“As we watched the sun settle in flaming colors beyond the coastal hills, our spirits were still and pensive in Christ’s company. How tenderly He had opened the way for us. How surely He had guided us in the storms. How generously He had brought us back again to this beloved region.

Life is intertwined with challenges. They test our own fortitude. But even more compelling, they demonstrate to us how gracious, generous, and faithful is our Father to His children. Life with Him is truly an adventure, full of beautiful bonuses! How grateful we are!” – Phillip Keller, in What Makes Life Worth Living

So much for things we should know. Now let us move on to action we must take.

Only God can make us holy, but He will not do it without our cooperation. As in many areas of the Christian life, there is a curious mingling of the divine and the human. God provides the power but we must avail ourselves of it. Our obligation is to be filled with the Spirit. It is only as we walk in the Spirit that we will not fulfil the desires of the flesh.

But what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? This sounds very ethereal and mystical. It sounds like something that is reserved for preachers and missionaries. Not so! It is something that is commanded for all God’s people and it does not call for anything that is impossible for any believer. To make it as simple and practical as possible, let us suggest some basic steps that are involved in being filled with the Spirit.

1. Don’t let sins accumulate

In order to keep ourselves clean, we must confess and forsake sin as soon as we are aware of it in our lives (Prov 28:13, 1 John 1:9). All sin should be confessed to God since all sin is against Him. If people have been wronged, then the confession should be made to them also.

True confession should be:

1. Immediate – we should not wait until the end of the day or the end of the week.
2. Unconditional – do not say “If I have done anything wrong” or “I’ll forgive you if you forgive me”.
3. Complete – a man confessed that he had stolen a length of rope but neglected to say that there was a horse at the other end of the rope.
4. Specific – tell it as it is. Call it ‘stealing’ rather than borrowing. Peter did not say, “I am an inadequate man” but “I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
5. Accompanied by the determination to forsake the sin – this is NOT the confession: “I stole a crate of pears, but better make it two. I am going after the other crate tonight.”
6. Heartfelt – just say it, “I was wrong. I am sorry. Please forgive me.”

When we honestly confess our sins, we can know on the authority of the word of God that we have been forgiven. God has promised to forgive if we confess, and He is true to His promise. We appropriate forgiveness by faith.

But someone may say, “I don’t feel forgiven”. That may be so, but you are forgiven, whether you feel it or not. Assurance of forgiveness does not come through changeable feelings but through the unchangeable Word.

2. Present your body a living sacrifice

3. Saturate your life with the Word of God

This book will keep you from sin,

or sin will keep you from this Book.

There are two things that God cannot part;

Dust on the Bible and ice in the heart.

4. Pray without ceasing

5. Stay close to Christian fellowship

6. Keep busy for the Lord

7. Practice discipline of the body

8. Guard your thought life

9. Choose to flee rather than fall

10. Respond to temptation as a dead person would

11. Avoid the touch of danger

12. Avoid whatever weakens the will

13. Call for help

14. Believe that God is working in and through you

– William MacDonald in The Forgotten Command: Be Holy

… it is helpful to remind ourselves that there are certain attitudes and actions that do not help us in the quest for holiness.

Astecism does not help. In Col 2:23, Paul says that while self-torture and self-denial may give the appearance of godliness, they are “of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.”

Monasticism does not help. A person may separate himself from the world in a monastery cell, but he cannot separate himself from his own nature.

Introspection does not help. There is no victory in self; occupation with self is like casting your anchor inside the boat.

Passivity is not the answer. Holiness doesn’t descend on those who idly wait for it. Neither does it come through an intensive study of temptation. The more we think about temptation, the more likely we are to yield. Finally, victory doesn’t come through giving up in despair. That is defeat, and God cannot use defeated Christians.

— William MacDonald in The Forgotten Command: Be Holy

We must not say that we have to sin. It never says that in the Bible and it isn’t true. If we say we have to sin, we are saying, in effect, that the Holy Spirit isn’t powerful enough to enable us to resist temptation. But He is. The trouble is not with Him but with ourselves. We sin when we do not appropriate His power. We sin when we want to.

To say that I must sin, is to deny the foundations of Christianity, for sin shall not have dominion over the believer (Rom 6:14); to say that I cannot sin, is to deceive myself (1 John 1:8); to say that I need not sin, is to declare a divine principle, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ makes me free from the law of sin (Rom 8:2). Thanks be unto God which gives us the victory!

–William MacDonald, in The Forgotten Command: Be Holy

My Master, lead me to Thy door;
Pierce this now willing ear once more;
Thy bonds are freedom; let me stay
With Thee, to toil, endure, obey.

Yes, ear and hand, and thought and will,
Use all in Thy dear slav’ry still!
Self’s weary liberties I cast
Beneath Thy feet; there keep them fast.

Tread them still down; and then I know,
These hands shall with Thy gifts o’erflow;
And pierced ears shall hear the tone
Which tells me Thou and I are one.

–by Handley Moule