By Rich Carmicheal

    We are living in a critical time as we see the increase of evil, lawlessness, deception, sin and spiritual darkness all around us.  This increase is not really surprising since the Bible forewarns us of such things, including the Apostle Paul’s warning that “in the last days perilous times will come” (2 Tim. 3:1; cf. Matt. 24:7-13).   A spiritual battle is raging and our adversary the devil knows his time is short.

    All of this is of great concern, of course, but how good it is to know that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church! (Matt. 16:18).  How good to know that as believers we are strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, and, clothed in the armor of God, we can withstand in the evil day! (Eph. 6:10-18).  How good to know that our God is sovereign over all and His purposes are being fully accomplished!  The Lord Jesus Christ will soon return in all of His glory as King of kings and Lord of lords, and evil will be cast away forever!

    So while we may grieve the conditions around us, our hope is full as we set our hearts on all the glory that is to come.  We also realize that this is not the time to cower, but the time to take full advantage of the opportunity to impact the world around us – “redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16).  We are “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” (Matt. 5:13-16) and we are called to be “children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom [we] shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life…” (Phil. 2:15-16).

    Consider as well this beautiful description of our vital calling:  “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special ­people, zealous for good works” (Titus 2:11-14).  We are the Lord’s own special people, saved by His grace, redeemed by His precious blood, and this is the hour for our lives to be filled with righteousness, godliness and good works – for His glory!

Supernatural Resources

    In order for us to live and bear fruit to the Lord’s glory, other people will need to see something in us that ultimately draws them toward the Lord.  We have no hope of impacting others apart from the Lord’s touch upon our lives.  In fact, apart from Him, we can do nothing! (John 15:5).  We cannot depend upon our own strength, abilities and resources, but we need, as Jim Cymbala states in the opening message, “something from heaven” – fire and strength that only the Lord can provide.  We need supernatural measures of wisdom, power, mercy and godliness.  We need rivers of living water flowing from within us (John 7:38).  We need lives marked by the fruit of the Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).

    Thankfully, our Lord is much more than able to fill our lives with all that we need.  As A.W. Tozer reminds us in his article, our God is infinite and has unlimited resources, including unlimited life, love and mercy to share with us.  Our God is indeed “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Eph. 3:20).  As we draw near to Him, He promises to draw near to us (Jas. 4:8), and as He does, He fills our lives with His power, His life and His love.

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit

    A vital key to all of this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus told the early disciples:  “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  They were faithful to wait and to pray, and on the Day of Pentecost the Lord was faithful to pour out the Holy Spirit upon them (2:1ff), and to continue to fill them with the Spirit (4:31).  And with His presence and power, they moved out and began to impact cultures around them to the point they were accused of turning the world upside down (17:6).

    What about us?  Are we willing to wait and pray for the Spirit’s presence and power today?  As Jesus teaches, our heavenly Father is certainly generous to give the Holy Spirit:  “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13).  Along with this, Jesus promises, “…Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (11:9-10).  Is it not time that we ask, and seek, and knock until the Lord fills our lives to overflowing with His Holy Spirit?  Do we not need Him to fill us with His power, His fruit and His gifts?  Do we not need the Spirit of truth to guide us into all truth? (John 16:13).  Do we not need the Spirit to fill us with boldness to speak the word of God? (Acts 4:31).  Do we not need the Spirit of holiness to sanctify us? (Rom. 15:16; 1 Cor. 6:11).

Prayers for God’s Blessings

    On this last note, a major theme in the center portion of this issue is sanctification.  We realize this is a vital theme and we are grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to share these ­articles with you, including an outstanding one by Charles H. Spurgeon.  We pray the Lord touches your heart through these messages and through this entire issue, even as He has our hearts.  We also include two prayers below, asking the Lord to work through them in your life and ours as we live and minister in these last days.

    “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:14-19). 

    “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light” (Col. 1:9-12).

