Do I need faith, hope and love? (1 Cor. 13:13) “Filled with the Holy Spirit and faith” (Acts 6:5, 11:24) “With that same spirit of faith we also believe” (2 Cor. 4:13) “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13) “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5:5) “Love in the Spirit” (Col. 1:8) “The love of the Spirit” (Rom. 15:30)
Do I need a friend? “The comforter” “The counselor” “The advocate” “The one called alongside” (Jn. 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:7)
Do I need joy? “The joy given by the Holy Spirit” (1 Th. 1:6, Lk. 10:21, Acts 13:52, Rom. 14:17)
Do I need grace? “I will pour out … a spirit of grace” (Zec. 12:10) “The Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29)
Do I need to submit to God? “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ but by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3) “Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself” (Heb. 9:14) “Sustain me with a willing spirit” (Ps. 51:12)
Do I need wisdom? “The Spirit of wisdom and revelation” (Eph. 1:17) “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth” (Jn. 16:13) “Taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:13)
Do I need strength? “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit” (Zec. 4:6) “Through the power of the Spirit” (Rom. 15:19) “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being” (Eph. 3:16)
Do I need encouragement? “Encouraged by the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:31)
Do I need peace? “The mind of the Spirit is peace” (Rom. 8:6; 14:17) “They were given rest by the Spirit of the Lord” (Isa. 63:14)
Do I need to be made pure? “Saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit” (2 Th. 2:13, Rom. 14:17; 15:16) “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh you will live” (Rom. 8:13) “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11, Tit. 3:5) “The Spirit of holiness” (Rom. 1:4)
Do I need to know God? “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (Eph. 1:17) “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. The Spirit of truth will testify about me” (Jn. 16:14-16)
Do I need to know that I am a child of God? “You received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’ ” (Rom. 8:14) “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14) “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (Rom. 8:16) “And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us” (1 Jn. 3:24)
Am I afraid of the future? “He will tell you what is to come” (Jn. 16:13)
Do I need deliverance? “I drive out demons by the Spirit of God” (Mt. 12:28) “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17)
Do I need guidance? “Led by the Spirit of God” (Rom. 8:14, Gal. 5:18) “Sent on their way by the Holy Spirit” (Acts 13:4)
Do I need life? “We live by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16, 25) “The mind of the Spirit is life” (Rom. 8:6)
Do I need to pray? “I will pour out … a Spirit of supplication” (Zec. 12:10) “Pray in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 1:20, Eph. 6:18)
Do I need to testify about Jesus? “Those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (1 Pe. 1:12)
Do I want to worship? “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (Jn. 4:24) “We who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus” (Php. 3:3)
Am I thirsty? “Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit” (Jn. 7:37-39) “We were all given the one Spirit to drink” (1 Cor. 12:13)
Being filled: “If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my Spirit to you and made my thoughts known to you” (Pr.1:22-23)
“If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.” (Jn. 14:15-17)
“We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:32)
“They prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:15) “How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk. 11:13) “So that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit” (Gal. 3:14)
Am I empty? “Be filled with the Spirit”
“There is no need for us to wait ten days, because the Spirit has been given to the church. This is included in the spiritual blessings with which our Father has blessed us in Christ Jesus. We need not struggle, and agonize, and convulse ourselves in the vehemence of entreaty; we have simply to take what God has allotted to us, and is waiting to impart. Open your mouth wide, and he will fill it. Though you discern no evidence of the entering floods, you shall be filled. Ask as a little child asks for its breakfast already on the table. As soon as you ask, you do receive, though you experience no rush of transcendent joy; go your way reckoning yourself filled, whether you feel so or not; and as the days go on, you will find that you have been filled, and are being filled, with new power and joy, and wealth. You will not be long left to the reckoning of faith; for you will be made aware of a virtue going out from you, which shall heal and save.” (F.B. Meyer)
“The grace of God filling the heart with Christ, alone enables us to give up self, and its idols. The more filled we are with him, and his grace and truth, the more readily we can yield up all that his eye condemns.”
“For it is only as we are led by the God of all grace that we can really go down, really be nothing, or really admit all his rebukes, and the hollowness of all not given by his grace. Christ enters, and all that cannot live in his company goes out.”
“Slowly it may be–unwilling to yield possession–but the inflowing of the blessing through the knowledge and power of Christ, must cleanse the heart, while filling it.”
