The Full Blessing of Pentecost: How it is to be taught - continued 4

The Full Blessing of Pentecost
- The One Thing Needful
By Andrew Murray 

How it is to be taught
(Excerpts - continued 4)

The most urgent need of the Church is that of men who shall be able to bear testimony to this blessing.

Whether it be of teachers like Peter and Paul, of deacons like Philip, or of ordinary believers like Ananias who came to Paul, this is our first need.

It furnishes abundant reason why teachers and members of congregations should unitedly call upon God, that alike in preaching and pastoral intercourse there may be more manifest proof that those who preach Christ Jesus may preach Him as John the Baptist did, as the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

It is only the minister that stands forth as a personal witness and living proof of the ministry of the Spirit whose word will have full entrance into the hearts of the people and exercise full sway over them.

The first disciples obtained the baptism on their knees;
on their knees they obtained it for others.
It will be on our knees also that the full blessing will be won to-day.

On our knees: let this be the attitude in which we await the full blessing of our God, alike in our individual and collective life.

Have ye received the Holy Spirit since ye believed?
Let every reader submit himself to this heart-searching question.

To be filled with the Holy Spirit of God, to have the full enjoyment of the Pentecostal blessing, is the will of God concerning us.

Let us judge our life and our work before the Lord in the light of this question, and return the answer to God. do not be afraid, my brother, to confess before your Lord what is still lacking in you.

Do not keep back, although you do not as yet fully understand what the blessing is or how it comes.
The early disciples did not know that, yet they called upon their Lord and waited for it with prayer and supplications.

Let but your heart be filled with a deep conviction of what you lack,
a desire for what God offers,
a willingness to sacrifice everything for it,
and you may rest assured that the marvel of Jerusalem and of Samaria, of Caesarea and Ephesus, will once again be repeated.

We may, we shall, be filled with the Spirit.
Amen.

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Real-life Deliverance Account

My sister and I had just done a deliverance on my mum yesterday (Tue, 28 Nov 2023).  It started when she kept vomitting and feeling very giddy and we laid hands upon her as usual according to the Word for divine healing.  However, it merely gave some relief to her, unlike other times as after a while, the extreme nauseousness and giddiness attacked her again. Then right around this point the demon took over her mind (soul) somewhat partially. The symptoms was that she looked dazed and kept repeating over and over again a number of questions like "Why am I sitting here" etc.  At this point when we talked to her, she did not remember anything that she did for the whole day (current time around 4pm+). It is very much like how a person with dementia would behaved and conversed.  To keep the long story short,  we took 2-3 hrs of casting out the demons in her and she is well now. Fast forward, It appeared that the demons came from H***i B***r (American Missionary) who came to our s
Read more

Absolute Surrender: Peter's Repentance

Image
Absolute Surrender By Andrew Murray Peter's Repentance You may be a very earnest, godly, devoted believer, in whom the power of the flesh is yet very strong. That is a very solemn truth.  Peter, before he denied Christ, had cast out devils and had healed the sick; and yet the flesh had power, and the flesh had room in him.  Oh, beloved, we have to realize that it is just because there is so much of that self-life in us that the power of God cannot work in us as mightily as God is willing that it should work.  Do you realize that the great God is longing to double His blessing, to give tenfold blessing through us?  But there is something hindering Him, and that something is a proof of nothing but the self-life.  We talk about the pride of Peter, and the impetuosity of Peter, and the self-confidence of Peter. It all rooted in that one word, self.  Christ had said, “Deny self,” and Peter had never understood, and never obeyed; and every failing came out of that. What a solemn thought,
Read more

A word of Knowledge: Stop depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove

Image
A word of Knowledge Stop depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove Luke 3:22 KJV And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. Many people, if not everyone, have misunderstood this verse. They pictured the Holy Spirit coming in the shape of a dove coming down upon Jesus. No, this is not what God is telling us at all.  What purpose does it serve to tell us the Holy Spirit looks like a dove where He obviously does not look like that?  God is not the author of foolishness and  confusion.  We are made in God's image, therefore, God the Holy Spirit's bodily shape is one that resembles that of a man, just as God the Son and God the Father. Now, let us read the verse again slowly: "And the Holy Ghost descended in a BODILY SHAPE like a dove upon him" ...in what bodily shape? It is of course in the shape of a man! And the Holy Ghost DESCENDED in a bodily shape LIKE A
Read more