Are We Breaking God's Commandment by Not Being Filled With the Spirit? (May, 2022)

I asked Jesus to come into my heart at the age of nine. I loved the Lord. My parents took me to church every time that the church doors were opened. I am grateful for my heritage. Daddy was a Baptist Pastor. He taught me many Truths from God’s Holy Word. I knew the Presence of God, the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the Power of the Bible and prayer, and the importance of obedience to the leading of the Lord. I knew that there was a heaven, but I also knew that there was a real hell. I knew that Jesus was the Way, the Truth, and the Life; through Him was the only way to the Father. I certainly knew the salvation messages. My dad could find a salvation message in every Scripture in the Word.

I married a Christian man, Robert, who was also Baptist. His former Pastor preached “Ye Must Be Born Again” over and over. Now, this message is certainly an important one, but I began to believe that there must be more than asking Jesus to come into my heart. I was hungry for more of God, but I had no idea what that meant. One day, Robert’s mom gave me a book, Exceedingly Growing Faith by Kenneth E. Hagin. Now, why this Baptist woman gave this book to me could have only been God. I began to read, and I became so excited! For the first time, I was seeing through the guidance of Pastor Hagin by the Holy Spirit that I needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I looked in my Bible in Ephesians 5:18, “…but be filled with the Spirit.” Okay, I received the Holy Spirit into my heart when I asked Jesus into my heart, but I realize now that this is not the same as being filled with the Holy Spirit.

I continued to read the Scriptures referenced in this book. Jesus said in Luke 11:9-13, And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion. If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” Notice, in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit, one must ask. Jesus shows the hunger of a child for bread. The child asks. Then, says that the child hungers for fish. The child asks. The child hungers for an egg. The child asks. A loving father gives to them what they hunger for.

Are we hungry for the infilling of the Holy Spirit? I was so hungry for more of God. I asked daily, sometimes many times a day, for the Father to fill me with His Holy Spirit. One night, Robert woke me up and said now is the time for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I reluctantly got up because I had already asked over and over. Sure enough, we read these Scriptures before the Lord, and we were both filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak in other tongues. Wow! We were speaking a beautiful language that the Holy Ghost was praying through us. This was so powerful. Now, I spend more of my prayer life praying in the Spirit than I do in English. Why? Because my prayer language is God praying through me. It is the perfect prayer. “For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit (1 Cor. 14:2). There are things that I can’t pray for in my native tongue because I don’t know enough about the subject of my prayer to pray effectively. For example, I don’t know how to pray in detail for our President, but God does! As I speak in tongues, the Holy Spirit prays important detail about the President that I would never know. While I don’t often understand what I pray; periodically, the Holy Spirit will show me certain things that I need to war against in prayer. I encourage you to “be filled with the Spirit”. If you desire a list of Scriptures on this subject, please feel free to request it.