“This indeed is a process, not a thing done at once, once for all. There is conflict. There are sad advantages often gained by the enemy. But just as Christ enters and abides–dwelling in the heart by faith–so are the many suggestion of the enemy driven outside, and kept outside.”
“Yea, so full may the blessing be, that the enemy may be driven away from the gate. The devil flees from us, because he not only has no place within, but because he is resisted in the power of Christ, and for Christ’s sake. Then there is peace and joy around as well as within.” (Anonymous)
“How much more shall the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” (Luke 11:13)
“In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord had already given utterance to His wonderful HOW MUCH MORE? Here in Luke, where He repeats the question, there is a difference. Instead of speaking, as then of giving good gifts, He says, ‘How much more shall the heavenly Father give THE HOLY SPIRIT?’ He thus teaches us that the chief and the best of these gifts is the Holy Spirit, or rather, that in this gift all others are comprised The Holy Spirit is the first of the Father’s gifts, and the one He delights most to bestow. The Holy Spirit is therefore the gift we ought first and chiefly to seek.”
“In the variety of the gifts which the Spirit has to dispense, He meets the believer’s every need. Just think of the names He bears. The Spirit of grace, to reveal and impart all of grace there is in Jesus. The Spirit of faith, teaching us to begin and go on and increase in ever believing. The Spirit of adoption and assurance, who witnesses that we are God’s children, and inspires the confiding and confident Abba, Father! The Spirit of truth, to lead into all truth, to make each word of God ours in deed and in truth. The Spirit of prayer, through whom we speak with the Father; prayer that must be heard. The Spirit of judgment and burning, to search the heart, and convince of sin. The Spirit of holiness, manifesting and communicating the Father’s holy presence within us. The Spirit of power, through whom we are strong to testify boldly and work effectually in the Father’s service. The Spirit of glory, the pledge of our inheritance, the preparation and the foretaste of the glory to come. Surely the child of God needs but one thing to be able really to live as a child: it is, to be filled with this Spirit.”
“And now, the lesson Jesus teaches us today is this: That the Father is just longing to give Him to us if we will but ask in the childlike dependence on what He says: ‘If ye know to give good gifts unto your children, HOW MUCH MORE shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.’ In the words of God’s promise, ‘I will pour out my Spirit abundantly;’ and of His command, ‘Be ye filled with the Spirit’ we have the measure of what God is ready to give, and what we may obtain. As God’s children, we have already received the Spirit. But we still need to ask and pray for His special gifts and operations as we require them. And not only this, but for Himself to take complete and entire possession; for His unceasing momentary guidance. Just as the branch, already filled with the sap of the vine, is ever crying for the continued and increasing flow of that sap, that it may bring its fruit to perfection, so the believer, rejoicing in the possession of the Spirit, ever thirsts and cries for more. And what the great Teacher would have us learn is, that nothing less than God’s promise and God’s command may be the measure of our expectation and our prayer; we must be filled abundantly. He would have us ask this in the assurance that the wonderful HOW MUCH MORE of God’s Father-love is the pledge that, when we ask, we do most certainly receive.”
“Father in heaven! Thou didst send Thy Son to reveal Thyself to us, Thy Father-love, and all that that love has for us. And He has taught us, that the gift above all gifts which Thou wouldst bestow in answer to prayer is, the Holy Spirit.”
“O my Father! I come to Thee with this prayer; there is nothing I would–may I not say, I do–desire so much as to be filled with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The blessings He brings are so unspeakable, and just what I need. He sheds abroad Thy love in the heart, and fills it with Thy self. I long for this. He breathes the mind and life of Christ in me, so that I live as He did, in and for the Father’s love. I long for this. He endues with power from on high for all my walk and work. I long for this. O Father! I beseech Thee, give me this day the fulness of Thy Spirit.”
“Father! I ask this, resting on the words of my Lord: ‘HOW MUCH MORE THE HOLY SPIRIT.’ I do believe that Thou hearest my prayer; I receive now what I ask; Father! I claim and I take it: the fulness of Thy Spirit is mine. I receive the gift this day again as a faith gift; in faith I reckon my Father works through the Spirit all He has promised. The Father delights to breathe His Spirit into His waiting child as He tarries in fellowship with Himself. Amen.”
(Andrew Murray)