“But ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost…” Acts 1:5
“Why do we want to be baptized with the Holy Ghost? All depends on the ‘why’. If we want to be baptized with the Holy Ghost that we may be of use, it is all up; or because we want peace and joy and deliverance from sin, it is all up. ‘He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost’,not for anything for ourselves at all, but that we may be witnesses unto Him. God will never answer the prayer to be baptized with the Holy Ghost for any other reason than to make us witnesses to Jesus. To be consciously desirous of anything but that one thing is to be off the main track.
The Holy Ghost is transparent honesty. When we pray, ‘Oh Lord, baptize me with the Holy Ghost whatever it means’, God will give us a glimpse of our self-interest and self-seeking, something has to go. God is amazingly patient.
The perplexity is not because of the hardness on the way, but the unwilling pride of sin, the stubborn yielding bit by bit, when it might be done any second. The acceptance of the Divine nature involves in it obedience to the Divine precepts. The commands of God are enablings. God banks entirely on His own Spirit, and when we attempt, His ability Is granted immediately. We have a great deal more power than we know, and as we do the overcoming we find He is there all the time until it becomes the habit of our life.
The baptism with the Holy Ghost is the great sovereign work of the Personal Holy Ghost; entire sanctification is our personal experience of it.” (Dec. 17, pg. 727)
"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is mine and declare it to you." (John 16:13, 14 NKJV)
“The love of God at work in me makes me hate with the hatred of the Holy Ghost all that is not in keeping with God’s holiness. To walk in the light means that everything that is of the darkness drives me closer into the centre of the light.” (Dec. 26, pg 744).
“When once we realize that through the salvation of Jesus Christ we are made perfectly fit for God, we shall understand why Jesus Christ is so ruthless in His demands. He demands absolute rectitude from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God. Beware lest you forget God’s purpose for your life.” (Sept. 21, pf 546)
“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” (Ro. 8:26 NKJV)
“As the Redemption creates the life of God in us, so it creates the things belonging to that life. Nothing can satisfy the need but that which created the need. This is the meaning of Redemption—it creates and it satisfies… Behind the preaching of the Gospel is the creative Redemption of God at work in the souls of men. It is never personal testimony that saves men. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.’ ” (Dec. 17, pg.726)
The above are several quotes from Oswald Chamber’s Devotions for MORNING and EVENING
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Tomorrow's post: WHEN THE JOURNEY GETS TOUGH
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