Sunday, April 29, 2012

The Spirit's Purpose


When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth,
who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.
John 15:26 ESV
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“Sometimes we seek for the operation of the Spirit with the purpose of obtaining more power for work, more love in our life, more holiness in the heart, more light on Scripture or on our path. But all these gifts are subordinate to the great purpose of God. The Father bestowed the Spirit on the Son, and the Son gave Him to us for the purpose of revealing and glorifying Christ Jesus in us.

The heavenly Christ must become for us a real and living personality who is always with us and in us. Our life on earth can be lived every day in unbroken fellowship with our Lord Jesus. This is the first and greatest work of the Holy Spirit in the believer, that we should know and experience Christ as our life. God desires that we be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God’s love. This was the secret of the joy of the first disciples. They had received the Lord Jesus—whom they feared they had lost—as the heavenly Christ into their hearts. And this was their preparation for Pentecost: their attention was completely taken up with Him. He was literally everything to them. Their hearts were empty of everything, so that the Spirit could fill them with Christ. In the fullness of the Spirit they had power for a life and service such as the Lord desired for them. Is this the goal of our desires and our experience? The Lord wants us to know that the blessing for which we have so diligently prayed can be increased in no other way than by the faithful cultivation of intimate fellowship with Christ in prayer every day.”
          —  Andrew Murray, Living a Prayerful Life, 133-134
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“And after you surrender—then what? Your entire life should be characterized by an eagerness to maintain unbroken fellowship and oneness with God.”
          —  Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, September 13

(Repost from: A Disciple's Notebook)

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