Be Being Filled

A Well-Kept Secret

Being filled with the Spirit has to do with singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Wow! This passage gives us one of the best kept secrets of the Bible. We might say that it’s hidden in plain sight. And what is that secret? It is that we become filled with the Spirit by singing songs and making melody in our hearts to the Lord.

Because if we were to ask any number of believers how to be filled with the Spirit, some would say we should pray, others would say we should fast, others might say we need to study the word of God, and some might have other answers. Very few would say that we need to sing and make melodies to the Lord in our heart. Yet the Bible tells us that’s what we need to do.

Not the Baptism in the Holy Spirit

Now, this passage is not talking about what many would call the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or being Spirit-filled, the initial experience of being filled with the Spirit, although it's closely associated with it. This is talking more about how to retain the filling of the Spirit, or how to increase the filling of the Spirit in your life on a daily basis. For the initial infilling of the Spirit, or the Baptism, we would need to look at other scripture verses. But, again, that's not what we're talking about here.

All Believers have the Spirit

Now, all Christian believers have the Holy Spirit. Those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and have experienced the new birth, those who have been born again or born from above, have the Holy Spirit. In fact, it’s the work of the Holy Spirit that makes a person a new creature in Christ, regenerating them in the Lord.

If a person does not have the Holy Spirit, he has not been born again and does not belong to Christ. But those who have been born again do have the Holy Spirit living in them.

Having the Spirit is not being Filled

Yet, on the other hand, having the Holy Spirit and being filled with the Holy Spirit are two different things. All believers have the Holy Spirit, but some seem to have greater manifestations of the Spirit in their lives. They are more filled with the Spirit than others are, you might say. And there are reasons why.

Stephen stood out from the typical believer of his day. Why? Because he was FULL of faith and FULL of power, or that is, filled with the Holy Spirit.

Full of Faith and Power

He was a man of the word, because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, and it says he was full of faith. He got that from the word. But it also says he was full of power, meaning miraculous power, the power of the Spirit of God. How then did he become full of the Spirit? By speaking to himself in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, by singing and making melody in his heart to the Lord.

There are many Christians today who study and meditate in the word of God, and as a result, they have a knowledge of the word and they likely have more faith than others who spend less time in Bible study. Yet they fail to understand how to be filled with the spirit.

This verse tells us to let the word dwell in us or live in us richly, by teaching one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and by singing in our hearts to the Lord.

Song and melody are important in our spiritual development, singing songs together as a group, as well as singing and making melody in our own heart to the Lord. So, songs ought to be used in corporate settings as well as in personal devotions.

Notice he said “IN” psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. In other words, while we’re in those songs, while we’re singing them. Songs can both teach us the word of Christ and also cause us to be filled with the Spirit of the Lord, not just having the Spirit in us, but having the Spirit that is in us be enhanced and be made more manifest in our Lives.

The Anointing

Christian music is different from ordinary worldly music. There is a certainly heavenly characteristic about it. Many call that the anointing of the Spirit. Others may call it the presence of the Lord, or the sweetness of God, or other expressions. You might hear someone say, that song was really anointed. In other words, the Holy Spirit was on it.

That’s the reason that Christian music is so important in our growth in the Lord. It has the anointing, that something special from the Spirit upon it. The more we expose ourselves to that, the more it will come upon us as well, or the more anointed we'll become, so to speak.

That’s why the Bible tells us to sing to ourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and to sing and make melody in our hearts to the Lord, because in doing so we are exposing ourselves to that special thing from the Spirit, and it causes us to be filled with Him.

Be being Filled

Find Christian songs, songs based on scriptural truth, songs that move your spirit, songs that lift you to a greater perception of God’s presence, and then listen to them, sing along with them, let the Spirit of God touch your heart through those songs.

And as we do this consistently, we will find ourselves more filled with the Spirit, more in tune with the Lord, and more hungry for the things of God.