By George D. Watson (1845 – 1923)

    The first and great commandment, Jesus said, is to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength (Matt. 22:38; Mark 12:30).  No individual can live a truly peaceful, happy, and useful life, without being regenerated and sanctified and loving his Creator with all his heart.  Only a small proportion of men have been willing to submit perfectly to the very law which is conducive to their highest good.

    If the sons of men would from the heart keep the first commandment, think what heavenly changes would pass over the face of the world!  Thinking upon this helps us to get a larger view of who God is, of what His Word is, and of what His love is.  Consider that one single short commandment – “…Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:5) – has enough in it to turn this almost demonized world into a veritable paradise.

    If it had not been that our souls have been degraded by sin, God would never have had to command us to love Him.  Except for sin, we would see it as a blissful privilege to love our God.  It is sin that has necessitated the giving of a law.  When we are properly enlightened, the loving of God with all the heart is the sweetest joy in all creation, and if we only knew enough about who God is and what He is to us, we would be on our knees imploring Him for the privilege of loving Him all we wanted.

    The reason so few people love God is because they do not have in them by nature the kind of love to love Him with.  God can only be truly loved with His own love.  We must have divine love imparted into our hearts by the operation of the Holy Spirit before we can truly and scripturally love God.

    There are two words in the Greek Testament for love.  One word, “philos,” signifies any natural human affection, which all men have.  The other word, “agape,” signifies divine love, the feelings and character of God.  Just as we get human affection by our natural birth, so we get the divine love by our spiritual birth into the kingdom of God.  Even after divine love has been imparted to us, we need to be sanctified, and baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire, in order to give this divine love perfect liberty and ample sweep through all our capacities.  Following are seven phases of love which we can return to our blessed Creator and Redeemer for His love to us.

1.  Grateful Love

    The love of gratitude is one of the first forms of divine love that springs up in the newly converted heart.  The love of gratitude is filled with thanksgiving.  It sings that sweet song of love uttered by Jesus, “I thank Thee, O Father…because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matt. 11:25).  It takes a timbrel, and joins Miriam in her joyful song, after crossing the Red Sea, that God has triumphed, and that the enemy is overthrown in the sea (Ex. 15:20-21).  It sings with Hannah at the dedication of little Samuel, to the Lord that “raiseth up the poor out of the dust…to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory…” (1 Sam. 2:8).

    The love of gratitude delights in counting over the mercies of God in the past, and turns them over and over in fond recollection, like a miser counts his gold, yet with the very opposite spirit of the miser, for it is unselfish praise to the Giver of all good.  The love of gratitude, like Mary (Luke 2:19), ponders things in its heart that others think lightly of, and appreciates what others would call little blessings, trifling mercies, insignificant answers to prayer.  Grateful love sees the magnitude of God in a thousand little things unnoticed by those who have not yet learned to look through eyes of love.

    This phase of love is very humble, and full of the spirit of repentance, and meek submission, and feels unworthy of so much divine goodness.  It measures all its blessings by the preciousness of the Hand that bestows them.  Love of gratitude is forever sending up to God the sweet incense of thankfulness and says many times a day, “Thank You, Father!”

2.  Elective Love

    Elective love of God is that by which we compare Him with all other beings in creation, and contrast the superiority of God to all other beings, and the excellence of His ways, His authority, His care, His compassion, His mercies, above and beyond all the creatures with which we are acquainted.  It is this form of loving God that shows us more clearly the emptiness, the deceitfulness, the passing value of everything that seems good in the world.

    It is this elective love by which we compare our God with angels and saints and our common fellow creatures, and then choose God over and above all others, as we would choose a diamond in preference to a lump of clay, and rejoice in the more excellent treasure.  Elective love disregards all that would intrude to take the place of God or would in the least way share our hearts with Him.  It is this love by which we elect the living God and spurn all other gods and all false prophets, and all false religions.  Our hearts burn with indignation against anything that would attempt to usurp the place of God, or to share in the least the honor and praise due only to the Lord.

