The Spirit Filled Life

*The following article is from the book – Living in the Heavenly Realms – under the chapter title, “The Christian’s Work – Believing and Yielding.”

The Lord has prepared the way for God’s human children to be filled with His Spirit. He did not withhold anything when it comes to this filling. “You may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:19) He commands us to remain filled with His Spirit. Those who refuse to submit to the conditions are living in sin. And the wages of sin is death.

Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is…be filled {keep on being filled} with the Spirit. (Eph. 5:17-18)

We will find that the degree to which we are filled with the Spirit is dependent upon the degree to which He controls the things we do. He fully occupies the territory where He has full control. The natural man does not have the Spirit of God, and cannot receive the things of the Spirit, because he wants to remain in control of his own life. The carnal Christian is also limited in what he can receive from the Spirit. In every part of his life where self-will still exists, there is a separation from the Spirit of God. The Spirit cannot fill and occupy that part of the heart. Only when faith is complete, and there has been a real death to the old self-directed way of life {consecration is complete}, is it possible to be completely filled with the Spirit of God.

Human beings were created to walk in the fullness of God’s Spirit. Anyone who falls short of this Spirit-filled life where the Spirit is in full control, is falling short of the glory of God. They have not yet entered into the full salvation of the Lord.

The miraculous crossing of the Red Sea represents the point where the called-out children of God receive His Spirit. Because they choose to come out of Egypt to become Spirit-led sons of God, they are given this precious Gift. He then begins to lead them across the wilderness testing period where He uses His providences to expose the remains of the self-life. The intent is to lead these children of faith to the point where their independent and self-sufficient spirit completely dies. He must prepare them to enter the Sabbath-rest where everyone ceases from their own works. (Heb. 4:9-10) Only then, when there is nothing coming out from the flesh, can they truly become a vessel that God is able to use to display His life and works. “For we are the circumcision, who…have no confidence in the flesh.” (Phil. 3:3)

God permitted His people to bring some of their possessions out of Egypt. He let them depend on these things for a while. He never puts more of a burden on someone than He has prepared them to bear. But the Lord could not take the people into the life of promise until these things were all gone. They had to be brought to a place where they lived wholly by faith in Him. Similarly, God will wait until we have lost all hope in every other temporal support before He lifts us into the heavenly life where He is All in All.

Crossing the Jordon River is represented as passing through a real death to self. There is no other way to enter into the life of promise where God “is All” and “does All.” We are told that the Jordan was backed up to “Adam” when the Israelites crossed the river. (Josh. 3:16) It implies that this supernatural work of God within the heart will take us back to where Adam fell from this heavenly life. He lost the eternal life when he stepped into self-will. We enter into the eternal life by dying to the old self-originated form of life that he passed on to his lineage.

After crossing over the Jordan River the Israelites set up a monument using twelve stones taken from the dry riverbed. The number twelve, one of the perfect numbers, was used by God throughout the Old Testament to represent perfect governmental order. He is revealing in this example how He establishes His perfect government within the heart when this crossing of the Jordan takes place.

The heart is purified when it is filled with God’s Spirit of holy love. It is then that His undivided kingdom is established. Christ sets up His throne in the heart and begins to reign without rival. And it is from under this throne that His ever-flowing “rivers” of Living Water begin to well up into a display of His eternal life. (John 4:14; 7:37-38) We can then begin living for Him here on earth with the same submissiveness in which it is done in heaven.

Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Matt. 6:10)

…The kingdom of God does not come with observation {in the outward world}; nor will they {ever} say, “See here!” or “See there!” For indeed, the kingdom of God is {to be established} within you. (Luke 17:20-21)

It is done! {The eternal Kingdom-life is fully established within the eternal soul.} I am {then} the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. {The One who becomes the source of everything.} I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes {the world and the flesh} shall inherit all things, and I will be his God {becoming his All in All} and he shall be My son. (Rev. 21:6-7)