The Loving Spirit

"Then the Lord said, 'My Spirit will not contend with man forever" (Genesis 6:3)


"I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Holy Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me" (Romans 15:30). The Holy Spirit is not a mere blind power, no matter how beneficent, that comes into our hearts and lives, but is Himself a divine Person, loving us with the tenderest love. Such a wonderful thought!


Do you ever kneel down and look up to the Holy Spirit and say, "Holy Spirit, I thank you for Your great love for me"? And yet we owe our salvation as truly to the love of the Holy Spirit as we do to the love of the Father and the love of the Son. If it had not been for the love of God the Father, looking down upon me in my lost state, yes, anticipating my fall and ruin and sending His own Son down to this world to die upon the Cross in my place, I would be a lost person today. If it had not been for the love of Jesus Christ coming down to this world in obedience to the Father, and laying down His life, a perfect atoning sacrifice on the Cross of Calvary in my behalf, I would be a lost person today.


But if it had not been for the love of the Holy Spirit to me, leading Him to come down to this world in obedience to the Father and the Son, to seek me out in my lost condition, following me day after day, and week after week, and month after month, following me when I would not listen to Him, when I deliberately turned my back upon Him, when I insulted Him, following me into places where it must have been agony for that Holy One to go, until at last He succeeded in bringing me to my senses and bringing me to realize my utterly lost condition, and revealing the Lord Jesus to me as just the Saviour whom I needed, and induced me and enabled me to receive the Lord Jesus as my Saviour and Lord; if it had not been for this patient, long-suffering, never-wearying love of the Spirit of God to me, I would be a lost man or woman today.


Yes, I gladly come to give You thanks, dear Spirit of God, for contending with me and for not giving up on me when I would not hear the voice of God and bow my knee to the Saviour's love. How deeply I must have grieved and angered You. But Your love overwhelmed me as You showed me the sacrifice of Jesus. I praise Your holy Name. Amen


~R. A. Torrey