    It is this elective love that Peter refers to when he tells us to “sanctify the Lord God in your hearts” (1 Pet. 3:15), that is, give God His rightful place in our hearts and in everything.  It is this elective love by which we dash every idol, and snap every tie, and turn from any pursuit, and break any friendship and spurn any earthly honor or any churchly ambition that interferes with the claims of God and with our loving Him and obeying Him to the uttermost.  By elective love we extol the sovereignty of God and cast aside everything that comes in competition with His glory.  It crowns Christ Lord of all.  Detachment of spirit from the things of earth is the special fruit of this kind of love.

3.  Complacent Love

    This is the kind of love which is peacefully contented and satisfied with God, and delights in all His blessed perfections.  This is the kind of love referred to by the psalmist:  “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee” (Psa. 73:25).  It is what Solomon sings about when he says of the divine Bridegroom:  “[He is] the chiefest among ten thousand” and the one “altogether lovely” (Song 5:10, 16).  The love of complacence loves God because of Himself alone, because it perceives the eternal beauty of His nature, the sweetness of His character, the indescribable greatness of His attributes, the delicacy and charm of all His perfections.

    The soul seldom gets into this form of loving God for His own infinite blessedness until it is deeply sanctified and illuminated by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Blessed are the pure in heart, because they shall see, even in this life of faith, the blessedness of the character and person of God.  While elective love looks at other beings in contrast to their nothingness with God, on the other hand, complacent love is so sweetly taken up with God Himself, and so satisfied with His perfections that it seems to forget other things and people because the purity and presence of God fills the entire horizon as though nothing else was visible.

    The love of complacence rejoices that God is just what He is, and that He never can change.  It fairly dances with delight that there never will be to all eternity any other God.  As it looks out over the endless future, not the least shadow of change will ever pass over the all­radiant character of God.  What God is to us now He will be in endless ages.  Complacent love finds a secret delight in all the attributes of God, and admires the way He does things, and reposes with unspeakable peace upon the character of God.

4.  The Love of Desire

    By this form of love we thirst and long after God.  This is the kind of love David felt when he said: “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after…to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple” (Psa. 27:4).  Again, his desire after God led him to say: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God” (Psa. 42:1).

    There are three kinds or degrees of spiritual thirst:  the first is for pardon, the second is for purity, and the third is for the fullness of the living God Himself.  To properly desire God, the heart must be in a condition to appreciate Him, to have a congenial union with Him, and to enjoy the traits of His character.  It would seem that Daniel had this love of desire for God in an eminent degree.  Where we read that the angel told Daniel he was a man “greatly beloved,” the margin reads that he was a man “of desire” (Dan. 9:23).  That is, he was a man of intense longings after God.  No one can be a Christian without a true heart hunger after God, but there are countless forms and degrees of this desire in different souls.

    It is love of desire that draws the soul out to know God in His three divine persons, to know His communion, and to be filled with each attribute and perfection in the divine nature.  Nothing in all creation can satisfy our immortal spirits, but the living God Himself.  It is this sweet pain of thirst for God that draws us to secret prayer, to study what God is, to neglect other things as trifles that we may win the light of His face and the flow of His Spirit.  It is the intensity of this desire for God that pulls hearts out of mere ordinary religion, and entices them to climb the steeps of true holiness where they can rest on the upper summits of the mountains of grace, where the day breaks soonest in the morning, and where the mellow light of evening lingers the longest.

    What a beautiful sight it would be if we could look through creation and see how this strong desire for all the beauty of God was seizing on many hearts, and drawing them, some slowly and others swiftly, but steadily and surely drawing them.  It draws over land and sea, over mountains and vales, over lonely and thorny paths, through a thousand difficulties, toward that beautiful day when they will rest with rapture in the glory of God.  All things apart from God sooner or later weary us.  He alone is forever fresh, and to loving hearts He is always like a new discovery to the eye.

5.  Sympathetic Love

    It is by this kind of love that we feel for God and support His interests and become intensely jealous for His honor and glory.  The Greek word for “sympathy” means to “suffer with,” to take partnership in feeling the injuries and wrongs done to another.  It is this love of sympathy that feels keenly the insults that wicked men and demons offer to God.  It is this kind of love that David felt burning like a fire in his heart when he said:  “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee?…I hate them with perfect hatred…” (Psa. 139:21-22).

