Being filled with the Spirit requires an understanding of our own spirits and how to open them up to the Lord.
To be born of the Spirit, we must become willing to surrender the whole of our life, for the Spirit of God to govern. It is an unconditional yes, to the lordship of Jesus Christ over our spirit, soul and body and all that we possess.
I have never seen a person’s spirit born of God, without this willingness being worked in them, by the Holy Spirit. People do not come wholeheartedly to the Lord, because they are unwilling to surrender certain aspects of their lives.
John 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
When our spirit is born again, when it comes alive to God, it is still without the necessary power to serve the lord. Our spirit now desires the things of God, but our flesh desires in opposition to it, so we experience an inner warfare. When this warfare is going on inside of us, we do not do what our spirit desires-Gal 5:14. We must be filled with the Spirit of God, to receive the necessary power to serve the Lord.
Acts 1: 4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. 5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized (Immerse, submerge, to overwhelm, saturate) with (in-the primary idea of the word is rest, it speaks of intimate union with) the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
Acts 1: 8 But ye shall receive power(especially achieving power. All the words derived from the stem dúna– have the meaning of being able, capable. It may even mean to will), after that the Holy Ghost is come upon (rest upon, on, in, and of motion upon)
you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
To be baptized in the Holy Spirit means to be immersed in God, to be totally saturated with God and overwhelmed. The Holy Spirit comes upon us and totally penetrates into our spirit and soul. Our soul becomes aware of the presence of God, and our spirit is liberated to speak in tongues, to speak forth the perfect will of God for our lives.
As we speak in tongues we are immediately able to locate our spirit, and we can feel the power of God in it. The power in our spirit will enable us to bring our soul and body under subjection to the government of God (kingdom).
The salvation of our soul is a process. We have to be able to differentiate what is of our spirit and what is of our soul. We have to lose our life in order to keep it unto eternal life. The word for life is soul.
John 12: 24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. 25 He that loveth (continuous action, philéō-to hold dear, be-friend) his life (psuché;-soul) shall lose it; and he that hateth(continuous action, th opposite of agape “divine love” to detest) his life (psuché-soul) in this world ( the present order of things, as opposed to the kingdom )shall keep (The experience of being kept under guard) it unto(motion into a thing) life (zōé-the life of God) eternal.
Our soul is our natural human life; it has basic instincts or drives for fulfillment. Our soul becomes tied to the things of this world, and familiar spirits operate in the soulish realm.
Until our spirit was born again our soul lived in independence from the lord. Our soul is directly related to our bloodstream, and is the root of all our problems. The self-life resides in the soul. And as long as we are living in self, sin can enter in any moment and bring us into bondage.
We are to hate our soul in this world. And this is something that we naturally cannot do. We are powerless in ourselves to change our soul.
To hate our soul in this world, we need the anger of the lord. This is an objective anger and not subjective. But when our spirit becomes alive to God, we can tune into it.
All the attributes of God can flow into our spirit when it is open to the Lord. The kingdom of God resides inside us (once our spirit is born again) and we have to bring our soul into subjection to it.
We need the fear of the lord flowing into our spirit, causing our soul and body to tremble before him. This is something that we literally experience. We work out our soul salvation in fear and trembling.
The fear of the lord is healthy, we need to tune into the fear of the lord. The fear of the lord and sin cannot dwell in the same space and we get to choose, which one we want to live in.
We need the anger of the lord flowing into our spirit, which gives us the power to say no! I always thought anger was a bad thing, and human anger is, it doesn’t work the righteousness of the lord. We need to put off human anger, and put on the anger of the Lord.
If we do not learn how to walk in the spirit, then we walk in self, and when we are living in self, then sin can enter in. And when sin enters in then we cry out to the lord help me, help me I am a Christian get me out of here. And the lord is faithful he delivers us again and again.
Math 6: 13 And lead (forbids an action which is not in progress, and thus commands that it not be started, to bring into a certain place) us not (conditional negative) into (motion into a place) temptation, but deliver (not continuous, a decisive act with permanent results, to draw or snatch from danger, rescue, deliver. This is more with the meaning of drawing to oneself than merely rescuing from someone or something) us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
To understand the meaning of the word deliver, we can picture a person falling into a raging river being carried downstream crying out help me! Help me! And then the lord pulls us out of the river of sin, up into the realm of His presence.
But unless we learn how to walk in the spirit, we will keep falling back into the river of sin. The gradational pull of the world will draw us back into our sin.
Galations 5: 16 This I say then, Walk (command continuous, to be occupied with, to pursue a course of action or way of life, continue in union with) in the Spirit, and ye shall not (no, never) fulfill (to carry it through) the lust (strong desire, longing, craving) of the flesh (seat of carnal desires and appetites).
And ye shall not! There are three words in the Greek for not, a conditional negative, a full negative and a double negative. This is the strongest word, a double negative (no, never!). It is impossible to fulfill the lust of the flesh, when we walk in the spirit.
We are to hate our soul in this world. We are to hate the self life, which gives place to sin. Self cannot hate self. We need the anger of the lord to put to death the self life. We are to zero in on an area that we struggle with and pursue after it with the anger of the lord, until we know it is dead.
The Salvation of the soul is a process. All temptation lies in the realm of the soul. The anger of the lord gives us the power to say no, until our mind is renewed. Once our mind is renewed we are no longer tempted in that area if we continue to walk in the spirit. But if we decide to live for ourselves, instead of the lord, then sin can come back in and we become worse off than we were before.
It is our soul that sins and our soul has to be separated from sin and transformed, where it lives by the life of the lord, and familiar spirits have no more access to it.
Genesis 4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain (possession), Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth ( It is used figuratively of sin lying, crouching at the door) at the door referring to an opening, an entrance, a door, a doorway) And unto (It has the basic meaning of toward, indicating direction. It is used metaphorically to refer to speaking to someone or sexual intercourse) thee shall be his desire (longing, the strong feelings of desire that one person had for another) and thou shalt rule (to rule, to reign, or to have dominion over)over him.
Sin is crouching at the door like a lion that is ready to spring and its desire is for you, sin in many places is almost personified. The person of the devil and the nature of sin almost blend into one another. We can’t really say that is sin and that is the devil, one sort of merges into another, at times sin is spoken of almost as if it is a person in its own right- it’s the manifestation of the nature and the purpose of the devil.
Familiar spirits do not have a body, and they desire to get into our soul and body to find expression. When we yield to the works of the flesh, we give place to the devil and he finds a home to live in. We are fellowshipping with evil spirits. We are partaking of their essence and they are feeding off of our flesh.
Once a familiar spirit gets into us, it does not want to leave. It has to be forced to leave. And then it will try to get back in us. This is when we need the anger of the lord to say no! We need deliverance.
Once we learn how to be filled with the Spirit, then we can walk in the spirit and stay free from demonic influence.