A Preliminary to Daybreak

"The Spirit and the bride say, Come ... Whosoever will let him take the water of life freely" (Revelation 22:17)

Maybe you feel in your heart that you just can't go on as you are, that the level of spirituality to which you know yourself called is way beyond you. If you feel that there is something that you must have or your heart will never be satisfied, that there are levels of spirituality, mystic deeps and heights of spiritual communion, purity and power that you have never known, that there is fruit which you know you should bear and do not, victory which you know you should have and have not - I would say, "Come on," because God has something for you.

There is a spiritual loneliness, an inner aloneness, an inner place where God brings the seeker, where he is as lonely as if there were not another member of the Church anywhere in the world.

Ah, when you come there, there is a darkness of mind, an emptiness of heart, a loneliness of soul, but it is preliminary to the daybreak. O God, bring us, somehow, to the daybreak!

When the renewal of the Spirit of God comes to your life there may be only one term to describe it - exploding love.

~A. W. Tozer~

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How To Receive the Holy Spirit

"How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" (Luke 11:13)

Here is how to receive the Holy Spirit. First, present your body to Him (Romans 12:1-2). God can't fill what He can't have. Are you ready to present your mind, your personality, your spirit, your love, your ambitions, your all? That is the first thing.

Now the second thing is to "ask" (Luke 11:9-11). He could give the Holy Spirit without our asking, but He chooses to have us ask. "Ask of me, and I will give thee" is always God's order; so why not ask?

Acts 5:32 tells us the third thing to do. God gives the Holy Spirit to them that obey Him. Are you ready to do what you are asked to do... to live by the Scriptures as you understand them? Simple, but revolutionary.

The next thing is, have faith (Galatians 3:2). We receive Him by faith as we receive the Lord in salvation by faith. He comes as a gift of God to us in power.

The power to sin is one thing, the promises to do so is another. Sanctification takes out the latter, but leaves the former, which is an attribute or necessity in a free moral agent.

~A. W. Tozer~