Thursday, 6 November 2014

Ephesians 5:18

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit...

Drunkenness is more accurately translated as dissipation here rather than debauchery. Not simply excess but waste. Let's all go and get wasted. Literally. Physically and spiritually wasted. If "sozo" is saving. A - sozo is the opposite. It is precisely not-saving. Not-life giving. Not-sustaining. Drunkenness cannot save. Indulgence in worldly pleasures won't get you anywhere. Proverbs 20.1, 23.29-32.

Fill yourself up with something better instead. Just as the drunkard awakens questioning where the next drink is coming from - Proverbs 23.35 - so we too should be utterly dependant, desperately seeking the holy spirit's filling up. This is not a one off charismatic baptism but a daily quest, a ritual seeking, longing, needing. We share the addict's urgency. We must keep being filled up by him. We need to be thirsty. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, those who know their need, their weakness, those who cry out as babes desperate for their mother's milk, those dying in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63.1. For they will be filled. Matthew 5.6.

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