Life Practices – Being Filled by Repenting and Confessing

Higher Ground | Day 7

BEING FILLED BY REPENTING AND CONFESSING

Acts 3:19 – Repent therefore and turn, that your sins may be wiped away.
Acts 24:16 – Because of this I also exercise myself to always have a conscience without offense toward God and men.
Eph. 5:18 – Do not be drunk with wine…but be filled in spirit.

The heart is the gateway—the entrance and exit—of the spirit. Our heart must be open to the Lord in order for Him to come into our spirit. How can we open our heart? We must repent and continue to repent in order to exercise our conscience. Not only did we need to repent at the time we heard the gospel, but even after we are saved we have to repent continually. In the seven epistles in Revelation 2 and 3 the Lord demands that we repent (2:5, 16; 3:3, 19). To repent is to turn our mind, which is one door of the gateway of our heart. When we turn our mind and our mind is open, our confession follows. This is the exercise and opening of the conscience. Then when we have true repentance and real confession, our emotion and will follow to make a decision for the Lord. In this way, the whole heart is exercised and open, and the Lord comes in through our heart into our spirit. (Practical Lessons on the Experience of Life, p. 119)

How much the Spirit can fill you within depends on how much room you give Him. The more room you give Him, the more He fills you. Similarly, the amount of air that fills a bottle depends on how much space there is in the bottle. If half of the bottle is filled with soil, air can fill only half of the bottle. The more the soil is removed from the bottle, however, the more the air will fill it. In the same way, the more you remove the defilement of sin and the filthiness that is within you, the more the Holy Spirit will be able to fill you. As you empty out, the Spirit will fill you. When you have completely emptied yourself of all filthiness, then you will also be completely filled with the Spirit. (Vessels Useful to the Lord, pp. 124-125)