Monday: Further Steps in Receiving the Holy Spirit
WEEK 51
MONDAY
FURTHER STEPS IN RECEIVING THE HOLY SPIRIT
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
We are considering the steps we are to take in receiving the Holy Spirit.
Third, having come so far along in redeeming you, will God now pull back and hesitate or refuse to give you the crowning gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit? If so, that would reverse God’s character and purpose, for God is driving for this very end. God is driving according to the divine nature as Love, for Love yearns for the object of its love. All the other steps were taken in order to take this crucial step—to step inside us.
Fourth, there are no blocks on God’s side; they are all on our side. If you have not received the Holy Spirit, then do not look at God to find the blocks; look within yourself, the blocks are there. There is only one person who can keep you from receiving the Holy Spirit, and that one person is you.
Fifth, the biggest block is a lack of self-surrender. Invariably I find that this is the real block. We give this, that, and the other; but we don’t give the self. Or if we give, we don’t give up. We give with strings attached, “I’ll give this if God will do this.” No, there must be no ifs or buts. It must be clear-cut surrender. And I mean surrender.
I have tried to find a better word, commitment, for instance. But commitment would seem to imply that your hands are still on the gift. In surrender, your hands are not on the gift; they are raised in surrender. God has the gift of yourself, irretrievably. From henceforth the basis of your life is not you but Christ. For you live in Christ, not yourself. That change is not make-believe, it is fundamental. Now you are not your own. Your knees bend in obedience at one place and one place alone, Christ. This is not conditional. Whether I receive or don’t receive, Christ has me. And has me for better or worse, to sink or swim, to live or die; I’m in his hands forever. I’ve burned my bridges behind me.
O Jesus, my Lord, you manage me better than I can, so I give myself not grimly but gladly. It is a happy yielding up of all I am and have. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Myself on my own hands is a problem and a pain; myself in the hands of God is a possibility and a power.