Are you filled with the Holy Spirit?

Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord (Ephesians 5:18-19 NLT).

Dear Friends,

Here is a real test that will help you determine if you are truly filled with the Holy Spirit.

Do you find that you have a greater love for Christ? Are you more concerned for those who do not know His love and forgiveness? Are you experiencing a greater faith, boldness, liberty, and power in witnessing, and victory in your own life? Do you enjoy reading God's Word, the Bible?

If you answer yes to these questions, you are filled with the Spirit. Jesus Christ is beginning to express His life and love through and in you.

Remember, Jesus promised that we would receive "power" after the Holy Spirit has come upon us. That power is to be his witnesses (Acts 1:8).

Most Christian leaders agree with Dr. R. A. Torrey, who said: "I have gone through my Bible time and time again checking this subject and I make this statement without the slightest fear of successful contradiction that there is not one single passage in the Old Testament or the New Testament where the filling with the Holy Spirit is spoken of, where it is not connected with testimony for service."

When you are filled with the Holy Spirit you will have a greater love for Christ, for your fellow man, and for the Word of God, and you will want to share Christ with others. As Paul said in Romans 5:5, "God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us" (NIV). Also, the fruit of the Spirit -- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control... (Galatians 5:22,23, NIV) -- will become more evident in your life.

As a Christian abides in Christ, living in the fullness of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is developed and the Christian becomes more mature spiritually. The maturing of the fruit of the Spirit is a lifetime process that goes on continually as Christ-like characteristics are being formed in the life of the Christian. Some Christians give greater evidence of the fruit of the Spirit than do others because of a greater degree of yielding to His working.

The more we acknowledge ourselves to be dead to sin and surrender to our Lord Jesus Christ and His life within us, and the more we allow Him through the power of the Holy Spirit to live out His life through us, the more evident will be the fruit of the Spirit.

Yours for helping to fulfill the Great Commission each year until our Lord returns,

From: Bill Bright