By Theodore Epp

      John 7:37-39

      Along with obeying we must desire to be filled and then appropriate the filling. Our Lord said in John 7:37, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink."

      Here are two prerequisites for the filling of the Holy Spirit: thirst and trust. Thirst suggests desire, and drinking suggests obedience and trust.

      Included in this desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit must be our wanting God to judge and put away sin in our lives.

      We must desire to be separated unto the Lord from the world and its evil system. We must reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. This is true positionally, but it can be made true in our spiritual life only as we yield to the Holy Spirit's control.

      We must also desire the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Do we want love, joy, peace and these other evidences of the Spirit's life in us? Do we long to enthrone Christ as Lord?

      Thirst should cause us to drink, and desire should cause us to trust. In the words of our Saviour, out of our innermost beings "shall flow rivers of living water" (v. 38).

      We not only trust Christ to save us from sin, but we also trust Him to fill us with the Spirit.

      This particular phase of believing, or trusting, in Christ should be a continuous attitude of trusting, of committing ourselves to the Lord in order to be controlled by the Holy Spirit.

      "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18).