Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Well, welcome back to the Daily Blade. I'm Dr. Mark Hitchcock. I'm the Pastor of Faith Bible Church in Edmond, Oklahoma. I've been filling in this week for Joby and for Kyle, and I just want to thank them so much for giving me the opportunity to do this. It's been great to be with you. And I've been blessed by being with you, and I hope it's been an encouragement to you as well. You know, one of the things you probably have heard about in your life before is being spirit-filled, you know, being a spirit-filled Christian. We read about that often in Scripture, but there's really just one main place in the Bible that really defines and kind of describes the spirit-filled life for us. And there's nothing more important in your life and mine as a believer than to be spirit-filled, to be a spirit-filled Christian. The main verse really in the New Testament about this is Ephesians 5.18, where the apostle Paul says, Don't be drunk with wine, wherein is excess or dissipation, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? Well, you notice there's a contrast. Don't get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. So he's contrasting being controlled by alcohol, by taking in too much alcohol with being controlled by the Spirit. So being filled with the Spirit means to be controlled by the Spirit. When someone drinks too much alcohol, they do things that are bad that they wouldn't otherwise do. When someone is filled with the Spirit, they do good and godly things they wouldn't otherwise do. There's an empowerment that overtakes their life. So that's what it means to be filled with the Spirit. It means for the Spirit to take control of our lives. So that's the contrast that's there. But then you find the command, be filled with the Spirit. Now, a couple things about this. In Greek, it's an imperative. So it's a command. But it's also a present tense imperative, which means this is something we're to continually be doing, continually be filled. But it's also in the Greek, it's a passive verb, which means we don't fill ourselves. We allow the Holy Spirit to fill us. So you can really translate that, be being filled continuously with the Holy Spirit, if you kind of put all that together. And then another thing is in the Greek, it's plural. It's in the plural. So it's for every believer. This isn't just for preachers or for missionaries. This is for every believer. Every believer is to continuously be being filled with the Holy Spirit. So the moment a person becomes a believer, the Holy Spirit comes in and takes up residence in our life. That's called the indwelling of the Spirit. And that happens once for all when we trust in Jesus. Romans 8, 9 says, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he's none of his. So if you don't have the Holy Spirit, you're not a believer. So that's the indwelling of the Spirit, when the Spirit takes up residence within us. But the filling of the Spirit is a daily experience where we surrender control of our lives to the Spirit to allow the Spirit to work in and through us, to do his will and to do his work. So being filled with the Spirit, really, you could say it like this: it's not me getting more of the Spirit, it's the Spirit getting more of me. I have all the Spirit I'm ever going to get, but I turn more and more of my life over to Him. I heard a man say years ago that the Spirit of God is resident, but he must be president. And I like that. He's resident in our lives as believers, but he must be president. You say, well, how do I get filled with the spirit? Well, the Bible doesn't really tell us in any of these passages, but we can kind of put this together. He says, Don't get drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. Whenever you get drunk, you do it deliberately. You deliberately drink until you're intoxicated. And so I think we could say the same thing about being filled with the spirit. It's deliberate. And just as a person deliberately drinks too much and puts themselves under the control of spirits, we take the spirit in and deliberately allow the spirit to take more and more control of our life. It's a daily thing where we surrender our life to the Holy Spirit to take our life to use it to produce the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Say, well, how do I know if I'm filled with the Spirit? Well, it goes on in the following verses and tells us if we're spirit-filled, we're going to be joyful. We're going to be speaking and singing in our heart and songs and hymns and spiritual songs. It says we're going to be giving thanks. We'll be thankful, grateful people. And then it says we'll be submissive to one another. In other words, we won't be self-centered and always have to have our own way in life. So a joyful, grateful, submissive person is someone who is spirit-filled. And what's powerful to me is if you keep reading in Ephesians, the very next section about husbands and wives and parents and children and about the workplace workplace all flow out of this idea in chapter 5, verse 18 of being filled with the Spirit. So the spirit-filled life is to cause us to be joyful, grateful, submissive believers and to have the godly marriages, the godly homes, and the godly work life that God desires for us to have. Everything in this whole passage following after this depends on us being a spirit-filled believer. That's the power for the Christian life. So if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, the Spirit is resident, but he must be president. He wants to take control of your life every day. Give it to him. He'll change your life. He'll change your marriage. He'll change your home. He'll change everything about your life in a wonderful way. May you do that. And again, thank you for being with me this week. Thank you for hanging in there with me. Thanks for allowing me to be here and fill in. I've really enjoyed it. God bless you.

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