Week 23 Sunday
Week 23 Sunday
Recharging Rundown Batteries
Luke 11:9-13; Acts 19:1-7
We have been meditating upon our resources for abundant living, and have found that the chief resource is the Holy Spirit. Where Matthew 7:11 records Jesus saying, “How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him,” Luke 9:13 translates his words as “the Holy Spirit to those who ask him”! The “Holy Spirit” is the “good things.” Seek then, not “good things,” but go beyond the good things to their Source, the Holy Spirit.
A little boy, when asked what the Holy Spirit means, replied, “I suppose it is what puts the ‘umph’ in Christianity.” That’s true and very much more. For the Spirit puts everything—everything a Christian needs for abundant living—into Christianity.
A minister said in one of our meetings: “I have a rundown battery that needs recharging. Can the Holy Spirit recharge rundown batteries?”
A worker went over to an oil well and deliberately oiled it, for it was squeaking badly, and visitors would not believe that it was an oil well if it seemed not to be oiled. Can the Holy Spirit put oil into the machinery of the Christian worker’s own life while the worker is trying to pump oil for others? Unless our own machinery is well-oiled and smooth-running, people will not believe that we have oil for others. How can we lift others to a par life if we are living under par? A girl came home from college saying, “I just needed the inspiration of the family life.” She was inspirationally run down and needed recharging. That is what we need spiritually. We are not bad, but empty.
Lord, I would share,
But first possess,
That inner gift, serenity.
Then, comforted, blessed, free from unrest,
Serve you none the less,
But with Tranquility.*
I come now, O Spirit of God, to have my inmost being renewed and recharged. Teach me how to gear in with your power, how to lay hold of your resources, how to align myself with your purposes, how to surrender to you. For I cannot go on running a stalling car, working on half its cylinders. I would be adequate for any hill, for any load, for any distance. Help me. Amen.
*Published source unknown.
Week 23 Monday
Steps in Receiving the Holy Spirit
John 14:16-17, 26; 16:7, 13; Acts 1:8
We come now to the ladder for receiving the Holy Spirit. Before we begin to take these steps, will you not breathe a prayer, an inward one at least, that you may not stumble on these steps; for bungling or skillfulness in climbing will make all the difference between a life of defeat and one of victory. The steps are simple.
(1) Believe it is in the divine intention for you to receive the Holy Spirit. Fix it in your mind that the gift of the Spirit is not an exceptional gift for exceptional people who are in exceptional work, but a gift which is the birthright of every Christian. “Jesus said this concerning the Spirit. Those who believed in him would soon receive the Spirit” (John 7:39 CEB). Note: “would soon receive”—receiving was in the divine intention and program for them. For whom? “Those who believed in him.” Here then is no exception. You, the ordinary Christian, are to receive the Holy Spirit, for you are counted among those who believe in him. “You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is for you, your children, and for all who are far away” (Acts 2:38-39 CEB). You belong to those “far away.” You are in the stream of the divine intention.
(2) Make sure that to receive the Holy Spirit is your intention. When I use the word intention, I mean will—not wishes or passing emotions or mental concepts—but will. Do you will to receive the Holy Spirit—not as a passing influence that may get you out of spiritual difficulties, give you momentary satisfaction in the thought that you have preached well, lift and inspire you in a crisis moment—not that, but as an abiding Power that will take over the citadel of your self and reign there as a lifelong, and an eternity-long, proposition?
(3) Bring the matter to a crisis. The soul grows by a series of crises. There is usually a crisis in conversion; there is usually a crisis here in receiving the Holy Spirit. Wall yourself in on both sides, so that there is no way around; you have to go forward or backward. The crisis moment has arrived.
O Spirit of God, I have come to the crisis hour. I do hedge myself about, so that I shall not sidestep into lame futilities and halfway compromises. I want nothing less than you—you—you. I cannot be satisfied with gifts; I want the gift of yourself. For the marginal doesn’t satisfy me anymore—the Center calls. I come. Amen.
Week 23 Tuesday
Steps in Receiving the Holy Spirit (continued)
John 17:17; Romans 12:1; Hebrews 7:25
(4) Remember the price you are to pay: yourself. If you ask for the gift of the Spirit itself, then it is obvious that this cannot be unless you offer yourself. You can ask for the Spirit’s gifts and in return give your gifts, but you cannot ask for the Gift of the self of the Holy Spirit and not involve the gift of yourself. Let us repeat what we said before: There is no love between persons unless there is mutual self-surrender. If either withholds the inmost self, love is blocked. So here.
