Led by His SpiritSample

Charles M. Alexander, who was the song leader for many of R. A. Torrey’s great revival campaigns, told of attending a service in Tennessee where people were praying for God’s power in their lives. One of those who were loudest in prayers was known in the church for continual backsliding and going away from God. Alexander said that once, as that man prayed for “the filling of the Holy Spirit,” a woman who was sitting nearby watching, knowing his pattern of hot and cold living, prayed aloud, “Don’t bother filling him, Lord. He leaks!”

The Holy Spirit who indwells our lives from the moment of salvation is given to us both as a guide for our lives and as a seal that God will never forsake us. The Holy Spirit only guides and teaches those who are listening. Through our obstinance and refusal to obey, however, we can hinder His work in our lives and disappoint and sadden Him. Ephesians 4:30 instructs, “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30).

We must walk according to the Spirit’s guidance if we are to benefit from it. Paul wrote, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). This is a direction—not for a one-time event, but for a continuing action. We all “leak” and need to yield ourselves to Him to be filled again and again.