I woke up praying,”Lord Jesus, fill me with the Holy Spirit.”
I’ve been praying this prayer for over a decade and I know Jesus is and has been answering this prayer. This is a prayer that makes him really happy to hear. I started praying this on a fairly regular basis since I read the following from Luke 11 years ago:
“Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
2 Jesus said, “This is how you should pray:
“Father, may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
3 Give us each day the food we need,
4 and forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation.”
5 Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story: “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, 6 ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ 7 And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ 8 But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.
9 “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? 12 Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! 13 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”
Notice how it ends? He is telling us the best thing to ask for and seek after… the best gift of all… is His Presence in the Holy Spirit!
Now, do you think for a moment that if one of his children asks for the Holy Spirit that the Lord Jesus gives him an imposter spirit? A false Holy Spirit? A demon? Can you imagine God sitting back on his throne drink in hand laughing to himself, “Ha ha got him that time. He really trusts us, doesn’t he? Isn’t that so dumb? What an idiot! We’ll teach him a lesson.”
What kind of a monster do you think God is?
No, the Good Shepherd does not feed his lambs to the wolves. Again, can you imagine Jesus saying to you, his sheep, “You annoyed me today.” “Come here wolf and teach this one a lesson!” As he holds you down and lets the wolf gnaw on your leg for a while.
Yet, this is the very attitude I see in some “believers” that I meet. I have heard them say things like, “Having kids is scary. If they don’t accept Christ right away then it would be a blessing if they died before the age of accountability.”
Ridiculous! How could this kind of thought even enter our minds? It seems that some “believers” are bound in fear instead of delighting in the simple pure devotion and childlike trust that Jesus encourages and examples for us. He wants to set us ALL free from ALL our fears and teach us how to live in ‘his perfect love that casts out all fear’.
Believers need not ever be afraid of our Good Shepherd.
By the way: “Being afraid” differs from what the Bible teaches us about the “fear of the Lord” – which means “to have Reverent Trust”! Listen to what Jesus says here:
“Dear friends, don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot do any more to you after that. 5 But I’ll tell you whom to fear. Fear God, who has the power to kill you and then throw you into hell. Yes, he’s the one to fear.
6 “What is the price of five sparrows—two copper coins? Yet God does not forget a single one of them. 7 And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.
8 “I tell you the truth, everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth, the Son of Man will also acknowledge in the presence of God’s angels. 9 But anyone who denies me here on earth will be denied before God’s angels. 10 Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” Luke 12 NLT
Jesus is right here with you now to deal with ALL that fear in your heart. As the Bible says, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”
Listen to this how this passage begins and how the Lord deals with our irrational fears:
“And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. 14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.
God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.
18 Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. 19 We love each other because he loved us first.
20 If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? 21 And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters.” (1 John 4 NLT)
Here is our brand new song based out of the Lord’s prayer quoted above:
Holy is Your Name (Our Father) by Reflect Worship with lyrics from Daniel & Catherine Lovett on Vimeo.
Daniel Lovett 