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I listened to John's message this Sunday with interest. I know I should be continualy filled with the Spirit - but how to actually achieve that seems to be beyond me. What do others feel?

paulvipond · Joined: 14 Nov 2006 Posts: 60 Location: Bury

Well, leaving aside for the moment issues of supernatural thrillers in family services and the illegality of public performance without a licence, let's turn to the challenge of continual filling.

A few thoughts come to mind.

1. Being filled is a command [Eph 5:18] so Jesus must intended us to be able to obey.
2. As God is the "filler" He must intend to respond by filling us.
3. I think I am right in saying that the tense in the greek conveys "be continually filled". This suggests that we "leak" and that God is aware of that too.
4 We get filled by asking [Luke 11:23] so by extension we have to keep on asking each day.
5 This brings us to how do we know whether we are filled?
6 It is not a matter of feeling.
7 In the Asuza St revival a hundred years ago, which birthed the pentecostal church, the mark of the "baptism in the spirit" was sen nots as "tongues" but love.

Well thats my two-penneth. Whose next?

[P.S. Thanks for setting this up.]
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Make you walk in the dust of your rabbi, Jesus

Jannine Ebenso · Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 13 Location: Nigeria

Well, I missed the sermon that started this discussion so hope I don't write off at a tangent.

I agree with Paul V. I certainly leak(!). Need filling up every day.

Here are my own little thoughts too....

I have been learning in my French classes that some verbs are active and some are passive - seems to apply here too:

1 Cor 2 :12 Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God

We receive - He gives
We are filled - He does the filling

Why does He even fill us?:

Gal 4:6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out "Abba, Father"

Because He is our heavenly Father and knows that we need filling.

A difficult lesson I have learnt in the last couple of months is that sometimes I can block the filling by my own action of unconfessed sin or unforgiveness.

No need for details, but God asked me to apologise to some fellow workers here for something I had done. "But Lord, I was right! They were wrong!".........JANNINE APOLOGISE FOR THE HURT YOU CAUSED THEM IN THIS SITUATION. "But...".

Anyway, after long difficult weeks I decided to do it - it was hard, I cried, they cried, we hugged. Guess what? God was pleased with me and the filling has come back.

Obedience - Jannine when will you learn?

GeneWyrm · Joined: 04 Feb 2007 Posts: 6

I guess if we are filled by the spirit continually then the fruit of the spirit should be continually seen in our lives.... ?

Darthmiller · Joined: 03 Mar 2007 Posts: 27

As I beleive we are talking about my sermon (it is JON btw).
The point was that the Holy Spirit is someone who is constantly accessible to us but we block him out. We let him in then get full of ourselves and assume we can do it all and then when it all comes crashing down because we are doing it all in our strength and not God's we get disheartened and don't feel we can try again.
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Going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car.

Eli · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:40 am Post subject:

Don't beat yourself up, Darthmiller.

Remember, Luke's gospel was only written on a whim...

Luke 1:1ff (ESV)

1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write....

PS
If you're standing in a garage, full of fuel, engine running and ready to go, there's a possibility that you might be...

... a motorbike.

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I am not ashamed of...
The Gospel of Jesus Christ