Abiding Power in the Spirit
Pentecost did not come and go; Pentecost came and stayed. Chronologically the day may be found on the historic calendar; dynamically it remains with us still with all its fullness of power. Our insensibility to the presence of the Spirit is one of the greatest losses our unbelief and preoccupation have caused us. We have made Him a tenet in our creed, we have enclosed him in a religious word, but we have known him very little in our personal experience. Satan has hindered us all he could by raising conflicting opinions about the Spirit, by making Him a topic of hot and uncharitable debate between Christians. In the meanwhile, our hearts crave him, and we hardly know what the craving means. It would help us if we could remember that the Spirit is himself God, the very true nature of the Godhead subsisting in a form that can impart Himself to our consciousness. It is his light upon the face of Christ which enables us to know him.
—Tozer
Acts 1:8 begins, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you …” That power, the verse goes on to explain, is given to us for the purpose of living our lives in Christ, before a watching world; that we might be “witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” All too often, as Tozer reminds us in today’s devotional thought, we step out “insensible to the presence of the Spirit,” or in other words, in our own strength and ingenuity. And we wonder why it is so hard to be spiritual in our own strength. Look to the Spirit today, right now, before you do anything else. Let Him lead you. Follow His lead. –DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics