3 Signs of a Spirit-Filled Life

It's exhausting to try to hold everything together by yourself. You know the feeling –– the white-knuckling, the hum of the grind, and the "I think I can, I think I can" mentality. Most of use don't even notice we're doing it. It's just another Tuesday. It's just life.

But what would it look like to step out of that? To stop running on the fumes of your own willpower? What if there's a better way? Last Sunday's sermon pressed into that question, highlighting three signs of a Spirit-empowered life.

1. Boldness in Speech and Action

Peter is such a staggering figure to look at. This is the same man who, when a servant girl asked if he knew Jesus, could think of only saving his own skin. And yet in Acts 4, this same Peter stands before the highest religious authorities in Jerusalem –– the people with the power to imprison and execute him –– and speaks with a clarity and nerve that leaves the room stunned.

The text says they marveled because he was uneducated and ordinary. In other words: nothing about this man explains what we are witnessing.

That's the sign. When courage transforms a person, something has changed at the source. The Spirit doesn't make us louder. He makes us free. Free to be bold.

2. Training in the Way of Jesus

We tend to think of education as something that happens to us in a room, at a certain age, and then stops.

But Jesus made a promise that reframes the entire project of human formation. "The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things" (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit is not waiting for you to get to church to do His best work. He is present when you are arguing with your spouse, in the boredom of the commute, in the moment you notice yourself being unkind.

What He is building, with extraordinary patience, is a character that starts to look less like the old you and more like Christ. This is transformation, not mere self-improvement. Self-improvement is you working on you. Transformation is God working on you.

3. Obedience and Direction

Romans 8:14 says, "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God." Not merely filled. Led. There is movement implied here. There is somewhere to go.

A Spirit-filled life is not primarily a feeling. It's not primarily an experience. It's a listening posture, a life that has developed that habit of pausing before God and asking: what now? which way? what are You saying?

And then moving when He says move.

This is where the Spirit-filled life becomes concrete. Not in the grand moments of boldness, but in the small moments of obedience: the phone call you make because something nudged you to, the conversation you don't avoid even though you'd rather, the door you walk through that you didn't plan on because you've slowly learned to trust the One opening it.

The Spirit gives power, and He gives direction –– which is, if you think about it, an even greater gift. Because a life with power and no direction is just a faster version of lost. What the Spirit offers is the deep assurance that you are not wandering, but being led. Somewhere. By Someone who knows exactly where you need to be, and why.