It’s a very significant thing that in the Epistles (in which we have the maturest Christian experience) we are not told to wait for the Spirit, but to “walk in the Spirit”, and we’re not told to receive the Spirit, but to be “filled with the Spirit”. We are expressly warned against resisting the Holy Spirit whom we have received, against grieving the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, and against quenching the fire which the Holy Spirit has kindled in our hearts.
I believe it is just here that the root cause of so much of the disappointment and defeat in the Christian life is to be found. We are somewhere, somehow, limiting the Holy One, so that He cannot possess us as He longs to do.
(F. C. Gibson)