Be Filled

The old timers in the holiness community preached about a second work of grace.  This was a word which encouraged those who had professed faith in Christ to seek a greater awareness of God.  It was not a word which said that people needed something more than just faith in Christ to be a Christian, but that there was something more awaiting those whose hunger and thirst for God was not satisfied.  This something more was spoken of as a deeper life, or a fuller life, or a life in which the believer came to a place of wanting to belong completely to God.  Ephesians 5:18 points to this life as it says, "...be filled with the Spirit."    

 It could be said that the model for this deeper life is embedded in the lives of those first disciples.  There can be no doubt that those disciples such as Peter, James, and John were believers and followers of Jesus.  What they left to follow Jesus was far more than most of us would leave to follow Him.  Even as we affirm the fact of their discipleship, we also know that Jesus instructed them to "stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."  (Luke 24:49).  They did as they were told and when the Day of Pentecost came, there was rushing wind, tongues of fire, and "all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:4).  Something happened that day.  Timid fearful men became bold men equipped with spiritual power.    

Something which can surely be defined as "something more" possessed them.  They no longer saw themselves as belonging to anyone except the risen Jesus.  They had been His followers, but after the Spirit came filling them with holy presence, there was one thing which drove them forward and that was allowing His will to be worked out through their living.  They were so filled with the presence of the Spirit that there was room for nothing else in their lives.  They were filled, not partially, but completely.  From that point on they lived as those who totally belonged to Christ.