    It is this love that cannot bear to hear God’s name taken in vain, to hear His Word denied or trifled with, to see the Lord’s Day degraded and to hear His blessed character criticized or caricatured.  It feels like weeping over the way God is neglected, left unloved, unthanked, untrusted, and unappreciated by God’s creatures.  This is the kind of love that burns like a furnace in the heart of reformers when they clad themselves in zeal like a coat of mail and thunder at wickedness in church or state, and put their lives in jeopardy.  They would rather die than to see their blessed God insulted and trampled upon.

    It is this kind of love for God that sees His interests everywhere, and is keenly sensitive to His rights and His honor in all things.  It is this beautiful, hot jealousy for the glory of God that cannot bear false Christs or false prophets.  This love of divine sympathy is very prompt and wide-awake and can detect false doctrine and gross infidelity where others see no harm.  It is this kind of love that makes heroes and martyrs.  It is always sorry for sin, and sorry that God is not loved enough.

6.  Benevolent Love for God

    This is the overflow, the surplus as it were of love, by which the soul wishes that God may have all the praise and the glory and the happiness which it is possible for Him to have.  It wishes it could in some way be a blessing and a benefit to God, although it is conscious that it is nothing, and that God is so perfect that nothing can be added to His infinite happiness and blessedness.  It congratulates God on all His blessedness and His possessions and wishes that they could be increased if that were possible.

    We must remember that God has two kinds of glory:  first, the glory that is inherent inside the divine nature, and then the glory that is external to God in His creation of worlds and creatures.  The glory that resides inside the divine nature, consists in His natural perfections, in His eternity, His sanctity, the communion of the three divine persons, and the infinite joy which He has in Himself.  The external glory of God consists in the magnitude, the variety, and the splendor of created worlds and the various ranks of angels, men and the lower orders of creatures.

    Added to this is the glory which He obtains by redeeming fallen men by the systems of grace, of providence, of rewards and punishments, of the application of His mercy and justice to His creatures, and the praises, the love, and the worship that are rendered back to Him from His creatures.  It is impossible for God’s inherent glory in His own blessed Self to ever be increased.  But His external glory can be ever widening in extent and increasing in luster, from the application of His grace and truth to His creatures.  This is the field over which man’s benevolent love for God spreads itself, and is always wanting God to reap larger harvests of praise and glory from creation.

7.  Adoring Love

    It is this kind of love for God that worships and adores and gazes with fond delight, lost in wonder, love and praise.  This kind of love sits in silence and contemplates God with a sacred awe and a deep passive appreciation of Himself.  It does not stop to search into the separate attributes of God, which is the pleasing task of meditation, but it sees as it were all the perfections of God merged into one ocean of spotless white, of serene, unruffled majesty and glory.  Adoring love is the culmination of all other kinds of love.

    To worship God is more than prayer or theology or law or duty or service or faith.  It is a supreme delight in God.  In adoring love, the soul basks in His light, smiles at His favor, sweetly trembles at His majesty, is charmed with His beauty, drinks in His sweetness, and finds no words adequate for praise, but just to look, and wonder, and hold its breath, and admire, and love, and wish for ten thousand hearts to love Him more and more.

    These are seven forms of love, seven colors in the rainbow of our affection for God which we can hang around the neck of our dear Savior, and in Him and through Him, lay at the feet of our own God, our dear Father, our precious Jesus, and our blessed Comforter, the Holy Ghost.

    – Arranged from Our Own God by George D. Watson.

 

By Charles H. Spurgeon (1834 – 1892)

    It was no small honor to have seen our risen Lord while yet He lingered here below; what must it be to see Jesus as He is now!  Dwell with your hearts very much upon Christ crucified, but indulge yourselves full often with a sight of Christ glorified; delight to think that He is not here, for He is risen!  He is not here, for He has ascended!  He is not here, for He sits at the right hand of God, and makes intercession for us! 

