QUIET HOUR

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 19 November 1932, Page 13

QUIET HOUR

(By “Epsilon”)

THE SPIRIT OF LIFE (Contributed for the Hawera Ministers’ Association.) ( | I I ! 1 -

‘‘The -Kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.”—l >C : or. 4.20. Transformation of character into the likeness of Christ is. the direct operation of .the. Spirit (2 Cor. 3.18), and as j without the sun the photographic image cannot be printed upon the sensitised film, so apart from the Holy Spirit, the moral glories of the Lord Jesus can never become ours in any sense same that of desire. Wo have seen above that He reveals the things in the life which should not be there and removes them—'that is the negative. He also reveals the things in Christ’s life which are not in ours and should be, and at the same moment gives us to claim them by faith, so that our completeness in Him (Col. 2.10) increasingly becomes actual — that is the positive. Thus His life effaces our death, His grace takes the place of our ugliness, and we are continually “being changed from glory to glory as by the Spirit.” This inner .transformation of character has its outward manifestation, which again- is attributed to the Spirit, so that transformed lives shine out before the world as “Epistles of Christ, written with the Spirit of the living God”J(2 Cor. 3.3). The Holy Spirit is also the source of all Teaching '(John 4:26, 16, 13, 1 Cor. 2.13; 1 John 2.20-07). He who inspired the Word is the only 'One to interpret its meaning, and without His constant illumination we cannot understand aught of it. Much of the difficulty which men raise about the inspiration of the Word of God to-day, is the result of the natural man trying to discern the things which belong to the Spirit and much of the great lack of enlightenment in the Word which characterises so many who daily read but find little food in the Book, is due to a neglect of Him who alone can lead us into all the truth. A man filled with the Holy Spirit is above all things a man who is continually being taught in the Word of God, while apart from the Spirit he knows nothing. Again, the great subject of prayer, that comprehensive need' of the •Christian’s life, is intimately bound up in the personal fulness of the Holy Spirit. It is “by the One Spirit, we have access unto the father’ ’ (Eph. 2, IS), and by the same Spirit, having entered the audience-chamber through the “new and living way,” we arc enabled to pray in the will of God (Bom. 8.15, 26-27; Gal. 4.6; Eph. 6, IS). Here is the secret of prevailing prayer, to-pray under a direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, whose petitions for us and through us are always ac cording to the Divine purpose and hence certain of answer. ‘‘Praying in the (Holy Ghost” is but co-operating with the will of God, and such prayer is always victorious. How many Christians there are who cannot pray, and who seek by effort, resolve, joining prayer circles, etc., to cultivate in themselves the “Holy art of intercession,” and all to no purpose. Here for them and for all is the only secret 1 of a real prayer life: “Bo filled with 1 the Spirit,” who is “the .Spirit of grace and supplication.” All guidance in the,pathway of the will of God is the direct work of the Holy -Spirit (Romans 5.14). To the obedient .soul there is no perplexity as to the next step, for there is no uncertainty in the inner voice of the Comforter, and He unerringly guides those whose lives He. controls in the pathway of true blessedness. But He does not guide where •He does not govern, and if you would know (His certain guidance in all the details of life (and it is in details that the need of Divine guidance is greatcst, for upon little things great things often depend) you must seek His fulness. You cannot know the influence apart from the indwelling.

Again, all love, both towards the Lord Himself and towards others, is the work of 'thft Spirit in us (Rom. a, d; Col. .1:8; Epti. H. 14-1.0).

It is quite readily admitted that love is one of the greatest needs of the children of iGbd to-dav, a love which is self-effacing, which sacrifices for others, which yearns over the lost, and which conquers all by its quiet power, and yet how is it to be produced in us except by the Divine Spirit? “Who is sufficient for these things?” Thanks to our blessed Lord’s full provision for our every meed, we may that love - reproduced in us uninterruptedly, for “the fruit of the Spirit is love”; but without Him nothing is more impossible.