[Barnabas] was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord.
–Acts 11:24
There are some Christians who just seem to live in a different realm. They have the power to say no to sin. They have joy no matter what is happening around them. They are the people you want praying for you when you have a need. These Christians have experienced something more than the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
Nineteenth-century evangelist D. L. Moody had such an experience. He had been saved. He was preaching the gospel and seeing many people come to Christ, yet there was something missing in his life. Moody said, “I was crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York–oh, what a day!–I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. . . . I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world–it would be as the small dust of the balance.”
What is this experience that Moody and other Christians have had? Simply put, it is the filling of the Holy Spirit of God.
You might be saying, “Pastor, if the Holy Spirit is already inside of us, why do we need some additional experience?” Evangelist R. A. Torrey had a great analogy that applies here. He said it is one thing for you to have a guest living in a back bedroom where you hardly ever see him, and another thing for that guest to come in and take possession of your entire house. In the same way, you may have the Holy Spirit living in some remote corner of your consciousness, but it is another thing entirely for the Holy Spirit to take complete possession of your life.
When we talk about the filling of the Holy Spirit, we are not talking about getting more of the Holy Spirit in our lives. When you become a Christian, you have all of the Holy Spirit. The question is, does the Holy Spirit have all of you? Does He have possession of every room in your life, or is He stuck in some back corner? Being filled with the Holy Spirit means allowing Him to take full control of every part of your life.
