A Spiritual Secret; How to Be Filled With the Spirit

I am going to tell you a secret. You ready for this, it’s a spiritual secret. It’s not my secret; it’s what the great missionary Hudson Taylor called “his spiritual secret. It deals with being filled with the Spirit or walking in the spirit. First, let’s establish the fact that we are commanded to walk in the Spirit 

16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit,..Gal 5:16 

Synonymous to walking in the Spirit is being filled with the spirit. 

17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. 

18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Eph 5: 17-18 

Notice the comparison to being drunk, when someone is drunk they are influenced and controlled by alcohol. In the same way we are commanded to be controlled or filled with the Spirit. Now the question is; how? How can we be filled or walk in the Spirit? 

The great missionary Hudson Taylor had trouble with understanding how to be filled with the Spirit. I quote from his book Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret from a letter that he wrote. 

Perhaps I may make myself more clear if I go back a little. Well, dear, my mind has been greatly exercised for six or eight months past, feeling the need personally and for our Mission of more holiness, life, power in our souls. But personal need stood first and was the greatest. I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for meditation — but all without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me. 

I knew that if only I could abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not. I would begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye off Him for a moment, but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, and constant interruptions apt to be so wearing, caused me to forget Him. Then one’s nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control. Each day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power. To will was indeed “present with me,” but how to perform I found not… 

So, Hudson Taylor had a problem, he was not being successful in His Christian life and ministry—he realized he was not being filled with the Spirit. So, what is the solution to the problem? Hudson continues. 

All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was — how to get it out. He was rich truly, but I was poor; He was strong, but I weak. I knew full well that there was in the root, the stem, abundant fatness, but how to get it into my puny little branch was the question. As gradually light dawned, I saw that faith was the only requisite — was the hand to lay hold on His fullness and make it mine. But I had not this faith… 

When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed to me the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never 

known it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure but saw the light before I did, wrote (I quote from memory): 

“But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.” 

As I read, I saw it all! “If we believe not, he abideth faithful.” I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He had said, “I will never leave thee.” 

“Ah, there is rest!” I thought. “I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I’ll strive no more. For has not He promised to abide with me — never to leave me, never to fail me?” And, dearie, He never will. 

So, what is the solution to the problem? Faith—we are filled with the Spirit or walk in the Spirit by faith. Consider this verse. 

6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Col 2:6 

How did we receive the Lord? By faith. So, how do we walk in the Spirit? By faith. 

7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) 2 Cor 5:7 

And here is the result in Hudson’s life 

The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient. It little matters to my servant whether I send him to buy a few cash worth of things, or the most expensive articles. In either case he looks to me for the money and brings me his purchases. So, if God should place me in serious perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? No fear that His resources will prove unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me. 

And since Christ has thus dwelt in my heart by faith, how happy I have been! I wish I could tell you about it, instead of writing. I am no better than before. In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be. But I am dead and buried with Christ — ay, and risen too! And now Christ lives in me, and “the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” 

So, as we start our day, we should make sure our sins are confessed and ask God to fill us with His Spirit, that Jesus would speak through us, love through us, live through us and believe that He will—that is the key, we must believe He will. 

6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 

7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. James 1:6,7 

Does not God say, if we ask anything according to His will that He will give it to us? It is God’s will for us to be filled with the Spirit, so if we ask in faith believing, He will do it! 

Not sure that you will go to heaven? The end times are knocking on the door and so is Jesus. He wants to save you; will you let him in? Find out what you must do to be saved, click here. 

Have you had your epiphany? You need to be prepared for the end times! Read The Coming Epiphany;—Your Guide to Understanding End Times Bible Prophecy.