(5) Then pay the price of a complete surrender. I mean surrender and not dedication. In dedication you still have your hands on the gift; in surrender you let go. The gift doesn’t belong to you anymore; it totally and wholly belongs to Another. You now lead a Spirit-led life, instead of a self-led life. You substitute One Will for two wills. You say to yourself, “Let go, let God.”
Just as the canvas surrenders itself to the painter, the violin to the musician, the wire to the electricity, so you put yourself at the disposal of the Divine. You surrender for better or for worse, for riches or for poverty, in sickness and in health, in life and in death. You will keep yourself only unto God. God has you.
Are you thereby lost or thereby found? You are lost just as a musician is who takes the violin, surrenders to the music, lets go, becomes a part of the music, and is thereby lost. The musician is lost only to find the self a part of the universal harmony. You lose your petty, isolated, defeated self in the universal Self of God and are harmonized with the heart of reality.
As Rufus Moseley says, “I died and I died ungraciously, but I died to nothing but that which caused me to die.”* You die, just as a train engine dies to the thought and purpose of wandering free anywhere and surrenders itself to the bondage of the rails, only to find its freedom there.
Complete surrender means complete security, for God’s will is our way, the way we are made to live.
O Spirit of God, bring this wandering, wavering will of mine to the bondage of your freedom, to the narrowness of your universality, to the yoke that is easy, and to the burden that is light. I bend my neck—not easily, but I bend it—to the yoke of your complete will. I am glad I do. Amen.
* Published source unknown.
Week 23 Wednesday
Final Steps in Receiving the Spirit
Acts 15:8-9; 1 Corinthians 15:57; Hebrews 10:22, 35-36
You are now ready for the next step. (6) Accept the gift of the Spirit. Remember, this is acceptance of the gift of the self of the Spirit and not one of its blessings. Don’t be put off with blessings; you want the Source of all blessing. Blessings come and go; the Spirit “will be with you forever” (John 14:16). Your choice is a permanent choice in solving a permanent transaction with a permanent Companion and Master.
Remember, the Spirit is a gift. “You shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory” (1 Cor. 15:57). “How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:13). You cannot be worthy of God’s presence or earn the right to it. You can do one thing and one thing alone: empty your hands and humbly take the Gift. Having given yourself, you now have a right to take Godself. Then repeat to yourself: “The Spirit comes. The Spirit comes. I let the Spirit come. I welcome with open heart the coming of the Holy Spirit. I am grateful for the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is done. We belong to each other, forever.” Close the eternal bargain.
The coming of the Spirit may be as gentle as the dew upon new-mown hay, a new sense that you are not alone; but it may also be like a storm. Welcome it and do not dictate the manner. There is a reason for the particular manner in your life.
(7) If you feel the inner urge, be free to tell others about the Spirit’s coming; share it. You are not boasting; you are simply telling of the unspeakable Gift. The sharing of it fixes it. Nothing is really yours until you share it.
(8) Make the surrender and the acceptance something once and for all and yet continuous. Surrender in marriage is once and for all, and yet it is daily. Paul could say, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20), and yet, “I die every day” (1 Cor. 15:31). Jesus said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst” (John 4:14): “drinks” is, according to the Greek, “once and for all,” and yet, “keeps on drinking.” This surrender is done, and yet never done; it is final, yet unfolding.
O Spirit of God, I have said a yes that covers everything, and yet I know how many smaller yeses are in that central and final yes. Help me live in a state of yes-ness to your unfolding will. And help me live in a perpetual state of no-ness to every little seduction. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Week 23 Thursday
Unbalanced Virtues
Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 6:13-17; 2 Peter 1:5-9
We come now to the tenth of the fifteen enemies of the abundant life: unbalanced virtues. It is not enough to have freedom from divided loyalties; we must have freedom from unbalanced virtues. One may have only virtues in one’s life, and yet those virtues may be out of proportion, unbalanced by opposite virtues; hence those very virtues cease to be virtues and come dangerously near to being vices.
Dr. Frank Sladen of the Henry Ford Hospital says, “There is a rhythm of the body. If this is disturbed, there is functional disturbance which may run into structural.”* As there is a rhythm of the body, so there is a in the virtues. If this rhythm is upset by some virtues being overemphasized and others being underemphasized, then there is functional disturbance in the spiritual life, which may turn into actual structural spiritual disease.
