We open our hearts for God to enter. In our heart, which is understood as both the physical blood pump and our intimate cognitive existence, we find the heart of our spirit.
I would like to draw a metaphor by presenting the spiritual heart as a mansion with many rooms. Imagine the mansion with a reception hall at the entrance with beautiful tiled floors, huge windows and a big front door. Flowers and plants are standing all around this room while the sun is pouring through the windows. This represents your heart and every person could put in this room whatever he or she desires.
The main purpose of the exercise is to illustrate how a person functions with the Holy Spirit indwelling him.
In the heart or mansion, we would find the Holy Spirit living in one of the rooms. As soon as someone or something undesirable tries to enter, the Holy Spirit would come out of His room, down the stairs to warn the host, which is us, that the person or activity we intend to allow to enter, is actually a very bad idea.
The thing that would try to enter, could be anything, ranging from someone with unholy motives whom we intend to befriend or an unholy activity we are about to get involved with.
Once the Holy Spirit has warned us, we have to decide what to do. Once we have made our decision, the Spirit retreats back into His room, still keeping His eye on us.
Have we decided to stop the person or the activity, everything is fine, but when we disobey the warning of the Spirit, it grieves Him immensely. After we have disobeyed the Spirit, He would change His fellowship with us. The next time when a similar threat lurks, He would once again come down the stairs to warn us but this time His voice would be a little softer than it was before.
Some people wonder why the Holy Spirit has become so quiet in their lives. One reason could be that since the first time a person became aware of his sins, he still kept on doing it, with the result that the Holy Spirit has retreated.
Should the disobedient behaviour persist, the Spirit would perhaps warn him again but this time however, He would stay on the first floor, keep a little further back and speak even more softly until He does not come out of his room any more because the subject does not listen anyway.
This is why Paul told the people of Thessalonica that they should listen to the Holy Spirit, or they might put out the fire of the Spirit inside.
Filled with the Spirit is different. Difficult or more important tasks on hand demand a more surrendered attitude towards the Holy Spirit. For instance, to bring the message of Jesus to people would be impossible without the assistance of the Spirit.
One should ask The Holy Spirit first to fill him for that specific purpose. The moment he does that, the Spirit comes out of His room and His presence fills the whole mansion to assist the mind, voice and body.
Behind the scenes, more takes place because when we ask the Spirit to assist us, He also touches the hearts of the people who are listening.
To be a human being with a spirit is wonderful. To have the Spirit of God as a Guest in our hearts is awesome. To be able to have a living relationship with the Creator of the universe is more than us mortals are able to grasp.