In Acts 2:3 the tongues of fire that sat on everyone's heads indicated that the most important part of our body that God would be using in the new covenant age would be the tongue - a tongue set on fire by the Holy Spirit and under His total control all the time. This is also part of the symbolism of the gift of tongues. God wants to use your tongue to bless others with, not only if you are a preacher, but also in your ordinary conversations with people every day. But for this, you must let the Holy Spirit have full control of your speech, 24 hours a day, and seven days a week.

One of the primary marks of being filled with the Spirit is a change in the way we speak. Our tongue will become "a tongue of fire" (Acts 2:3). This is not "speaking in other tongues", but "speaking in our mother tongue with God's fire of love and purity". Our language will become heavenly.

Notice the emphasis on our speech in these verses "Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father" (Eph.5:19, 20). The spirit of thankfulness will replace the spirit of gossip, slander, bitterness and anger when we are filled with the Spirit.

The verb in Ephesians 5:18 is a continuous verb - it means "be being filled", "keep on being filled", and not "be filled once". If we were filled with the Spirit in the morning, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit in the evening and every day continuously. Ask God to fill you with His Spirit all the time. Such people were referred to in Acts as "men and women FULL of the Holy Spirit".

All the verses following Ephesians 5:18 are characteristics of Spirit-filled people (from Eph.5:19 to 6:24). It begins with thankfulness and continues on to subjection to one another in the church and in home relationships (Eph. 5:21 to 6:9); and then to fighting and overcoming satanic forces (Eph.6:11).

So the secret of our Christian walk and warfare on earth is being filled with the Holy Spirit.

• We cannot praise God properly if we are not filled with the Spirit.

• We cannot be godly husbands and wives without being filled with the Spirit.

• We cannot bring up our children properly without being filled with the Spirit.

• We cannot defeat satanic forces without being filled with the Spirit.

Everything in our Christian life is dependent on our being filled with the Spirit.