The Full Blessing of Pentecost: How little it is enjoyed - continued 3

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

How little it is enjoyed (Excerpts - continued 3)

"My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."
1 COR. ii. 4, 5.

Think, too, how little there is of separation from the world.

When the Lord Jesus promised the Comforter,
He said: "Whom the world cannot receive."
The spirit of this world, which is devotion to the visible, is in irreconcilable antagonism with the Spirit of Jesus in heaven, where God and His will are everything.

The world has rejected the Lord Jesus; and, to whatever extent it may now usurp the Christian name, the world at heart is still the same untamable foe.
It was for this reason that Jesus said of His disciples, and as indicating one of their chief distinctive marks:
"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."
This, too, is the reason why Paul said:
"We have received, not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God."

The two spirits, the spirit of the world and the Spirit of God, are engaged in a life-and-death conflict with one another.
Hence it is that God has always called upon His people to separate themselves from the world, and to live as pilgrims whose treasure and whose heart are in heaven.

But is this what is really seen amongst Christians?
Who shall dare to say so?
When they have attained to a measure of unblamableness in walk and assurance of heaven, most Christians consider that they are at liberty to enjoy the world as fully as others.
There is little to be seen of true heavenly-mindeduess in conversation and walk, in disposition and endeavour.

Is not this the case just because the fulness of the Spirit is so little enjoyed and sought for?
Nothing but light can drive out darkness;
and nothing but the Spirit of heaven can expel the spirit of the world.

Where a man does not surrender himself to be filled with the Spirit of Jesus and the Spirit of heaven,
there can be no other issue than that,
Christian though he may be, he must come under the power of the spirit of the world.

O listen to the piercing cry that rises from the whole Church of Christ:
"Who shall rescue us from the power of this spirit of the world?"
And let your answer be:
"Nothing, no one, save the Spirit of God.
I must be filled with the Spirit."

 


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