The Church Needs Men Who Testify
We need more pastors and teachers who preach Christ Jesus as John the Baptist did - as the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. It is only the minister who stands forth as a personal witness and living proof of the ministry of the Spirit whose word will have full entrance into the hearts of the people and exercise full sway over them. The first disciples obtained the baptism on their knees, and on their knees they obtained it for others. It will be on our knees also that the full blessing will be won today. Let this be the attitude in which we await the full blessing of our God.
Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed? To be filled with the Holy Spirit of God and to have the full enjoyment of the Pentecostal blessing is the will of God concerning us. Judge your life and your work before the Lord in the light of this question and return the answer to God.
Do not be afraid to confess before your Lord what is still lacking in you. Do not hold back, although you do not as yet fully understand what the blessing is or how it comes. The early disciples called on their Lord and waiting with prayer and supplications.
Let your heart be filled with a deep conviction of what you lack, a desire for what God offers, and a willingness to sacrifice everything for it. Then you may rest assured that the marvel of Jerusalem and Samaria, of Caesarea and Ephesus, will once again be repeated. We may and we will be filled fully with the Holy Spirit.
How Glorious It Is
Whenever we speak of being filled with the Holy Spirit and desire to know what it precisely is, our thoughts always turn back to the day of Pentecost. How glorious the blessing is that is brought from heaven by the Holy Spirit.
One fact makes the great events of the day of Pentecost doubly instructive - namely, that w have learned to know intimately the men who were then filled with the Spirit by their relationship for three years with the Lord Jesus. Their weaknesses, defects, sins, and perversities all stand open to our view.
The blessing of Pentecost wrought a complete transformation. They became entirely new men, so that one could say of them with truth: "Old things are passed away: behold all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Close study of them and their example help us in more than one way. It shows us to what weak and sinful men the Spirit will come. It teaches us how they were prepared for the blessing. It teaches us also - and this is the principle thing - how mighty and complete the revolution is when the Holy Spirit is received in His fullness. It lets us see how glorious the grace that awaits us is if we diligently search for spiritual excellence through the full blessing of Pentecost.
~Andrew Murray~
(continued with # 7 - "Fulfilling His Promise")
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