How to Stay Filled and Overflowing with the Holy Spirit
We have been speaking about the spirit-filled life, and much of my approach is to challenge people not to content themselves with a theoretical, theological spirit-filled life. Many of us would call ourselves a spiritual church, and from my point of view that is the only church you can be—everything else is illegal. You cannot do enough exegetical origami with the Bible to twist it and make it say that the power of God has gone. We need the power of the Holy Spirit. The Christian life is nothing without the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Church Needs the Power of the Holy Spirit
“And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18 NKJV)
The church needs the power of the Holy Spirit. If you are going to go to Jerusalem, it is not enough to have a tract—you need the anointing of God on your tract. The same thing is true in Boston, in New York City, in your neighborhood and my neighborhood. It is not what we know when we speak; it is where we are in God when we speak. It is not what you say; it is where you are in your relationship with God that will affect other people.
A lot of what I have been saying is not to criticize anybody. I have drank the Kool-Aid—I love the Holy Spirit. My granddad was born again in the Welsh revival. I grew up as a little boy with my granddad telling me stories of how the Holy Ghost came rolling over the hills. My dad loved revival, loved the power of the Holy Spirit. In some ways my dad got spoiled by being in revival meetings—he actually struggled to do normal church, and later in his life he realized he was wrong. There are other important things in church. When I was a young kid, in the early 1970s, my parents would drive in a little van with no seats in the back. They would drive about eight to nine hours to go to a church, especially the church where Ian Andrews came from because this church was in revival. They would often drive it without sleep overnight in this van or go and drive all the way back, get home at 3 AM, and then my dad would go to work at 9 AM because they wanted to be where the Holy Spirit was moving.
From a Drink to a Fountain
“But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14 NKJV)
Let me show you something I have never clearly seen in my whole Christian life—I saw it about three weeks ago. It is so simple. I want to speak about how to stay full, filled, and overflowing with the Holy Spirit. If you have never been filled with the Holy Spirit, we can get you filled with the Holy Spirit, but you are not the person I am speaking to. I want to answer the question: how do we live in this place where for the rest of our lives we are overflowing with the spirit of the living God?
In John 4, Jesus meets a woman at a well. I love the way Jesus does things. This woman is the first person Jesus ever revealed himself to as Messiah. This woman got more than the disciples did. The disciples still did not really get who Jesus was, even right to the end. The woman literally says later in this passage, when Messiah comes he will tell us everything, and Jesus is like, I am he. It was not a particularly holy woman either. It was not a Jewish woman who had a perfect life—this was a Samaritan. The Jews looked down on the Samaritans. The Samaritans believed in the law of Moses but not the prophets. They were like the cousins, the black sheep of the family. The Jewish people looked at them like second class citizens. This woman was the lowest of the low. She was there at a well at lunchtime because none of the other women wanted to be seen with her. Jesus at one point says to the woman, why do you not go and bring your husband? She had been married four times and she is now shacked up with a guy. That is not that common to be married four times in that society.
Jesus says something incredible to this woman that most Pentecostal and charismatic people have missed. In John 4 verse 7, a woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to the woman, give me a drink. For his disciples had gone into the city to buy food. The woman of Samaria said to him, how is it that you being a Jew ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, sir you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep, where then will you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well and drank from it himself as well as his sons and livestock? Verse 13, Jesus answered and said to her, whosoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whosoever drinks of the water I will give him will never thirst again. But the water I give him will become in him a fountain of water that springs up into everlasting life. The woman said to him, sir give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to drink.
In John 7, it says on the last great day of the feast Jesus stood up and cried saying, if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink, he who believes in me as the scriptures have said out of his heart his innermost being his belly will flow rivers of living water. This he spoke concerning the Spirit who those believing in him would receive.
Have You Been Thirsty for God?
“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25 NKJV)
Have you ever been thirsty for God? There is something wrong and missing in our Christian life if we are thirsty for God. Jesus said if you drink of the water I will give you, you will never thirst again. God wants to give us a spiritual life where we never thirst again. Most of us have experiences in the Holy Spirit—maybe a moment where people pray for us and we are filled, or we went to a conference and we were so overflowing with the Holy Spirit. Yet for most of us those things turn into a season or an experience.
What we have done in the Christian world is we have looked at our experience, we have dramatic moments where we are filled with the Holy Spirit, but it does not seem to last. Out of our experience or our bad experience or our lack of experience, we have developed theology. Our theology comes from the Bible, not from what we have lived. In the spirit-filled world we have come up with phrases like God will fill you but you leak. Does the Bible say that? Or it is like I get filled but every six months I have to go back and get a top up. We have this top up mentality. That is not what Jesus said here. If that is your framework, your theology, you will have little moments where you are filled but you have to content yourself with normal boring Christianity or get thirsty or get around a bunch of other people who are thirsty so you do not notice how empty you really are. Then there will be moments in your life or in the corporate body of Christ when God will come and fill you up again. We are missing something.
The Fountain Within
“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38 NKJV)
The answer is in this passage and it is so easy. Jesus says to the woman, I will give you a drink. When you drink, the drink will turn into a fountain. We start off drinking. Jesus says if you will drink of the water I give you, it will become a fountain in you. If you are a good evangelical and you have never been baptized in the Holy Spirit, come and talk to me at the end about drinking. You need to take an initial drink. You need to come to the river of water and take a drink. That is the initial thing. The goal of the Holy Spirit is not that we go around with fill my cup Lord I lift it up Lord. Rather the song we should be singing is I have got a river of life flowing out of me that makes the lame to walk and the blind to see.
