Filled with What?

I want us to look at something many people say flippantly while others compare wrongly.

Ever heard believers say that tea is a Christian’s alcohol?

Is there any similarity between the two apart from both being liquids? Why then do some say this?

I believe it is because they feel Christianity has deprived them of the permission to indulge. They therefore turn to tea for nostalgia. It then means that they are in the faith for the wrong reasons.

Like a friend said, they are in the faith for fear of hell (here or eternal). This means that they will always be on the doorway looking out to see when or whether the danger will abate. They will thus be totally useless in the house since their eyes and hearts are always outside.

There is a favorite chorus for the like. Loosely translated it says I found Jesus and have looked all over but have found nobody else like Him. And they are still seeking.

What can you ever desire after finding Jesus? Isn’t Jesus the culmination of the search? Isn’t He the pearl of great value? How do you continue searching after finding Jesus? How will you seek after Jesus takes ahold of your hand and life?

But today I want us to look at a similar misconception concerning the Holy Spirit.

Have you like me heard believers boasting that they are drunk with the Holy Spirit, some to the point of staggering?

And why do they do that?

Because the Bible says do not be drunk with wine …, be filled with the Holy Spirit. They therefore equate instead of differentiating the two experiences as the Bible teaches.

You see, alcohol numbs our senses, the Holy Spirit awakens them. Alcohol takes control of our bodies; the Holy Spirit empowers our bodies to be in charge.

When a drunkard dirties himself, it is because the urge to empty his bowels overtakes the discipline to wait until he gets to the right place to do it.

It is therefore an insult to the Holy Spirit to equate or compare, however remotely, His filling with drunkenness.

It is no wonder that many in that camp have no issues with immorality since that is what drunkenness produces.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2Timothy 1:7)

The Holy Spirit awakens our senses to their highest because only then can we consciously cede our control of the same to Him. As in any legal transaction, one must demonstrate sobriety and absolute control of our decision making processes to be allowed to sign. We can’t therefore be drunk with the Holy Spirit and retain our bargaining power or personhood.

The Holy Spirit opens all the pores sin had blocked as we walked according to our will. Our body then becomes the closest to the factory settings at creation. Our senses become very sharp. And I will demonstrate using one such sense since it is most troublesome.

The sex drive

Animals mate when they must. God created man to be different as sex serves other purposes than just reproduction.

He thus created a desire for intimacy with the opposite gender as an introduction to those other dimensions but then created boundaries for the same so that we are not destroyed when we behave like animals.

The spiritual man has a most awakened sex drive as he has been cleansed from the corruption that blocks and pollutes that drive. He therefore must be most sober to be able to handle it as he is guided by the Holy Spirit. What I am saying in short is that the Holy Spirit invigorates the sex drive of the believer.

He must therefore be very careful to keep that drive in check and submitted to the Holy Spirit. He must be careful to follow God’s prescription on how he takes care of that drive.

A case in point is Joseph. I hope you realize that he did not run because the woman was too strong as would have raped him. He did not run because he could not have won an argument or convinced her against them having sex. He was a spiritual man who knew himself.

He was a young man with raging hormones as we say. Then comes a very desirable woman that seeks to fulfill all his fantasies. And she does not want to listen to reason.

His body is crying for a release and he knows that the longer he stays with her arguing or fighting her advances the more on fire his body would be becoming. Chances were that he could have gotten to the point of falling into sin since his testosterone could have overridden all his arguments as happened to Samson before Delilah and David before the bathing beauty one evening.

Many young people who thought they were strong to argue their way out of temptation eventually fell into sin for that simple reason. That is why we hear of pastors getting into sexual liaisons in the process of counseling damsels in distress.

I will repeat that the Holy Spirit activates and invigorates our senses and impulses to their highest because He also does the same to our mind. And it is so that we can choose obedience and follow His leading with all our faculties intact.

Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. (2Timothy 2:22)

We are not instructed to fight or argue with our desires. We are to flee, like Joseph did.

But a drunk person, though he can see what is happening, has not much control of his senses, let alone his body.

That is why it could actually be blasphemy to talk of getting drunk on the Holy Spirit. This is because we are by implication accusing the Holy Spirit of leading us to sin when we sin under His anointing.

The Holy Spirit leads when we give Him control. And that leading is always subject to our continued submission to His leadership. Look at this.

The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. As in all the assemblies of the saints, (1Corinthians 14: 32, 33)

That is the opposite of drunkenness.

But that is what happens when people build their theology on a single verse and seek to justify the same with their experience, some of which is made up.

We have no choice but make a determination to agree with what the Bible says, and only that. Otherwise we will get into very foolish errors.