Living Spirit-Filled: Engaging Prayer, Faith, and Scripture

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Therefore, look carefully how you walk. Christians do not coast; they are vigilant to try to live in a certain obedience, not as unwise but as wise, purchasing the time because the days are evil. Therefore, don't be foolish, don't be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. [00:50:53]

And do not get drunk with wine. You lose touch with reality. How could you ever look carefully how you will walk if you're in a drunken stupor out of touch with reality? For that leads to debauchery, a kind of wasted life with sinfulness that is sinfulness, which of course all is excessive, but this goes beyond ordinary sinning to life-destroying sin. [00:79:83]

But rather, instead of being influenced in unreality by alcohol, be influenced in reality by fullness of the Holy Spirit, which now overflows with addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. [00:116:00]

So what is the answer then to the question, how do you obey this command? I'm going to go back and see two texts that we've seen already and argue that there are several steps that you can actually take, and the first one is prayer. [00:206:48]

So Paul is modeling here in chapter 1 how to do that. I pray that God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father Lord, would give you a spirit of wisdom, give you Christians a spirit of wisdom. Now we already have the spirit, so I take him to mean more and more of the spirit experienced through wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of God. [00:261:84]

Here's the most beautiful prayer in Paul, I think, in chapter 3:14 following. For this reason, I bow my knee, so he's praying for the Ephesians, before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you, this is his prayer, grant you Christians to be strengthened. [00:311:91]

So we hear the gospel, we hear the word of God, we hear the promises, and we believe them, and in believing them, the spirit is supplied unto fullness. Oh, sweet. This is what we can do, which implies then a sequence of events or processes or habits that I'll just describe to you now as we close. [00:613:60]

Romans 10:17 says faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. You see the connection here. Does the supply of the spirit come to you with works of the law? Do you work your way into fullness? No. You hear and believe your way into fullness. You listen and you believe. [00:644:08]

Oh, there's this is why we read our Bibles every morning because we want to be full of the Holy Spirit, right? That's why you read your Bible, isn't it? To be filled with the Holy Spirit because when we look at the word, we see Christ, and when we see Christ, faith is awakened. [00:682:08]

Psalm 119, I pray, incline my heart to your testimonies. In other words, you get up in the morning, and you don't always want to read your Bible, right? So what do you do? You say, well, I'd be hypocrite if I read my Bible today, so I don't want to just do something out of duty. [00:721:28]

Spiritual soldiers cry out, incline, incline, incline, knock me over, God, with your testimonies, make me want your testimonies, make me want your testimonies, and then you pray, open my eyes so you start reading. You'll see anything. What do you do? Give up? Well, I'm not going to see anything today. [00:748:00]

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad in you all our days. And what's the effect of that? Sing, sing, sing, sing, sing to the Lord and to one another from your heart. God do it. [00:811:76]

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