Jesus Has All Power

    “…All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18).

    Now, think a moment of these words, “all power.”  Jesus Christ has given to Him by His Father, as a consequence of His death, “all power.”  What mind shall conceive, what tongue shall set in order before you the meaning of all power?  We cannot grasp it!  It is high, we cannot attain unto it!  Such knowledge is too wonderful for us.  The power of self-existence, the power of creation, the power of sustaining that which is made, the power of fashioning and destroying, the power of opening and shutting, of overthrowing or establishing, of killing and making alive, the power of pardon and to condemn, to give and to withhold, to decree and to fulfill, to be, in a word, “head over all things to the church” (Eph. 1:22) – all this is vested in Jesus Christ our Lord! 

The Power of the Holy Spirit

    “All power” must include – and this is a practical point to us – all the power of the Holy Spirit.  It is He that convicts men of sin, and leads them to a Savior, gives them new hearts and right spirits, and plants them in the church, and then causes them to grow and become fruitful.  As the anointing oil poured upon Aaron’s head, ran down his beard, and dampened the skirts of his garments, so the Spirit which has been granted to Him without measure flows from Him to us! 

All Power on Earth

    Our Lord also claimed that all power had been given to Him on earth.  Since all power on earth is lodged in Christ’s hands, He can also clothe any and all of His servants with a sacred might by which their hands shall be sufficient for them in their high calling.  Without bringing them forth into the front ranks, He can make them occupy their appointed stations till He comes, girt with a power which shall make them useful.  My brother, the Lord Jesus can make you eminently prosperous in the sphere in which He has placed you.  My sister, your Lord can bless the little children who gather at your knee through your means.  You are very feeble, and you know it, but there is no reason why you should not be strong in Him.  If you look to the Strong for strength, He can endow you with power from on high, and say to you as to Gideon, “Go in this thy might” (Judg. 6:14).

Power for the Church in Our Day!

    O believers, resort to your Lord to receive, out of His fullness, grace for grace.  Because of this power we believe that if Jesus willed, He could stir the whole church at once to the utmost energy.  Does she sleep?  His voice can awaken her.  Does she restrain prayer?  His grace can stimulate her devotion.  Has she grown unbelieving?  He can restore her ancient faith.  Does she turn her back in the day of battle, troubled with skepticisms and doubts?  He can restore her unwavering confidence in the Gospel, and make her valiant till all her sons shall be heroes of faith.

   Let us believe, and we shall see the glory of God!  Never despair for the church!  Be anxious for her, and turn your anxiety into prayer – but be hopeful evermore, for her Redeemer is mighty, and will stir up His strength.  “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge” (Psa. 46:7).  There stands One among us whom the world sees not, whose shoelace we are not worthy to loosen – He shall again baptize us with the Holy Spirit, and with fire, for “all power” is given unto Him.

By James A. Stewart (1910 – 1975)

    The burden of my life is that the Lord will revive His work.  For this reason, I am tried by many of God’s people because they are living only half-heartedly instead of being one-hundred percent for the Lord Jesus Christ.

    I am longing and praying for a worldwide revival because I believe the days of revival are not past.  As long as the blessed Holy Spirit, Himself the great standing miracle, abides and works on the earth, the church’s potential is the same as it was in apostolic days.

    I believe that God wants to send us a mighty tidal wave of the Spirit to all the churches.  We have seen this happen again and again in our own ministry, resulting in the salvation of thousands.  I have many reasons for believing that God wants to send revival in these days to you, my brother and sister, and these have to do with His plans and purposes for the lives of His redeemed ones.

    God is never content in any age for His people to live below the standard which He has set for His Son’s Bride.  No man is satisfied that his bride be subnormal.  Far less can our Father be content for one moment to see His church anything less than holy and powerful, living in vital communion with Himself as He has purposed.  A subnormal and backslidden church is an insult and disgrace to a holy, powerful, almighty God.

We All Need Personal Revival!

