Prayer and Promises

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. — 1 Corinthians 2:4,5, NIV 

The divine sacred influence of the Holy Spirit working in our world is to be as signs and wonders, because God’s people are a peculiar people, an holy nation, shining amid moral darkness as living stones in the Lord’s building. The weakest and feeblest, if they exercise faith in God, and improve their entrusted powers, will be elevated, refined and perfected in character under the Holy Spirit’s working. Humble and contrite, they submit to the moulding of the Spirit, and they will know what his eternal fullness means. 

We have the assurance that in this age of the world the Holy Spirit will work with mighty power, unless by our unbelief, we limit our blessings, and thus lose the advantages we might obtain. 

In his imperfection man has the privilege of linking himself up with God through Jesus Christ. Candidly and seriously we are to consider the question. Have we humbled ourselves before God, that the Holy Spirit may work through us with transforming power? As children of God, it is our privilege to be worked by his Spirit. When self is crucified, the Holy Spirit takes the broken hearted ones, and makes them vessels unto honor. They are in his hands as clay in the hands of the potter. Jesus Christ will make such men and women superior in mental, physical, and moral power. The graces of the Spirit will give solidity to the character. They will exert an influence for good because Christ is abiding in the soul. Unless this converting power shall go through our churches, unless the revival of the Spirit of God shall come, all their profession will never make the members of the church Christians. There are sinners in Zion who need to repent of sins that have been cherished as precious treasures. Until these sins are seen and thrust from the soul, until every faulty, unlovable trait of character is transformed by the Spirit’s influence, God cannot manifest himself in power. 

God calls upon men and women to empty their hearts of self. Then his spirit can find unobstructed entrance. Stop trying to do the work yourself. Ask God to work in and through you.

— The Southern Review, December 5, 1899

Dear Lord, I long to be linked up with You and worked by Your Holy Spirit. I humbly lay before You all my cherished idols of sin, asking You to cleanse and purify me from within. I empty my heart of self and submit myself to the molding influence of Your divine Spirit that I may be a vessel of honor. Through the graces of the Spirit, transform me and make me a to speak Your word and exert an influence for good.