Steps To the Filling

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above ... For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:1, 3)

Now let us keep our theology straight about all this. There is not in this painful stripping one remote thought of human merit. The "dark night of the soul" knows not one dim ray of the treacherous light of self-righteousness. We do not by suffering earn the anointing for which we yearn, nor does this devastation of soul make us dear to God nor give us additional favor in His eyes.

The value of stripping experience lies in its power to detach us from life's passing interests and to throw us back upon eternity. It serves to empty our earthly vessels and prepare us for the inpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The filling with the Spirit, then, requires that we give up our all, that we undergo an inward death, that we rid our hearts of that centuries-old accumulation of Adamic trash and open all rooms to the heavenly Guest.

The Holy Spirit is God's purifying messenger to us, bringing the water and the fire that will make us white as snow. Let us trust Him, let us obey Him, let us receive Him.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Toward the Greater

"Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh .. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16, 25)

The Holy Spirit is a living Person and should be treated as a person. We must never think of Him as a blind energy nor as an impersonal force. He hears and sees and feels as any person does. He speak and hears us speak.

We can please Him or grieve Him or silence Him as we can any other person. He will respond to our timid effort to know Him and will ever meet us over half the way.

However wonderful the crisis experience of being filled with the Spirit, we should remember that it is only a means toward something greater: the greater thing is the lifelong walk in the Spirit, indwelt, directed, taught and empowered by His mighty Person. And to continue thus to walk in the Spirit requires that we meet certain conditions.

These are laid down for us in the sacred Scriptures and are there for all to see.

The highest point of Christian experience is to press forward. It is a distinguishing trait in the character of every good man, that he grows in grace.

~A. W. Tozer~