“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Espesians 5:18-30
I could sit here and tell you that I’m really good at gratitude. That I love worship and I’m constantly doing it. But that’d be a lie. You’re looking at a person who continually struggles with discontentment.
Thanksgiving is around the corner.. and I am reminded that for me, I hate the cliche ways of thinking about gratitude. Listing what I’m thankful for rarely pierces my thankless heart. It rarely lasts for me.
So, here is something that has truly made the difference for me. A realization that one aspect of being filled with the Holy Spirit means we worship and are thankful. That a SPIRIT filled life means we are hyper-aware of Gods love for us which leads us to sing psalms to one another, thank God, and commune with each other in thanksgiving.
Ephesians 5:18-30 says,
“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Metaphorically, a life without worship is an empty life.
Worship fills us with the Spirit-and the Spirit fills us as we worship
To be filled with the Spirit means we are led to worship, and to be led to worship means we are filled with the Spirit. Gosh, that is so convicting to me.
Another thing that convicts me is that this verse in Ephesians describes an event that is done with others. Worshipping as a body of believers.
I believe that upon conversion we are filled with the Holy Spirit, but I also believe that we can have a continual filling of the Spirit through reading the Word, operating within our giftings, preaching the Word, praying, giving, singing songs, thanks, and worship.
So, today if you are empty, joyless, exhausted, and distracted let’s lift our hands in worship-to remind ourselves that we are desperate for more and more of His Spirit. #chasingsacred
![I have changed the way I talk about salvation to my children and new believers. I do not ask them whether they want JUST a personal relationship with Christ but if they want to join the body of believers and have a new family!
"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!" (1 John 3:1-2)
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Is having a “personal relationship” with Jesus biblical?
I read an article that said this terminology is entirely unbiblical.
But, I feel to the detriment of our theology, we often RUSH to create a click-bait article that does not handle the nuance and goes from one extreme to the next.
I would argue that we have BOTH a personal and communal relationship with Christ.
The truth is our personal relationship correlates with our communal responsibility. The more we get to know Jesus personally, the more we see His desire for us to treat people with care.
The profession of our Faith is an individual decision as we choose to trust in Christ as our Savior. But that does not mean that our Christian Faith is privatized. God is personal in the way he communes with us and speaks to us through the power of the Spirit but we also pray communal prayers like “Our Father.” (The Lord’s Prayer)
Central to our Christian ethics is how we treat our neighbors. Living out our lives in community helps leads to our person/spiritual formation.
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