Who’s in Charge Here, Anyway?

Today's Three-minute Bible Study
Print, Study and Apply

Title: Who’s in Charge Here, Anyway?
Keywords: "control"
Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation.

Passage: Ephesians 5:18-20*

18. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,

19. speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;

20. always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;

Questions

1. Instead of being controlled by drink (or drugs), with what — or by whom — is the believer to be controlled? (verse 18)

 

2. Based on the last two verses of the passage above, what are some specific activities that characterize the man or woman who is "filled with the Spirit"?

 

Practical help

Drinking to get drunk was every bit the problem in the 1st century AD that is in the 21st. (A physician friend of mine told me years ago, "Take away alcohol and cigarettes and we could almost empty the VA hospital.")

What drives people to drink to drunkenness? The reasons are probably as varied as the people who get drunk. What all drunks have in common, though, is that when they are drunk, THEY are not in control of their behavior. They are controlled by an outside force — the alcohol.

When booze is in control, the result is dissipation (debauchery). With very few exceptions, nothing good comes from getting drunk.

When the believer is filled with the Spirit, though, the result is joyful singing, prayer, and obedience to the commands of God.

What is involved in being "filled with the Spirit"? Essentially, it involves relinquishing control to the Lord (much as a drunk relinquishes control to the alcohol). For a Christian to be filled by the Spirit means that our own will is subservient to His.

Power to resist temptation to sin comes as we submit to the Spirit of God and tell Him, "Not my will, but Yours be done."

eXXit homepage
Index of three-minute studies
Copyright 2004 by eXXit
*"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission."