It is helpful to understand something by looking at its contrast. In this case, in contrast to being filled with the Holy Spirit and led by Him is being filled with fleshly desires and being driven by them, unable to control oneself. The book of Romans helps us understand this contrast.
In the first three chapters of Romans, we see ourselves as we really are: fallen in sin. We are told, “There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way, they have together become unprofitable. Destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:11-12, 16-18).
This is the life we are accustomed to living: we don’t seek after God and His will, for we prefer pursuing our wills first. We have left the way of holiness and enjoying God and thus become unprofitable for God to use us. We are not full of good cheer from the good news of Jesus Christ and His love, but full of misery because of all the dark desires and thoughts that afflict us. We have not known the way of peace because we are at odds with God Himself, and thus with others and ourselves. We have no fear of God because we are engrossed with the things about us and forming our own ideas of life.
This is the life of the flesh, ever churning in its desires for its own ways, ever craving more and more, unable to be satisfied with what the world offers. As Thoreau observed in On Walden Pond, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Continuing through the book of Romans, we find Paul, God’s choice for writing this epistle, finding that the Mosaic law, including The Ten Commandments, could not give him life: “And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death” (Romans 7:10). Following religious rules did not help him to overcome the flesh. Far from helping him be more holy, the law could only point out his sin: “For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet’” (Romans 7:7b).
Thus religious laws have no effect on restraining the flesh and launching us into the spiritual. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find” (Romans 7:18). This is coming from a man who said he was, “concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:6b). How many of us can say this of our zeal for our religious duties? Yet this man failed in measuring up to the greatest standards of all: to be like Christ.
Ironically, it was the very law at which he failed that led him to find the solution: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25a). Knowing in his own experience of the utter failure of religion to save him from his flesh, which was at war with God’s higher standards, Paul flung himself upon Christ Himself – and found true deliverance. That leads us to chapter eight and its use of the phrase “led by the Spirit: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God” (Romans 8:13-14). In this and previous chapters, we find the truth that we are our own greatest enemy. The work of the Holy Spirit is to subdue the desires within our own flesh and the deceitfulness of our own hearts. When the Spirit leads, the flesh does not. Where the Spirit is filling us, it is because we have reckoned the flesh dead:
“Likewise you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and you members as instruments of righteousness to God” (Romans 6:11-13).
To be filled with the Spirit means to give up our desires for more riches and wealth, fame, revenge, selfish ambitions, hatred, and all sorts of lusts (Galatians 5:19-21). Not simply to give them up, but to surrender to the will of God, whatever it may be for you. For why should God impart His power to us to then use it against Him and His purposes?
Jesus, before His ascension to Heaven, directed His disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they received power (Luke 24:49). This they did with about 120 other disciples (Acts 1:14-15) until the Holy Spirit came upon them (Acts 2). They did not merely ask for the Holy Spirit in prayer, but were first yielded to God. After they were filled with power, what did they do? Went out to the world to pursue wealth and riches? Turn into powerful businessmen? Become famous for miracles? Got involved with politics?
They went outside the comfort zone of the flesh, subduing the flesh to follow the will of God wherever it would lead them. The book of Acts is not a diary of men laying plans of their own, but going wherever they thought God was leading them to go. They were free to obey God without the flesh dragging them down. They were free to come to God boldly based on His grace rather than on a manufactured righteousness based on a few religious rules they managed to get right some of the time.
Are you driven by the flesh and guilt over ineffectively following religious rules? Are you convinced that God’s will is better than your own? Are you convinced that Jesus came to give you life, and that more abundantly – more than you could create from your own meager resources? Are you ready to get out of the rat race of ever pursuing and never finding, and surrender to Jesus for a life of purpose with Him?
And so we overcome the failures of the flesh in Romans 1-3 discussed earlier. Instead of those who don’t understand or seek after God, we understand the tyrannies of the flesh and turn to God for His grace to live a life pleasing to Him. In contrast to those who “have all gone out of the way, they have together become unprofitable,” we become useful to God and His purposes, desiring His will instead of opposing it. Formerly, “Destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known;” now we have peace with God and guilt-free consciences because we live by faith in Jesus. Instead of “There is no fear of God before their eyes,” we know cling to Him the more tightly because we know the consequences of the flesh-life are severe, depriving us of true life with Christ.
We are invited to ask for the filling of the Spirit: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Like 11:13). If you know your need of help to live the life God has for you, come and ask. Come and drink. Come and live.
