The Fullness of Blessing

1 John 4:13
“Hereby we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit.”

“There are difficulties that confront some people as they face the question whether or not they are filled with the Holy Spirit. There are those who are in difficulty about this matter because of wrong desires or wrong motives. We must not covet experiences. We must not covet gifts. Rather, we are to covet and desire righteousness. We are to covet holiness. We should desire earnestly that gift that would most make us like the Lord Jesus Christ. We should desire to be the kind of person who is described in Romans 12. That is what we should covet. We must hunger and thirst after righteousness, not after blessing.

Also is wrong practice a difficulty. Wrong practice is summarized in the New Testament in this way: We are perhaps not aware of the Spirit within us because we are guilty of quenching the Spirit. That may mean not obeying the prompting of the Holy Spirit within us. He is resident within us and moving us and prompting us. Not to obey His prompting, not to yield to it, is to quench the Holy Spirit. If we are quenching the Spirit, we will not be aware of the power and the life and activity of the Spirit in our lives.

The other way in which we engage in wrong practice is to grieve the Spirit (Eph 4:30). We grieve Him by committing sin. Sin grieves the Spirit. To do deliberately that which you know is wrong is put you in the position in which you cannot know that the Holy Spirit is in you. If there is anything doubtful in your life, you must get rid of it.

If these are the causes of difficulty, how does one obtain a fullness of the Spirit? First of all, read the Bible. Secondly, be obedient. Avoid quenching and grieving the Spirit. obey every prompting and leading of the Spirit and every holy desire and aspiration and every urge to prayer.