Occasionally I would give my wife a quick, “Love ya”, and she might respond, “Say it like you mean it.” When praying a quick, “Our Father which art in heaven”, God might respond, “Say it like you mean it”. The words are fine, but they have to be from the heart. Puritan preachers used to write out their prayers and sermons and read them at the church service, but even today you can feel the presence of God as you read what they wrote.

In one of the home Bible studies I have attended, the topic for the quarter was to study the prayers of the Bible. As we would dedicate each week to meditating on a Bible prayer I became impressed with the power of those prayers and decided to memorize some of them. Then I began personalizing the prayers with my own name or with “I”.

One morning as on my knees in the darkness I was pouring out my heart to God with the prayer the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian believers (3:14-19) (1), I came to the words, “that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God”. As I spoke the words, “that Jay might be filled with all the fullness of God”, I was reminded of a phrase I had heard many times as I was growing up. My parents were not Christians and occasionally had friends over for a party. If one of the party members became overly loud and wild, someone would remark, “He sure is full of the devil tonight.”

As I repeated the words of my prayer, “that Jay might be filled with all the fullness of God”, I wondered if people ever said, “Jay sure is filled with all the fullness of God today”? I add the word, “today” because this is not a permanent attainment, but a moment by moment condition. We are commanded to not be filled with wine, but to be filled with the Spirit (2) We are told to walk in the Spirit and we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. (3)

One day when Peter affirmed the deity of Jesus, he heard Jesus say to him, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjonah” (Mt.16:17), and another day when he offered Jesus some very unwise counsel, he was confronted with Jesus’ words, “Get thee behind me, Satan” (Mt.16:23). My condition here on earth is one of a moment by moment choice between the old nature or the new. We are enabled to make the right choices by the indwelling Holy Spirit as we yield immediate response to His promptings to obey Scripture.

My position in glory is permanent in that I am seated with Christ in the heavens, but here on earth I have the constant choice to either obey what the Holy Spirit shows me in Scripture or to follow my own natural inclinations that are usually tainted with pride, selfishness, or unbelief. When, after spying out the land of Canaan, most of the spies told the people that it would be impossible to conquer the giants that inhabited the land, Caleb affirmed that God would enable them to take the land and they should go in immediately. We are told that Caleb differed from the crowd because he had a different spirit in him for he had determined to fully follow the Lord.(4)

Total commitment to God opens us up to total filling by God, resulting in a moment by moment awareness by others of the presence of God as He blesses our obedience. I felt the presence of God as I sat in the chapel of the Naval Training Base in Corpus Christi, Texas, listening to fellow sailors tell what it means to be saved. I did not fully understand all they were saying, but I knew one thing for sure, these fellows were different. On my bunk that night in the silent darkness I cried out to God a very simple, non-theological prayer, “God, I want what those men have.” I had seen many sailors filled with wine, and their condition was very evident. These men were filled with God and that was what I wanted and God answered my prayer.

Today, with all your heart, try putting your name into Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14-19, as if he were praying specifically for you. Then ask God to make that prayer real in your life as you give Him your full permission to do so at any cost.

More? Listen to “Holy Spirit Fullness”

Footnotes:

1. Eph 3:14-19
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height--to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. NKJV

2. Eph 5:18
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

3. Gal 5:16
[This] I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

4. "But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.” NKJV