“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit…” -Ephesians 5:18

Would you agree this is a command?

I asked this question on Social Media, because I wanted to see if the responses were what I thought they might be and they did not disappoint. We folks that like to call ourselves good Christians are quick to jump on the first part of the verse: “And be not drunk with wine”, which I agree is a command and one that I follow.

We tend to miss that second part of the verse which is also a command: “Be filled with the Spirit!” Kinda crazy how many of us tend to miss the obvious?

There are all kinds of sins, but for our conversation today, I want to challenge you to think about sin in two categories: Sins of commission and sins of omission. Sins of comission is when we do something we are not supposed to do and sins of omission is when we fail to do something we are supposed to do.

Often, church folks like to focus on a certain list of commission sins, while neglecting some commission and a lot of omission sins, all of which can be doing some real damage to the spiritual body.

If we have the strength, power and resolve to obey the first command, then what about the second command? Is one command more important than the other? Does one matter less?

I would like to suggest that if we get the second command right to be filled with the Holy Spirit, then we are empowered to find success in all kinds of commands and victory in both the sins of commission and sins of omission.

The Holy Spirit is God! What this verse is saying is: Be filled with God! To be filled with God, we have to be empty ourself of self and this is perhaps why we have such a big battle. Our ego gets in the way and encourages to Edge God Out.

What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? I don’t think it means that we are always on a spiritual high, completely perfect with no challenges or struggles. I think it means working to have my spiritual, mental and physical self yielded to my Creator, so that He might flow to and through me. God flowing to and through me empowers me to live the life of blessing I was created for.

So back to the original question: Would you agree this is a command???