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We Cannot Use the Holy Spirit, the Spirit is to Use Us, April 27
When he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and
of judgment.
John 16:8
.
Christ promised the gift of the Holy Spirit to His church, and the promise
belongs as much to us as to the first disciples. But like every other promise, it is
given on conditions. There are many who profess to believe and claim the Lord’s
promises; they talk about Christ and the Holy Spirit; yet they receive no benefit,
because they do not surrender their souls to the guidance and control of divine
agencies.
We cannot use the Holy Spirit; the Spirit is to use us. Through the Spirit, God
works in His people “to will and to do of his good pleasure” (
Philippians 2:13
).
But many will not submit to be led. They want to manage themselves. This is why
they do not receive the heavenly gift. Only to those who wait humbly upon God,
who watch for His guidance and grace, is the Spirit given. This promised blessing,
claimed by faith, brings all other blessings in its train. It is given according to the
riches of the grace of Christ, and He is ready to supply every soul according to the
capacity to receive.
The impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life of Christ. Those
only who are thus taught of God, those only who possess the inward working
of the Spirit, and in whose life the Christ-life is manifested, can stand as true
representatives of the Saviour.
God takes men as they are, and educates them for His service, if they will
yield themselves to Him. The Spirit of God, received into the soul, quickens
all its faculties. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the mind that is devoted
unreservedly to God develops harmoniously, and is strengthened to comprehend
and fulfill the requirements of God. The weak, vacillating character becomes
changed to one of strength and steadfastness.
Continual devotion establishes so close a relation between Jesus and His
disciples that the Christian becomes like his Master in character. He has clearer,
broader views. His discernment is more penetrative, his judgment better balanced.
So quickened is he by the life-giving power of the Sun of Righteousness, that he
is enabled to bear much fruit to the glory of God....
Of what avail would it be to us that the only-begotten Son of God humbled
Himself, endured the temptations of the wily foe, and died, the just for the unjust,
if the Spirit had not been given as a constant, working, regenerating agent, to
make effectual in each individual case what has been wrought out by the world’s
Redeemer?—
Gospel Workers, 284-286
.
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