When a philosopher said, “No man is strong unless he bears within his character antitheses strongly marked,” he meant that each virtue must be held in tension by its opposite virtue. In that very tension between virtues is strength. The balanced virtues may be classed as follows:
passive / militant; personal / social;
self-effort / God-dependence; freedom / law;
world-renouncing / world-participating; artistic / artisan;
introversive / extroversive; self-renouncing / self-assertive;
mystical / practical; meekness / mastery;
being / doing; loving yourself / loving your neighbor.
love / law;
Many others could be added; for instance, the feminine virtues and the masculine. Suppose you have only one side of those virtues developed; you are weak. If you are only passive or only militant, you are weak. The truly strong person is militantly passive and passively militant; not now and again passive, and now and again militant, but both in a living blend at one and the same time. You see the blending of the passive and militant in Jesus.
It is easy for enthusiasm to become fanaticism, for zeal to become hysteria, for integrity to become hard and unforgiving, for thrift to pass over into stinginess.
O Jesus, so perfectly poised and harmonious, help my lopsided virtues to be corrected by your amazing balance and sanity. Where my virtues become out of proportion and have come to the verge of vices, give me grace to correct them—and the power. For my virtues must be redeemed too. Amen.
*Published source unknown.
Week 23 Friday
Virtues May Become Vices
Philippians 4:5, 8-9; James 1:3-4, 19, 22; 2:2
Ephesians 2:10 could be translated, “We are God’s poem.” If so, then the poem must be rhythmical, each part balanced against the other, the virtues harmonized by right emphasis. For instance, if there is nothing but self-effort, you are weak; and if there is nothing but God-dependence, you are weak. But where the two are blended in a higher synthesis, producing a person who works as if the whole thing depended on him or her and who trusts as if the whole thing depended on God, then you have a person who has caught the rhythm of “receptivity and response”—“receptivity and response,” the alternate beats of a single heart.
One’s firmness, a virtue, can become stubbornness, a vice. A minister said, “I am opinionated, and I call it conviction.” A one-track subway goes to and comes from the United States Senate chamber. I remarked to a friend, “Now I see why so many of these senators have a one-track mind. Nothing that is said ever changes them; they come and they go on one track.” Seriously, many of us are like that; we get an idea and hang on to it as a dog hangs on to a bone. Strong convictions may degenerate into stubborn opinions. A Scottish theologian remarked, “God grant that I may always be right, for I never change.” The person who is always right and never changes is always wrong.
Sensitivity rooted in selfishness is touchiness, but sensitivity rooted in thought for others is life.
One may emphasize the material or the spiritual and make it into a vice; a materialist or a spiritualist is a part-person. But one who puts spirituality into material relationships is really strong. One can be so righteous as to be unapproachable, or so loving as to be sentimental. To be righteously loving or lovingly righteous is true strength.
When a person’s right leg is longer than the left, that person limps. When one good quality is long in proportion to other good qualities, we limp.
O Jesus, we see in you the perfect man, all your virtues so that we cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. You are everything we want to be and are not. But you have us—chip us here, mold us there; eliminate here, add to there, until one day we wake in your likeness. Amen.
Week 23 Saturday
Steps to Right Unbalanced Virtues
1 Corinthians 13
If our virtues can topple over into vices, and our strengths degenerate into weaknesses, how can we correct them?
(1) Step off from your life and see it as a whole. Just what kind of total life is emerging? Am I an unbalanced person? Have I grown lopsided? What is the total impression I make on people? When people think of me, what do they think of?
(2) After looking at your life in the large, go over it in the minute. Go over your virtues one by one and see if they are virtues still. Has your meekness become weakness? Has your strength become stubbornness? Has your outer doing got out of proportion to your inner being? Have the outer activities become more than your sustaining prayer life? Have you become more of a go-getter than a go-giver? Has your righteousness become rigid and rutted?
(3) Quiet yourself; let down the bars; let Christ go over your life and point out what needs to be corrected. The tendency will be to defend yourself and your virtues. Don’t. Relax and let Christ render the verdict on each one. Accept that verdict. Don’t try to amend it.
(4) Surrender your virtues into his hands for correction. It is necessary to surrender our goodnesses to him as well as our evils. Christ will make all our evils into goods, and all our goods into betters, and all our betters into bests.
(5) Sit down with some honest, sympathetic friend and go over things in your life. A friend can see things you cannot. For we are each prejudiced in our own favor. You may come out far better than you suspected.
(6) Having looked at yourself, now look away from yourself to Christ. Don’t end up by fussily trying to arrange your virtues. Fix your eyes on Christ, for you become like that upon which you habitually gaze. He has all your virtues perfectly blended—plus. Become Christ-centered, not self-centered, even in balancing virtues.
O Christ, in you I have seen the perfect man, and I would be like you. But I cannot be like you through my own futile efforts. Together we can be and do anything. You have me—my lopsided virtues included. Remold me until I stand forth—your workmanship of which you shall not be ashamed. Amen.