NONE BUT THE HUNGRY HEART

Sunday, December 30, 2018

12-30. Christ-filled

“He (the Holy Spirit) shall glorify Me (the Lord Jesus)” (John 16:14).

The Spirit’s ministry within is the displacement of the old man, and the emplacement of the New Man.

“The Father works to will, and He is ready to work to do, but, alas! many Christians misunderstand this. They think because they have the will it is enough, and that now they are able to do. This is not so. The new will is a permanent gift, an attribute of the new life in Christ. The power to carry out this will is not a permanent gift, but must be each moment received from the Holy Spirit. It is the one who is conscious of his own utter powerlessness, as a believer, who will learn that by the Spirit alone he can live the Christian life.” -A.M.

“Our manner of speaking may often mislead us. We would say, The work of the Spirit is to save souls. Yes, but why—just to save them? No; in order that the Lord Jesus may have His place. Those souls are to be ‘residences’ of the Lord Jesus. The Spirit may instruct believers and build them up—for what purpose? Just that they should be mature Christians? Not at all; but so that the Lord Jesus shall have a larger place.

“No matter what the Spirit does, He has one all-inclusive object and end—the glorifying of the Lord Jesus Christ: that is, the giving of Him His place, and then filling all things with Him. Do not think of the ‘being filled with the Spirit,’ or the ‘fulness of the Spirit,’ in any other way than this. The Holy Spirit’s filling is intended to be a filling of all things with the Lord Jesus Christ.” -T. A-S.

“How we have degraded the Holy Spirit into a mere power by which we have to do our work! Oh, that the Spirit might be held in honor as the One to fill us with the very life of our Lord Jesus Christ!” -A.M.

“Unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).