Daily Devotional #36 (1 John 3:24)

In 1 John 3:19-24, John introduces the idea that God's love does three things for the Believer: It exposes a doubting heart, it gives confidence and effectiveness to prayer, and it gives evidence that the Believer is being filled with the Spirit. Today, we are considering the third of these three: the love of God gives evidence that the Believer is being filled with the Spirit.

In 1 John 3:24, we read, "The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us."

The idea that the Apostle John is imparting to us is the more that we see ourselves through God's eyes, the more we will be willing to allow the Spirit of God to control our choices. In Ephesians 5:18, the Apostle Paul writes, "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit." In context Paul is contrasting a life motivated by the flesh (the sinful desires within us all) and a life motivated by God's Spirit. Paul writes, "Do not get drunk on wine..." Wine is mentioned 123 times in the Bible. Every time wine is mentioned, it is mentioned in a positive light. But "drunk" is mentioned 64 times in the Bible. And you guessed it, every time it is used in the Bible, it is used in the negative. Drunkenness produces a lack of reality, because the influence of alcohol has an effect on the decision making center of the brain. In contrast, fullness of Spirit produces a heightened sense of reality.

Paul doesn't stop there, he writes, "...be filled with the Spirit." There are those who teach that this verse teaches that some Believers have more of the Spirit than others. This verse does not teach that the Believer in Jesus gets more of the Spirit. It means that the Spirit gets more of the Believer. And the more that the Spirit gets of the Believer, the more the Believer will yield to the Spirit. Thus, he will be filled with the Spirit.