Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, let the Holy Spirit fill and control you. - Ephesians 5:18
Have you ever been drunk?” a man asked me. I confessed I had not. “I have,” he said. “Everything was affected. My eyesight, my balance, and my judgment!”
Interestingly, Paul uses drunkenness to teach us about the fullness of the Spirit. Don’t be controlled by drink, but be controlled by the Spirit, he says. Let the Holy Spirit affect the way you look at things and the way you walk. Being filled with the Spirit will be a happy experience. God will not make us miserable if we let him rule us. Our hearts will be singing all day long, and in fact, we will be able to thank God always for all things! (See Ephesians 5:19-20.)
Paul doesn’t say to have some of the Spirit for some things. Christianity is a religion of “alls.” It’s an “all or nothing” faith in an all-sufficient God. The Holy Spirit is to “fill and control” us. Once the Holy Spirit fills us and gains control, he can enable us to do what he tells us to do!
Like a cup under a faucet, our lives must be held under God’s Spirit. If we grieve or pull back or lie to him, confession will be necessary or we shall lose the fullness. Notice I didn’t say lose the Spirit—but the fullness. Once the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts as resident and not as renter, he comes to stay! It is up to us to make him as comfortable as possible in our lives.
For Further Study: Ephesians 5:15-20
Excerpted from The One Year Devotions for Women, Copyright ©2000 by Jill Briscoe. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.
For more from Jill Briscoe, please visit TellingtheTruth.org.
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