Ephesians 5:18 “Be filled with the Spirit.”
The Greek present tense is used in the above verse, meaning the infilling of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer is not a once-for-all event but an ongoing need for refilling and refueling. To those who do think it’s a once-for-all experience, Martyn Lloyd-Jones issues this challenge: “Got it all? Well, if you have got it all, I simply ask in the name of God why are you as you are? If you have got it all, why are you so unlike New Testament Christians? Got it all! Got it at your conversion! Well where is it, I ask?”
Are you thirsty today, or satisfied? Abraham Heschel wrote: “He who is satisfied has never truly craved.” I hope you haven’t given up on the potential of a life saturated with God’s presence. The cravings we feel, we were made to feel, and only God can satisfy. John Piper wrote in ‘A Hunger for God’: “If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.”
I remember several periods of my life of being so filled by the Holy Spirit that I didn’t want to leave his presence. I wanted to live in that continued state of heightened reality. When I saw people, I couldn’t help but share of God’s goodness with them. Some converted immediately, others thought I was mad! But the point I want to make is, how easy it is for us to settle for a stunted satisfaction with spiritual inertia. We fear beginning to crave, lest we are left disappointed yet again.
“Come, all you who are thirsty… that your soul may live” (Isaiah 55:1-3)
Fill me afresh today, Lord, and every day, and keep me thirsting for more of you. Amen!
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