How to Be Filled With the Holy Spirit
Adapted from Chapters 1 and 2 of my book, Manifest.
You are filled with the Holy Spirit by faith in Jesus, and then again and again as you keep asking, surrendering and making room for Him. The Spirit comes to live in you at new birth. But Scripture also describes believers being filled afresh, and Paul commands it as an ongoing way of life: "be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18), in a tense that means keep being filled.
Being filled with the Spirit is not a single sealed event. It is a rhythm. Here is what that rhythm looks like in Scripture, and how you can step into it.
Even Jesus Grew in the Spirit
If you want to know what life in the Spirit looks like, look at Jesus. Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit. There was never a moment when He was not alive to God. And yet Luke tells us He grew.
The child was growing, and was becoming strong in spirit, being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.
Luke 2:40, World English Bible
Then at His baptism the Spirit came upon Him in a new way. Luke says He returned from the Jordan "full of the Holy Spirit" and was led into the wilderness, where He fasted and resisted the devil. And when He came out, something had shifted again: "Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee" (Luke 4:14).
From growing strong in spirit, to full of the Spirit, to the power of the Spirit. If the perfect Son of God came up out of the Jordan full of the Spirit and still went into the wilderness to fast and pray before walking in that power, how foolish for us to assume we have already received all there is.
Born of the Spirit, Then Empowered
The disciples followed the very same pattern, and it is your pattern too. First, after the resurrection, Jesus breathed on them.
When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit!"
John 20:22, World English Bible
I believe that breath is the moment they were born again. It echoes the breath God breathed into Adam in the garden and the breath that raised an army from the dry bones in Ezekiel. Creation, resurrection, new creation: one breath, one Spirit.
But even that was not the end. They received just enough to make them hungry for what came next. So they gave themselves to prayer, in one accord in the upper room, contending for the promise of the Father.
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability to speak.
Acts 2:4, World English Bible
Then, only two chapters later, the same believers ran into fierce opposition. They did not retreat and ask what went wrong. They went back to prayer and asked for more of the very thing that had gotten them into trouble.
When they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were gathered together. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.
Acts 4:31, World English Bible
This is the rhythm of the Spirit-filled life. Not a single sealed event, but an ongoing pressing in. They had spent so much of what they received in Acts 2 that by Acts 4 they needed to be filled afresh. Perhaps your own riverbed has been running dry, not because the Spirit left, but because you have been trying to live off an encounter you had twenty years ago.
Keep the Fire Burning
When Solomon finished praying at the dedication of the temple, fire came down from heaven, consumed the offering, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. But that fire was not meant to burn untended. God commanded the priests to keep it alive.
Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually; it shall not go out.
Leviticus 6:13, World English Bible
Paul says your body is now the temple of the Holy Spirit. The fire of the Spirit fell on you, and it was glorious. But it was never meant to be the memory of a single dedication day. It is meant to keep burning, and a fire that is meant to keep burning has to be tended. That is exactly why Paul commands not a one-time filling but a continuous one.
Don't be drunken with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.
Ephesians 5:18, World English Bible
How to Be Filled Today
Here is how to step into that rhythm.
1. Start with Jesus. The Holy Spirit is received by faith in Jesus. If you have never put your trust in Him, that is the doorway. Everything else flows from there.
2. Ask. Jesus said the Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Luke 11:13). The early church asked, and the room shook. Hunger is not a lack of faith. It is an invitation.
3. Surrender fresh. Not on the strength of last year's surrender, but with a fresh one today. Holy Spirit, I yield to You. I give You my mouth, my eyes, my ears, my heart.
4. Clear the altar. When Hezekiah restored the temple, the first order of business was a cleansing: "carry the filthiness out of the holy place" (2 Chronicles 29:5). Confess what has crowded Him out, and receive His forgiveness.
5. Pray with others. Acts 2 and Acts 4 both happened when believers were praying together. Find people who will press in with you.
And then pour out. Become the kind of person, and the kind of community, that pours out so freely that you are always saying, Lord, backfill the reservoir. Send the rain again.
New to this? Start with Is the Holy Spirit a Person? and Does the Holy Spirit Live in Me?
Go deeper. This post is adapted from Manifest: How the Holy Spirit Reveals Jesus in Us and Through Us by Hazen Stevens. Get the book on Amazon, or watch the Manifest sermon series free.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain).
