The Spirit Is a Volitional Flame

"Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17)

The Spirit is also a "volitional" flame. Here as elsewhere the imagery is inadequate to express all the truth, and unless care is taken we may easily gain a wrong impression from its use. For fire as we see and know it every day is a "thing", not a person, and for that reason it has no will of its own.

But the Holy Spirit is a Person, having those attributes of personality of which volition is one. He does not, upon entering the human soul, void any of His attributes, nor does He surrender them in part or in full to the soul which He enters. Remember, the Holy Spirit is Lord.

Now it hardly need be said that the Sovereign Lord will never abandon the prerogatives of His Godhead. Wherever He is He must continue to act like Himself. When He enters the human heart He will be there what He has always been, Lord in His own right.

The yielding up of the soul to the disposal of Christ, is an act of the mind which cannot be separated from living faith.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Disease of the Heart

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15)

The deep disease of the human heart is a will broken loose from its center, like a planet which has left its central sun and started to revolve around some strange body from outer space which may have moved in close enough to draw it away. When satan said, "I will," he broke loose from his normal center, and the disease with which he has infected the human race is the disease with which he has infected the human race is the disease of disobedience and revolt. Any inadequate scheme of redemption must take into account this revolt and must undertake to restore again the human will to its proper place in the will of God.

The spirit of the world is incompatible with the spirit of the gospel. It is the spirit of pride, and not humility - of self-indulgence rather than self-denial. Riches, honors and pleasure form the great object of pursuit with the men of the world. This spirit the Christian has mortified.

Not I but Christ be honored, loved, exalted;
Not I but Christ be seen, be known, be heard;
Not I but Christ in every look and action;
Not I but Christ in every thought and word.

~A. W. Tozer~