FAITH RECEIVES GOD’S FULLNESS (2)

Have you wanted the fullness of the Holy Spirit? God offers Him in His fullness to you as a gift. What have you done with the offer? Are you still praying for the fullness of the Holy Spirit? If so, what do you expect to accomplish through your prayers? The deposit is already placed in your bank account. You are still pleading with God to put it there while He pleads with you to cash your checks. “You keep telegraphing to God for supplies, and every year your appeals get more plaintive and piteous; you do not realize that the freight train is already in the station, waiting for you to discharge it; that the heavily burdened ship is in the dock, ready for you to unload.”

Or you say, “I am not worthy to be filled with the Holy Spirit” and “I dare not expect Him to fill me until I am a better Christian.” Of course, you are not worthy to have the Holy Spirit dwell in you, much less fill you. Neither was Paul, nor Peter, nor Spurgeon, nor Moody, worthy in himself to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift of grace. Grace is not something God does because He finds anything worthy in us, but because of the infinite worth of His Son. The only way to make yourself worthy of the Holy Spirit’s fullness is to take Him as God’s proffered gift and let Him make your life a fit, worthy place for His abiding.

Or do you say, “Just receiving the gifts of God’s grace is too easy and lazy a way to live the Christian life. I think I ought to work a bit myself and strive to attain to a holy life. I do not like the idea of sitting passive and having spiritual blessings bestowed upon me.” This sounds commendable, but it runs counter to one of the greatest truths God’s Word reveals about faith. “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” There is not a ray of encouragement held out in God’s Word to the man who strives to attain spirituality through his own self-effort. Some know that salvation cannot be secured by works but think spirituality can be obtained that way. They know they cannot be saved by works, but they strive to grow by works. We do grow in spirituality by faith, but we can never grow into spirituality by self-effort. Growth is “not of works, lest any man should boast.” “Ye cannot by taking thought add one cubit to your stature.” Making good resolutions, signing pledges, practicing self-denial during certain seasons, and all such self-manufactured methods of obtaining spirituality will prove futile. If we could grow into holiness through any effort of our own, how proud we should become and how independent of God.

Or you say, “Such a standard of spiritual life is too high for the ordinary everyday Christian. It may be possible for the minister or the missionary, but it is beyond my reach.” Yes, it is beyond the reach of everything in you except your faith. But so long as God says, “All things are possible to him that believeth,” the fullness of the Holy Spirit is possible to faith. God has no favorites, and what He offers to one believer, He offers to every believer, regardless of calling or vocation.

Or you say, “I have been a Christian for years, and I have never felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in me. Then how can I believe He will fill me? If I just felt He was dwelling within me, I would have faith to believe in His infilling.” Your order then is feeling, faith, fact, which is the exact reverse of God’s order. God says, “Fact, faith, feeling.” We are ever prone to trust our feelings rather than God’s facts, and it is like having the roots of faith going down into quicksand. The state of the weather, the state of our health, the state of our pocketbook, these and countless other variable conditions may affect our feelings. Placing any confidence in them is exceedingly disastrous. God would have you say, “It is a fact that the Holy Spirit dwells within me for God’s Word says so. It is a fact that God wants me filled with the Spirit because He commands me to be filled and He has provided for that fullness. Therefore, by faith I claim the fullness of the Holy Spirit.” Whatever feeling God wishes to accompany or follow this act of faith will come in His own time and way.

So, my friend, if you are coming to God telling Him that you long to be filled with the Holy Spirit and yet saying any of these foolish things, either you are not honest and really do not want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, or else you do not believe He is honest when He offers you the gift of the Spirit’s fullness.

Are you honest? Do you truly want to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Then acknowledge the Holy Spirit’s presence within you; thank God He is there; and claim His fullness as your birthright. Take the gift, thank the Giver, and use the gift immediately in winning souls to Christ.

By an act of faith, I receive the Spirit’s fullness. By a constant succession of acts of faith, the Spirit’s fullness becomes habitual. “Let me ask you to remember that there is no such thing as a once-for-all fulness; it is a continuous appropriation of a continuous supply from Jesus Christ Himself: a moment-by-moment faith in a moment-by-moment Savior for a moment-by-moment cleansing, and a moment-by-moment filling. As I trust Him, He fills me; as long as I trust Him, He fills me; the moment I begin to believe, I begin to receive; and as long as I keep believing, praise the Lord! so long I keep receiving.”

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Lord, you have removed all of our excuses for not being filled with Your Spirit.