In this power, He will live in you and carry out His work in you. as the indwelling Christ, He is bent on maintaining and manifesting His redemption in you. The sins which you have confessed the pride, the lovelessness, the worldly-mindedness, and uncleanness - He will by His power take out of your heart.
Although the flesh may tempt you, the choice and the joy of your heart must abide in Him and in His obedience to God's will. Yes, you may indeed become more than a conqueror through Him that loved you. (see Romans 8:37). As the indwelling Christ, He will overcome sin in you.
What then is required on our side? When the soul sees it to be true that Jesus will carry out this work, it will then open the door before Him and receive Him into the heart as Lord and King. Yes, that can be done at once. A house that has remained closely shut for twenty years can be penetrated by the light in a moment, if the doors and windows are thrown open. In like manner, a heart that has remained enveloped in darkness and impotence for twenty years, because it knew not that Jesus will willing to take the victory over sin into His own hands, can have whole experience changed in a moment.
When I acknowledge my sinful condition, yield myself to God, and trust the Lord to do this work, then I may firmly believe that it is done and that Jesus takes all that is in me into His own hands. This is an act of faith that must be held fast. When doors and windows are thrown open and the light streaming in drives out the darkness, we discover at once how much dust and impurity there is in the house. But the light shines in order that we may see how to take it away.
When we receive Christ into the heart, everything is not yet perfected. Light and gladness are not seen and experienced at once, but by faith the soul knows that He who is faithful will keep His Word and will surely do His work. The faith that has, up to this moment, only sought an wrestled now rests in the Lord and His Word.
It knows that what was begun by faith must be carried forward only by faith. It says: "I abide in Jesus; I know that he abides in me and that He will manifest Himself unto me." As Jesus cleansed the lepers with a word, so He cleanses us by His Word. He that firmly holds that fact in faith will see the proof of it.
Preparing Your Soul
The Lord gave first the promise, I will cleanse you. Then He gave the second promise, I will put My Spirit within you. The Holy Spirit cannot come with power or fill the heart and continue to dwell in it, unless a special and complete cleansing first takes place within it.
The Spirit and sin are engaged in a mortal combat. The only reason why the Spirit works so feebly in the Church is sin, which is all too little known or dreaded or cast out. Men do not believe in the power of Christ to cleanse; and, therefore, He cannot do His work of baptizing with the Spirit.
It is from Christ that the Spirit comes and to Christ the Spirit returns again. It is the heart that gives Christ liberty to exercise dominion in it that will inherit the full blessing.
If you have done what has been suggested and believed in Jesus as the Lord that cleanses you, be assured that God will certainly fulfill His Word: "I will cleanse you and put My Spirit within you." Cleave to Jesus, who cleanses you. Let Him be all within you. God will see to it that you are filled with the Spirit.
Do not be surprised if your heart does not at once feel as you would like it to feel immediately after your act of surrender. Rest assured that if you present yourself to God as a pure vessel, cleansed by Christ, to be filled with the Spirit, God will take you at your word and say unto you: "Receive ye the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22). He will manifest it to you more gloriously than ever before.
Keep in mind the purpose for which the Spirit is given. God said He would put His Spirit within you and cause you to walk in His statutes and keep His judgments and do them. The fullness of the Spirit must be sought and received with the direct aim that you will now simply and wholly live to do God's will and work on earth. Yes, you will be able to live like the Lord Jesus and to say with Him: "Lo! I come ... to do thy will" (Hebrews 10:7)
If you cherish this disposition, the fullness of the Spirit may be positively expected. Be full of courage and yield yourself to walk in God's statutes and to keep His judgments and do them, and you may trust God to keep His Word that He will cause you to keep and do them. He, the living God, will work in you. Even before you are aware how the Spirit is in you, He will enable you to experience the full blessing.
Have you been seeking for a long while without finding the fullness of the Spirit? Here you have at last the sure method of winning it. Acknowledge the sinfulness of your condition as a Christian and make renunciation of it once and for all by yielding it up to God. Acknowledge that the Lord Jesus is ready and able to cleanse your heart from its sin, to conquer these sins by His entrance into it, and to set you free.
Take Him now as your Lord, at once and forever. Be assured that He will do it. Permit Him to begin and let Him do it in you now.
~Andrew Murray~
(continued with # 46 - "The Key to the Secret")
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