Seeing Things As They Are

"And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him" (John 1:32)

John the Baptist possessed the right kind of vision, a true spiritual discernment. He could see things as they were.

The Holy Spirit came like a dove, descended like a dove, putting down His pink feet and disappearing into the heart of the Son of God.

I wonder out of all those crowds who saw the Holy Spirit come?

Only John the Baptist. I do not think anyone else had the kind of vision that was necessary to see Him.

John the Baptist was a man of vision in the midst of men who had no vision. He knew where he was in his times. The drift of the hour or the trend of the times in religion would never carry him away.

To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfill -
Oh, may it all my powers engage
To do my Master's will.

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Dying to Live

"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey ...?" (Romans 6:16)

For all God's good will toward us, He is unable to grant us our heart's desires till all our desires have been reduced to one. When we have dealt with our carnal ambitions; when we have trodden upon the lion and adder of the flesh, have trampled the dragon of self-love under our feet and have truly reckoned ourselves to have died unto sin, then and only then can God raise us to newness of life and fill us with His blessed Holy Spirit.

It is easy to learn the doctrine of personal revival and victorious living; it is quite another thing to take our cross and plod on to the dark and bitter hill of self-renunciation. Here many are called and few are chosen.

The meaning of self-denial is not an infliction of personal torment nor penance, but it is simply the giving up of the very principle of living for ourselves. It is completely changing the direction of our being and will, so that no loner in any sense do we act with reference to how anything will affect us, but our one thought is how it will affect God or others.

~A. W. Tozer~