Born again spirit-filled Christians, you have a fountain on the inside of you. Not a cup, a fountain. What most of us do is when we stop feeling it, we stop believing it. Jesus said to he who believes out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. I have a fountain in me all the time whether I feel it or whether I do not. It does not come and go. I do not have to go to Jerusalem for a top up. I did not go to Jerusalem to find the Messiah. I went with the Messiah and he flew back to New Jersey with me. You have a fountain on the inside of you. The challenge for the believer is to learn to activate and release that fountain.
Keys to Releasing the Fountain
“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7 NKJV)
You have to believe. You have to be a man or a woman of faith. You have to base it on faith. When you begin to believe, whenever I pray for the sick I will stop for a minute and go I have the God who creates universes on the inside of me. We have learned now there are more galaxies in the universe than there are grains of sand on the whole of planet Earth—galaxies, not solar systems. We cannot count the stars in one galaxy. It is incomprehensible to our brains what God did when he said let there be light. That is my God. Do you think you could grow a leg out half an inch? Do you think you could put a new body part in you? That is our God and he is on the inside of us.
I feel really anointed right now. I did not feel really anointed when I was getting the heating working or setting the lights up or doing other things, but when I step into the sending of God. There is a wonderful Hebrew word that is all over the Bible—hineni, it means here am I send me. It is like Lord I present myself to you, use me, send me. Every day we should be saying Lord, the Lord said to Isaiah who will go for me? Hineni. Here is my number Lord send me. If you want a life full of the power of God, do not go from conference to conference having hands laid on you till the hair falls off of your head. Rather say Lord hineni send me.
The last key is God sent speaks the words of God. Let us think this through. I have had a drink and I now have a fountain. How do we get that fountain out? I think it is out of here. I think the instrument of revival is about one inch below your nose. Satan is terrified of your words. Satan wants your mouth. He either wants to get you saying foolish things—let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but rather that which will minister favor and grace to the hearer—or he wants you to say things which deny the word of God. It is amazing the temptation to speak things out that contradict the word of God. One of the greatest keys you can ever do is to learn to shut up. When Jairus came to Jesus he said my daughter is about to die, Jesus says I will come and heal her, and Jairus did this and he never spoke another word. Then this woman with an issue of blood comes and gets healed and Jesus stops—who touched me? Can you imagine Jairus thinking I do not care who touched you, my daughter is dying? Five minutes later the news comes—your daughter is dead. Jesus turned to him and said fear not only believe. Jairus still shut his mouth. When they came to the house Jesus put all the relatives out. Sometimes if you want a miracle put all of your relatives out. Let the relatives enjoy what Jesus has done when he has done it. He put everybody out except Peter James John and Jairus. Jairus got to watch his daughter come back to life because he did not speak out. Can you imagine the pressure to say it is not going to work? If you cannot speak truth shut up.
There is a massive connection with how much we speak this word and how much we pray in the Holy Spirit. It is that that releases the fountain on the inside of us. There is such a warfare that goes on to stop Christians praying in tongues. If you try this, if I pray in tongues more than about 30 seconds it is like Satan is like stop that. I get tempted to clean the kitchen or the bathroom if I pray in tongues. We know that is the devil. The Holy Spirit will never do that. We have to give our mouths over to the Lord and say Lord I want you to release. When you begin speaking God’s words, words from heaven, it is like the bucket goes down and the well becomes a fountain. Satan loves it when we mumble in tongues. Many people who struggle with praying in the spirit do pray in tongues but every time they do it they get bombarded with thoughts that it is not real. There is something about not being afraid of the sound of your own voice. Do not let Satan steal your voice.
The Lord wants an outpouring in this house. The way you get an outpouring is to pour out. It is to not beg God to pour his spirit out—he has already done it. His spirit dwells in your innermost being. What he is saying to every church is to pour out. We come together to pour out. We come with an agenda—we are going to pour out. We are going to pour everything we have got at the feet of Jesus and it is going to release a perfume in the house that will draw people to him. Let us dedicate our mouths to the Lord. Lord forgive us when we have spoken words which did not build up or edify or words which contradicted your word. Lord cleanse our mouths and we present even our mouths as a living sacrifice to you today. Lord I believe you for an army of people, an army of fountains who will create together a river that no enemy can put up a barricade against. I proclaim that it will be a year about pouring in this church because we gather to pour out. I speak a blessing on every person. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make the favor of his face shine on you today and for eternity in Jesus name.
Let that truth settle in your spirit.
Selah.
Scriptures for Further Study: Ephesians 5:18, John 4:14, John 7:38, Galatians 5:25, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Isaiah 6:8, John 3:8, Acts 2:17-18, Romans 8:26-27, Jude 1:20, 1 Corinthians 14:2, 1 Corinthians 14:4, 1 Corinthians 14:14-15, Ephesians 6:18, Romans 8:11, John 7:37, Acts 1:8, Acts 2:4, Acts 4:31, Acts 10:46, Acts 19:6, Mark 16:17, 1 Corinthians 12:10, 1 Corinthians 13:1, 1 Corinthians 14:39
10 Questions for Reflection:
- Have I contented myself with a theoretical spirit-filled life?
- Where have I experienced the power of the Holy Spirit but it did not last?
- How can I shift from a top up mentality to a fountain mentality?
- What does it mean to have a fountain on the inside?
- Where do I need to walk by faith when I do not feel the Holy Spirit?
- How can I step into the sending of God in my daily life?
- What words am I speaking that contradict the word of God?
- Where do I need to learn to shut up when I cannot speak truth?
- How can I release the fountain through speaking God’s words and praying in tongues?
- What would change if I dedicated my mouth to the Lord?