    What each child of God needs is a personal revival.  An old Methodist saint in Britain quaintly drew a chalk mark around himself and said, “O Lord, revive everybody within this circle!”  This was getting close!  That was making things personal and practical.  Are you prepared for such drastic measures?  Are you prepared to fast and pray to see what is hindering the Holy Spirit from using you in a deeper, fuller way?

    Mr. Moody put it very plainly when he said, “There are in the churches stores of unconsecrated wealth, unused or misused power, multitudes at ease in Zion, witnesses who give not witness for the Lord, workers without the Spirit’s conquering power, disciples who follow afar off, forms without life, church machinery substituted for inward life and power.”

    Alas, as the result of not being filled with the Holy Spirit, we have many believers deprived of untold riches in Christ which the indwelling Spirit would minister to them were He but permitted to fill them.  The illimitable resources and immeasurable power which are potentially theirs in Christ lie idle and unused, waiting to be realized in the life by the infilling and controlling presence of the Spirit of Christ.

    God’s power toward us is declared in the first chapter of Ephesians to be none other than that transcending might of God by which Christ was raised up from the dead and exalted and enthroned at the Father’s right hand.  As the deliverance out of Egypt was the token of God’s power on behalf of His covenant people, so Christ’s resurrection exemplifies the exceeding greatness of divine potency which is available in the Holy Spirit for the life and work of the church.

    Think of all the potentialities of a Spirit-filled life (Eph. 1:17-23).  But also see the tragedy in the fact that tens of thousands of Christians are selling their spiritual birthright for a mess of pottage.

    Oh yes, they are saved.  They have been regenerated by the work of the Holy Ghost.  They are bound for glory.  But oh, so many have no desire for the deep things of God, no yearning, no thirst to be filled with the Spirit, to possess all their possessions in the Lord Jesus.  Potentially, the moment He is received into the life as Savior everything that He possesses becomes the property of the believer.  But, ah, experimentally, one can only receive the marvelous gifts and enjoy the blessed experiences as he appropriates them for himself.

    What ignorance many of God’s people display, living as they do below the level of all the spiritual blessings which are wrapped up in the Lord Jesus Christ in the heavenlies, simply because their eyes are blinded by the devil.  They have become carnal and lack joy in the Christian life.  They have no desire to go on in the deep things of God.

    On the other hand, David prayed, “As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God!” (Psa. 42:1).

    There is a solemn indictment against the people of God.  It is that they are not hungering and thirsting after the things of God.  They are not longing to have a genuine work of God in their midst but instead they crave excitement.  They are often bored, not interested.  Yet the only way to see God working in the life, the only way to be filled and anointed with the Holy Spirit, the only way to experience a revival – is by hungering after Him!  “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink” (John 7:37).

    We must remember that there is all the difference in the world between the believer’s possession of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit’s possession of the believer.  We can never say that a believer has not the Holy Spirit, but there is a sad possibility that the Spirit of God does not possess the believer.

Greater Depths and Heights

    What a tragedy, what a heartbreak it would be for us to reach the Gloryland and have to look back and see that we were not all that God intended us to be, that we were living disappointed, meager Christian lives when all the time we should have been multi-millionaires in our risen Christ.  It is the Holy Ghost who is rejected, and yet it is only He who can bring the believer experimentally into a wealthy place in Christ and reveal all that divine power which potentially is his in Jesus Christ.

    Only the Holy Spirit can make these things real and precious and true in our hearts and lives.  It is sadly possible to have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ and to be on the way to Glory and yet to be only half-hearted, following afar off.  The life of one who is not a soul winner, who has no passion for souls, no hunger for God’s Word and no thirst for a fuller richer life in Christ, is a contradiction to the glorious Gospel of the dear Redeemer.  He does not carry the fragrance of the Lord Jesus.  The one remedy for this deplorable condition is to be filled with the Spirit.  Then the life will be full of power and will tell for the Redeemer.

   – From Your Personal Revival (currently out of print) by James A. Stewart. Used by permission of Revival Literature, P.O. Box 505, Skyland NC 28776.  revivallit.org