Acts; Filled With the Holy Spirit

July 26

Read: Acts 6:1-7

Acts;

Filled With the Holy Spirit

“Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.” (v.3)

Every believer in Jesus receives the Holy Spirit, but NOT every Christian is “filled with” the Holy Spirit. Why is that? how can it be?

The answer lies in remembering that the Holy Spirit is a PERSON of the Godhead, not some power or ambiguous force. Every follower of Christ receives the Holy Spirit completely… God is not “withholding” or keeping for himself some of his Spirit for a different time. It is NOT like God gives us 50% Holy Spirit and then for a few special people they get 75% and then the “elite” might get 90 or 100% - that is simply NOT true. When we receive the Holy Spirit… we receive ALL of him - the complete person of the Trinity … of the Godhead… the Holy Spirit. Here are a few examples for us from the text:

“May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness…” (2 Peter 1:2,3) - We have received “all things” that we need in Christ; not a partial work … left waiting for more

“…these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God…Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” (1 Cor. 2:10,12) - There is no understanding the “message of the cross” the truth of Jesus without the Spirit.

So then why are some called “filled” and others not? Well it is like any other relationship with a person: just because someone is 100% there and present does not mean your life is “filled with them”. You can ride next to someone on a plane and they are 100% present yet your life is quite “empty” of them. With the stranger next to you, the reason you are “empty” of them or “not filled” with the is because you have no relationship with them… you are not talking to them… you are not sharing experiences with them… you have not spent time with them or interacted in any meaningful way with them. This is the case with “persons”… we do not become “filled with” a person without these sorts of interactions. Every Christian has received all of the Hoy Spirit, but how many have a relationship with, spend time with, talk to, listen to, or share experiences with the Holy Spirit? This is the difference between receiving and being filled. This is the difference between flying through life with the Holy Spirit seated next to you functionally a stranger versus being “filled with the Spirit” in your life! This is why some Christians are “filled with the Spirit” and some are not.

Being one who is “filled with” the Holy Spirit is observable to those around you as well. It makes no sense otherwise to have the Church in Jerusalem choose seven men with this as a criteria: “…pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.” (v.3) They were choosing from among the believers - all of whom had received the person of the Holy Spirit when they came to follow Christ - those who were “filled”. Which affirms again that not everybody was, and that you can tell who is.

The person of the Holy Spirit has been freed given to you by God in Christ Jesus. Some will go their entire lives riding through life next to him as a stranger. Some will engage the way that the Lord calls us to and over time they will be “filled with” the Spirit. Their lives will show it… and people around them will know it. What a gift - the gift of the Spirit - that God has given to us his children. (cf. 1 Cor. 2)  Jesus celebrates the Spirit in his parting words to the disciples. (cf. John 16 etc.) Do remain strangers with this person of the Godhead. The Spirit of God speaks to God's people and interacts with… works alongside… the people of God. May our lives be FILLED WITH the Spirit of God. God is not withholding from you this richness, but quite the opposite - he is calling us to live life “in the spirit” and to “walk in the spirit” each day. (cf. Rom. 8:4, Ga;. 5:16) Love you guys. - JDP