Are
you “filled with the Spirit”? What does this mean? How does it
happen? (Serendipity Bible 10th anniversary edition, page
1203).
God
is love and Jesus taught that we are to love one another. Paul writes
of the fruit of the Spirit. Love has intellectual, emotional,
behavioral, and perceptual implications. In one sense being filled
with the Spirit is commitment to a code of virtues and values of the
Christian faith. But at the heart of the Spirit lies creativity that
enables expression within new and unprecedented situations in which
codes, virtues, and values must be applied by Spirit not by letter.
Jesus taught that it is not enough to follow the “letter of the
law” we must also live most importantly by the “spirit of the
law” that embodies the disciplines of love and that testify to the
presence of God in our lives.
Since
we are not in control of perception, our being filled with the Spirit
results from the grace of God. It is by grace that we are allowed to
receive spiritual gifts – that we are inspired to live holy lives.
However, as in all things perceptual, experience plays an important
role. We can have been instructed in the faith and inspired by the
Scriptures. We can have observed the witness of others authentically
faithful in their thoughts, words, and deeds.
Faith
in God, belief in Jesus, and the indwelling of the Spirit has its
focus on divine and redemptive actions of love and service. We are
in a fundamental sense instruments of peace – though often
disruptive of the world’s wisdom and peace. Thus being filled with
the spirit often can bring pronounced or subtle opposition, struggle,
ridicule, and even persecution.
While
being filled with the spirit requires the trust and faith of a child,
the initiative comes from the Trinity. It is belief in a spiritual
dimension which cannot be proven but that is accepted on faith – a
faith based not upon intellectual assent alone, but upon anecdotal
efficaciousness that profoundly rings true not only in the here and
now but resonates in what can only be called an eternal spiritual
reality.
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