Being Spirit-filled and Spirit-empowered starts with this foundation of God’s mercy and grace based on His righteousness which is by faith and not by works (Philippians 3:9). For the Spirit’s empowering to be effective, we must first allow Him to have His way in our lives. And we must also remove the blockages that hinder Him from operating. We are to be sensitive to Him, learning to tune in to His voice, and knowing what grieves and quenches His Spirit. There are four ways we can consider, to be Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered believers:

1. Surrendering to the Spirit

Failing to surrender is to revert to the flesh, that is depending on our own intelligence, strength, savvy, skills and talents. We need to surrender all of these to the Lord, and acknowledge and welcome Him.

In the area of our thoughts, we take every idea and suggestion obedient to Christ and reject propositions that are contrary to His Word. We accept thoughts on things that will edify, encourage and build up another person (1 Corinthians 14:3). The Spirit will take control of our emotions when we yield to Him the desires and inclinations of our hearts. He will temper our feelings and gradually work with them to produce the fruit of the Spirit. Finally, He aligns our will with that of the Father.

2. Specific requests for empowerment

We can specifically request for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. These can be for wisdom, a specific word of knowledge, an increased authority or an infusion of faith for healing. We can have all that we need to do good works and administer God’s grace.

      2 Corinthians 9:8

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.

Pastor Daniel shares that before he preaches and teaches, he always asks God specifically to strengthen his spirit, soul and body. He prays for an infusion of the rhema word in his spirit, to be deposited in his heart and mind by the Holy Spirit, so that God’s word will flow in and through him to accomplish His purpose. He requests clarity of mind and the thoughts to flow with the Spirit’s leading and for his emotions to be tempered so that he can respond appropriately to questions and for his response (or will) to be aligned with God’s will and in accordance with God’s Word and God’s Spirit. He also specifically prays for the Lord to intervene to prepare a spiritual atmosphere and environment conducive for teaching and preaching, so that Pastor Daniel can connect with the participants or congregation. Pastor Daniel also shared that before he understood this specific request for empowerment, there were situations when he felt like he was talking to a wall and his words just bounced back to him.

3. Desire for more of God’s anointing

As we flow with the Holy Spirit, He has greater freedom to move in our lives and we become more familiar with His leading. This is to desire more of His anointing. One area where we can seek a greater measure of anointing is in sharing the gospel. Many believers are reluctant to share their faith, for fear of being rejected or told off by people they care about, such as friends and family members.

God is always looking for someone to lay hold of Him and become His agent of change. When God intervenes in the situation and circumstance, an answer will come be it at home, in our work, in church, or in our nation. With the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we can have the fellowship of His sufferings to stand for integrity, to identify with Christ and to honour Him.

 4, Do not hinder the Spirit

There are two things that will hinder the Holy Spirit working in and through us. One is grieving Him through disobedience, and the other is quenching His fire.

Paul warns us:

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). 

The word for ‘grieve’ is lupeo in Greek, which means ‘to cause pain or sorrow’. He goes on to show how the Spirit can be grieved: through reversion to our old nature, anger and resulting sin, rebuilding ‘Jericho’ by giving the devil a foothold, laziness, bitterness, malice in our tongues, or unkindness to the family and church members. This is living and behaving carnally when we fail to put off the “old man” (Ephesians 4:22). The bottom line of grieving the Holy Spirit is when we sin and violate His Word in disobedience. When this happens, we break our fellowship with Him and our relationship becomes strained. 1 John 1:6 says,

If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

But when we realise our sin, confess our wrongdoings and appropriate the blood of Christ to cleanse us, our fellowship is restored.

We can also block His power by quenching it (1 Thessalonians 5:19). The New International Version (NIV) puts it well: “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.” The work of the Holy Spirit is sensitive, like a candle with a flickering flame that can be snuffed out by a small puff of air. To quench is to put out the work and flow of the Spirit in our lives and ministry. It is failing to flow with Him. It is being insensitive to His promptings and nudgings.

There may be moments during corporate worship when the Spirit begins to stir our emotions to express our feelings of love towards God. We quench the Spirit when our mind suppresses these expressions, brushing them off as being merely emotional. In such an instance, we fail to love God with our hearts and feelings and our minds. Conversely, we can be so emotionally absorbed in God’s presence that we fail to hear the Spirit speaking in our minds to restrain ourselves. This may be in a situation when our expressions are disturbing the meeting. We quench the Spirit when we fail to recognise that He is also a Spirit of self-control exhorting us not to stumble others in the larger body of Christ.

Instead of quenching His Spirit, we must flow completely with Him, to be led by Him in all we do. The Holy Spirit is very gentle and will never impose Himself upon us. When we ignore Him, He will just move aside, and wait for another time when we are more open to Him—however long it may take.

In conclusion, from time to time, we experience God-moments, where God speaks to us very clearly. Through a message, word or circumstance, the Holy Spirit takes the word released and unpacks it to us personally. Because we are all in different stages and situations in our lives and in our walk with God, the Holy Spirit knows perfectly what to say. When He speaks to us, we must pay attention to these God-moments and respond to Him.

Are there areas in our lives where we have grieved the Holy Spirit? How will we respond? Are there other areas where we have quenched the Holy Spirit? How will we respond then? Much food for thought, reflection and prayer.

In the next episode, we will look into the third part of the last milestone at Jordan — “Evidence of the Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered Life”.

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