Meditations

Passages to be considered:

Romans 8

¹¹ But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.  -kjv

Ephesians 5

¹⁸ And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;  -kjv

Colossians 3

¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.  -kjv

Question from moody radio listener on 9th September 2017:

Thank you for explaining to us that everyone who has Jesus as Lord and savior has the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Same scripture goes on to say that the Holy Spirit could be in some, with some, overshadowing some, I wonder if there are any differences in all those phrases?

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

Overshadowing? Where does it say overshadowing?

Listener:

Mary … Is there a difference in varying degrees the filling of the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Holy Spirit and with those differences, the consequence in terms of the mentality, anointing, benefits and so on?

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

I will do my best on this one … ok? First of all, I will say that the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit upon the mother of our Messiah was unique, it’s not like everyone experiences that overshadowing, it was the way a miracle happened that she was able to have a baby. One of the things that is really repulsive is that some people make it almost seem like a sexual union between Holy Spirit and Mary. It was not and it was a miracle that the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and cause this child to be formed in her womb. It was not sexual, it was merely a miracle. And so, that’s what happened there and I don’t think it is common or normal or something that every believer experiences obviously.

Secondly, the filling of the Holy Spirit is a command. Too often, we think that filling of the Spirit like a cup, do we have quart of a cup, do we have a half cup? It’s not filling a cup, the way I would use it is a picture of a sponge, being filled and certainly a different kind of filling there. And so, you can’t have more Holy Spirit than I have. You know, we all have the Holy Spirit. Now  how much use do we want to make of that Holy Spirit? That’s a different story. There were people in Rome who were making the idea that they can have more Holy Spirit than others, when needed more Holy Spirit we need more Holy Spirit than these, Paul writes that Romans 8:11 that ” The spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Messiah from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His spirit who lives in you.” So, the point there is, we don’t need to go looking for more Holy Spirit, we already have the power that raised Jesus from the dead indwelling us, we don’t need more of Him, He needs more of us. That, I think is the great difference and in Ephesians 5:18, where it says “Don’t be drunk with wine, but rather be filled with the Holy Spirit.” The word means control, that’s the idea. In the bible when it says be filled with joy means controlled by joy, filled with rage means controlled by rage, filled with the Holy Spirit, that means they are controlled by the Holy Spirit. How that happens is found in the parallel passage to Ephesians 5:18, it is found in Colossians 3. Gives a similar command, it’s a parallel passage, with the same consequences. So you read in Ephesians 5:18, if you are filled with the Spirit, you will worship, you will have healthy family relationships, all these kinds of consequences. In Colossians, it gives the command and has the same worship and healthy family relationships but the difference is in Ephesians 5:18, it says be filled with the Spirit, and in Colossians 3;16, I believe, it says let the word of the Messiah dwell in you richly and that means let  the word of God take forcible occupation of our lives, and the more we read, study, understand and obey God’s word, the more the word of God takes forcible occupation, that’s the parallel idea to letting the Spirit controls us. How does the Spirit controls us, the Spirit controls us as we allow the word of God to take forceful occupation of our lives and we obey it, that’s when we are transformed, that’s how He gets control of us.