I promised an article for today on the topic above. I think it wise, instead of using my own personal study and experience, to let this article be totally quotations from a person we probably all have faith in, Evangelist Billy Graham. After this paragraph, the remainder of this article is simply my compilation of quotations from Graham’s book entitled “The Holy Spirit” published by Word Press (except for the closing paragraph). Quotes are from the two chapters, “The Fullness of the Spirit” and “How To Be Filled With the Holy Spirit.”

“Let’s define the fullness of the Spirit. To be Spirit-filled is to be controlled and dominated by the Holy Spirit’s presence and power. The lives of many Christians reflect the practices and standards of this present world. True, they have been baptized with the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ, and they are going to heaven. But they are missing so much of what God wants them to have in this life.

“I believe the New Testament’s teaching on how to be filled with the Holy Spirit can be summarized in three terms: Understanding, Submission, and Walking by Faith.

“The first step is Understanding. The first truth we must understand is that God has given us the Holy Spirit, and that He dwells within us. If I have accepted Christ as my Savior, the Spirit of God dwells within me. I may not feel His presence, but that does not mean that He is absent. It is the fact of His presence we must understand. We accept this fact by faith (in God’s promise and assurance in His Word).

“Second, we must understand that God commands us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That means it is His will for to be filled and to refuse to be filled with the Spirit is to act contrary to the will of God. He wants us to be filled with His Spirit.

“The third truth we must understand is the presence of sin in our lives. Sin blocks the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Before we can be filled with the Holy Spirit we must deal honestly and completely with every known sin. There is only one solution and that is repentance to clear the blockage and restore the flow of the Holy Spirit. The most basic question any Christian can ask is this: Who is ruling my life, self or Christ?

“The second step to being filled with the Holy Spirit is Submission. By submission I mean that we renounce our own way and seek above all else to submit to Christ as Lord and be ruled by Him in every area of our lives. How does submission become a reality in our lives? There are two steps.

“The first step in submission is confession and repentance. Confession is acknowledgement of sin. It is admitting before God that I know I am a sinner, because I have committed certain sins that are known to me. The wonderful thing is that God has promised to forgive us when we turn to him in humble confession. Then to repent means to renounce sin. It means a complete and total change of mind. To repent of my sin is to turn from it, and to turn to Christ and His will.

“The second step in submission is yielding ourselves to God and His will. Confession and repentance might be described as the negative side of submission; this means getting rid of everything that hinders God’s control over our lives. Yielding to God is the positive side; this involves placing ourselves totally and completely (as best as we know how) into the hands of God in complete submission to His will for our lives; to place ourselves completely at His disposal.

“The third step in being filled with the Holy Spirit is Walking in Faith. The main point is this: When we are yielded to God and His will, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit fills and dominates us. Now by faith we are to act on that truth and walk or live with full assurance that God has already filled us, and we are under His control. The Apostle Paul said, “Likewise count it to be so that you are dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11).

“The filling of the Holy Spirit is not a matter of feeling but of faith. The filling of the Holy Spirit does not mean that we are perfect and without sin. The filing of the Holy Spirit should not be a once-for-all event but a continuous reality every day of our lives.”

The Spiritual awakening God desires to send us can begin with you and me meeting the requirements of being filled with the Holy Spirit and then living out these requirements day by day.