Being Filled With the Holy Spirit

It is 2:30 a.m. and I went to bed around 11:00. I awoke and began praying and thanking God and got so excited that I wanted to write, but I asked God for this to be what He wants and not my babbling.  The first thing that I would like to share is on the subject of the Holy Spirit.

 The term often seen in various writings including the Bible is "Being filled with the Holy Spirit." Some believers hold to the conviction that this is a power that God instills in a Christian who is capable now of being a "conduit" of God's power to be used in carrying out the ministries of healing and signs and wonders. I must confess that  I have not been privileged to witness first hand the aforementioned examples  of God's awesome power, but I have some very close friends who have, and it was the reason he and his wife came to Christ. Also, God's power through miraculous healing is readily seen in third world countries and many people are coming to Christ because of them. However, I do want you to know that although I have not witnessed an immediate healing, I have experienced being healed...I am on my the tail end of being cancer free for the 5th year.  PTL!!!

So, what is this idea of being "Filled with the Holy Spirit?"  When I accepted Christ, didn't the Holy Spirit come to reside in me forever (Eph.1:13-14). The words "...a deposit guaranteeing our eternal inheritance... " tells us that we have the Holy Spirit living in us forever, so how can we be given more of something that we already have in full. There is only one God, but 3 persons within that God....Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Another aha moment ...you do realize that when God the Holy Spirit dwells in you that we are indwelled by the same God who created the universe and everything in it.  And, we are not just given our "part of God" and some else gets just their portion, and so on. I hope you are like me and will readily admit that I honestly can't wrap my mind around God's qualities of omnipotence(He is all powerful); omniscience(He is all knowing); and omnipresence(His being everywhere at the same time).  If you really understand this, then feel free to comment and help me better understand.  However, just because I don't understand it, doesn't mean I don't embrace it as absolute truth as declared throughout God's word.

On this subject of "Being filled with the Holy Spirit," this is what I believe to be another Joy of Discovery God has allowed me to enjoy. My times with the Lord have frequently sought my God in this way. I have often prayed that God would just fill me to overflowing with His Spirit and  His very presence would course through every fiber of my being that I could absolutely feel Him. I do hesitate and am not suggesting for a moment, the idea of the necessity of feelings as being the sole determinant of whether we are believers and then, this idea becomes the litmus test for accepting truths.  However, I have had the feelings of electricity running through my body from my head to my toes which absolute gave me goose bumps. I have talked with many friends and other believers and I don't think this concept is not real because many of them have experienced these things as well. They are of short duration, but peaceful and calming.. Let me caution you again lest you think I am saying anything about the necessity to have these experiences to be closer to God or that if you don't have them, then your faith is weaker than someone who does.

I think when we ask God to fill us it is because we want all of Him if it is possible, but we have already discussed the difficulty of understanding this, so what does this mean to me.
Could this "Being filled with the Holy Spirit" simply be the actualization of God just communicating with us in a special way. I think so as far as my own experience is concerned. The Holy Spirit is our comforter and is given to us to empower us to have victory and joy in our walk with Christ. In my perception, I see the Holy Spirit as being the "Gasoline" of our Christian walk(our car if you will.) What?  If you allow your real vehicle to deplete or run out of gas, what happens? Duh, your vehicle will come to a slow heart wrenching stop and you are not going anywhere to you replenish the gas in your tank. Another example would be if you are trying to start your car to leave for somewhere(work is the worst), you better have enough gas or you are not going even to be able to start the car,!

I think this Holy Spirit gasoline is what runs our spiritual cars, whether you drive a high performance car or a hybrid of some sort that gets good gas mileage. Think about this for a moment.  If you are not excited, joyful, and compassionate about God so that you can't get enough of Him, could it be possible that your tank does have enough that EternaShell gas that only comes from God. Or maybe, we have just enough gas to start and get the car moving, but the engine performance is so poor that we are sputtering and misfiring because we have been running our car with a grade of gas which would not even start a lawn mower. This gas may be called "SELFCHEAP" and is dismally ineffective in our spiritual cars.

Well, here is another kicker. Why would we risk the dangers of using poor performing fuel when we have access to the absolute best fuel there is .the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. So, I hope this has been relateable and if you are not enjoying your performance of your spiritual car, or maybe it might not even be starting right now, I hope you will drop in to your local EternaShell station and say "Filler Up."