NOTES for Eph 5:9

In the "Question and Answer" section you can find a question about what one must be like for the Holy Spirit to descend on a person, and the answer to that question. The verse from Ephesians that we have just read says that such "preconditions" at any rate do not include "all goodness, righteousness, and truth," since these are, on the contrary, fruits of the Spirit. So then, in order for the Spirit to descend, must one be a villain, an ungodly person, and a liar? Of course not. It is simply that without the Holy Spirit we are villains, ungodly people, and liars. We need to want very strongly to stop being that, to ask for the Spirit and wait for Him. To wait not passively but actively, confessing our sins, staying awake, watching ourselves, perceiving every deviation from goodness, righteousness, and truth in our life as an insufficient freedom for the Holy Spirit within us, and turning again to God, asking Him to give us the Holy Spirit, again and again.