Are You Filled to Overflowing
The power and authority the apostles received began to touch lives at every turn. Their ministry was followed by “many signs and wonders…among the people” (Acts 5:12). And what was the result? “Believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women” (v. 14). The signs that followed the coming of the Holy Spirit led people directly to Christ. That’s an important fact to remember.
What happened in the Upper Room was not a one-time experience, nor a footnote of history. The Spirit-filled believers established an ongoing relationship with the Holy Ghost. They continued to be filled. When Peter was called before the Sanhedrin over the healing of the beggar, they asked “By what power or by what name have you done this?” Peter was “filled with the Holy Spirit” when he spoke (Acts 4:7-8). Not past tense, but present tense. “Filled” describes the apostle at that very moment.
Over and over in Scripture, when followers of Christ are portrayed as “filled with the Spirit,” the reference is to a new infilling, not to something that happened yesterday or last month.
Do you realize that the power of the Spirit can so infill you that you fear absolutely no one? Peter was so full of the Spirit in the temple that he had authority over his critics. Undaunted, he said:
“Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole” (Acts 4:8-10).
It’s possible to establish such a communion with Him that even addressing the leader of a nation would cause no apprehension. The Spirit will lift your head, square your shoulders, and instill in you an unexpected confidence. Be filled today with the Holy Spirit.
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