HOLY
SPIRIT: FILLING; COMMITMENT

After a man is convinced that he can be filled with the Spirit he must desire to be. To the interested inquirer I ask these questions: Are you sure that you want to be possessed by a Spirit Who, while He is pure and gentle and wise and loving, will yet insist upon being Lord of your life? Are you sure you want your personality to be taken over by One Who will require obedience to the written Word? Who will not tolerate any of the self-sins in your life: self-love, self-indulgence? Who will not permit you to strut or boast or show off? Who will take the direction of your life away from you and will reserve the sovereign right to test you and discipline you? Who will strip away from you many loved objects which secretly harm your soul?

Unless you can answer an eager “Yes” to these questions you do not want to be filled. You may want the thrill or the victory or the power, but you do not really want to be filled with the Spirit.…

Before there can be fullness there must be emptess. Before God can fill us with Himself we must first be emptied of ourselves.

Romans 14:7–9; 1 Corinthians 6:19–20; Ephesians 5:18

Keys to the Deeper Life, 51, 52, 54.