” The Spirit moved upon men to pen the words of Scripture. Jesus told the Apostles that the Spirit would bring to remembrance everything that they had been taught, and that He would guide them into all truth.

The Word of God acts like a mirror to point out to us our weaknesses and our fault. It makes us come face to face with the reality that we are not as good as we would like to pretend. It shows us the ugliness of our sin, and as we yield to the Spirit, we repent; we stop and ask forgiveness, and turn around, and start walking in the opposite direction. He gives us what is necessary to be holy, to act, think, feel, say, and do what pleases Him.

The Word will show us what pleases the Lord and the Spirit will help us to do them. We read His Word in 2 Cor. 9:7 that God loves a cheerful giver, and as we give way to the Spirit, He enables us to give. God tells us in Luke 6:28 that we should forgive those who mistreat us, and to bless and pray for those who stomp on us for their own benefit. The Spirit helps us to forgive, helps us to pray blessings.

 

Jesus calls us to be servants in Mark 10:35 just as He came to the earth to serve and to give, so, as we allow Him, His Spirit forms within us a servant’s heart. 

 

 

 

These examples in Scripture are hard for us to follow, but as we allow the Spirit to fill us, as we give ourselves to Him to do what He desires, He works within us the ability and the desire to do them.

This applies to healing and miracles. Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Faith reaches out and takes hold of what the Word says as true and acts on it. Faith is not faith, until something is done about it. Jesus told many people that it was their faith that made them well. James tells us that the prayer of faith heals the sick. We see that the sick person must have faith, and that the pray-er also must have faith. You will not be a person of miracles if you are not a person of faith, and you will never be a person of faith unless you are full of the Word.

You must immerse yourself with the Word of God. Read the accounts of Jesus’ miracles over and over until you have the desire to pray for the sick. Reading the testimonies from healing ministries will encourage your faith as well. Hearing that someone else was healed yesterday, will help you have faith for what you are believing God for today (whether you’re the sick one, or the one praying for the sick). If you study the lives of the men and women who had great healing ministries you will discover that they were people of the Word. A life full of the Word of God is a life full of the Spirit.

 

 

 

Your life must also be full of prayer. You’ve heard it said before, that “God will do nothing but by the prayers of His people”. David Crump says, “prayer appears to be a means of opening a channel of communication between the divine and human realms whereby the power of God becomes operative among men.” When anyone has ever wanted anything done by God on their behalf, or on the behalf of someone else they have turned to prayer. God will hear the cry of the righteous and answer him speedily.

We must not think that prayer is word mumbled over dinner in a public restaurant, or something the pastor does on Sunday mornings, and it must not be something we do as last resort in any situation. We must live a lifestyle of prayer. We must spend time with Him daily in devotions, but we must also keep that same prayerful attitude the rest of the day.

Praying, a time of devotion, is nothing more than spending time with the Lord. You will notice that you will become like whatever you surround yourself with. When you spend time with the Lord, it is in that loving atmosphere that  the Spirit will transform you from glory to glory, from less like Jesus to more and more like Jesus. It is in that place of prayer that the voice of Jesus becomes more and more clear. You start to become conformed more to His image. Your heart begins to grieve over what His heart grieves over, it begins to be pleased in the things that pleases His heart.

 

 

 

Conviction of sin will come upon you as you enter His Presence. It is by prayer that we come humbly to Him for forgiveness, and it is in prayer that He gives us strength in spite of temptation. The aim of John the Baptist at the introduction of Jesus’ ministry in Judea was that he would decrease, and that Christ would increase. Now that Jesus is living on the inside of you, isn’t that your desire: less of me Lord, and more of You? Isn’t it your yearning, Help me to be more and more like You, Jesus?

Men and women of prayer have always been people of the supernatural. Through prayer, you open yourself up to the Spirit of Christ, who then strengthens your faith. The more you spend personal time with Jesus, the more you begin to see Him as He is.

The more prayer you have in your life, the more power you will have because you bring the Spirit with you into every situation. Faith may move the mountains of sickness, brokenness, and death, but faith cannot be released until we pray. Healing, deliverance, provision in times of need, and other supernatural occurrences cannot be brought about except that we are people of prayer. “We have not, because we ask not”.

 

We allow the Spirit to fill us to the degree that our lives are filled with the Word, prayer, and with fasting. Fasting goes along with prayer. Jesus told His

 

 

 

disciples that they did not have the deliverance ministry they had been called to because they did not live a lifestyle of fasting.

We have to understand that fasting is a discipline of self-denial. Fasting is not easy, but is necessary. Why? Because goes against a very strong natural desire of the flesh. When you fast you are saying “No” to your flesh, and “Yes” to the Spirit. You fast with the desire of decreasing that Jesus may increase. As you  fast your flesh will come to the surface and you may be surprised by your  emotions, thoughts, and actions, but don’t worry. The Lord uses this time to show you what you are really like, what is really deep down inside, and it may surprise you. By seeing who you are, you repent of the ugliness out of the desire to be more like Jesus.

Scripture says that if you sow to the flesh you will reap corruption, but that if you will sow to the Spirit you will reap everlasting life. Denying the flesh, fasting sows to the Spirit, and allows Him to have more of your life. Sowing to the pleasures of the flesh allows the Enemy to get a hold on your life. Fasting will loosen his grip.

 

Not only will it destroy the work of the Enemy in your life, but it will also destroy the work of the Enemy in the lives of those you pray for. Pastor Charles Bennett once said, “I’ve never seen a minister who was mightily used in the Gifts of the Spirit who did not fast and pray.” Jesus lived a life of prayer and fasting, the Apostles lived a life 

 

 

 

of prayer and fasting, and everyone who has ever been mightily used of God have lived a life of prayer and fasting. As we empty ourselves of ourselves, He will fill us with the presence and power of His Spirit.

There are no shortcuts. It goes beyond reading a book, listening to a Cd series, and getting hands laid on us. Living full of the Spirit requires day to day consecration and dedication in following Christ. So, if we commit ourselves daily to Christ and His Word, and we combine prayer and fasting into a lifestyle, the Spirit of Christ will find an empty vessel with whom He can fill full!