How to be Filled with the Spirit

“And be not drunken with wine… but be filled with the Spirit, speaking one to another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs making melody with your heart to the Lord...” (Eph. 5:18-21)

This verse contains a spiritual imperative… we are to be filled with the Spirit. That filling is our responsibility not Gods. We are filled with the Spirit when we sing, when we give thanks and when we subject ourselves to one another.

These verses and the preceding verses are instructions given to individual Christians, i.e., not assembly instructions. The singing instructions then are not primarily regulating congregational (assembly) singing but are primarily about an individual being “filled with the Spirit” by singing. That can be done as an individual, a group of individuals or the assembly. If we say that these verses concerning singing only regulate congregational singing then by the same reasoning “giving thanks” and “subjecting ourselves one to another” would also have to be exclusively congregational (assembly) related. Simply… not true.

Be filled with the Spirit by actively following the instructions listed in Ephesians 5; Sing, give thanks, and place the needs of others before your own needs. It is your spiritual responsibility.