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Seventh
Lesson
"How much more the Holy
Spirit" Or,
The All-Comprehensive Gift.
If
ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how
much more shall the heavenly Father give
the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?
-Luke 11:13
The Holy Spirit is
therefore the gift we ought first and chiefly to seek.
In
the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord had already given utterance to His
wonderful How Much More? Here
in Luke, where He repeats the question, there is a difference.
Instead of speaking, as then of giving good gifts, He says, How
much more shall the heavenly Father give The Holy Spirit?
He thus teaches us that the chief and the best of these gifts is the
Holy Spirit, or rather, that in this gift all others are comprised The
Holy Spirit is the first of the Father's gifts, and the one He delights
most to bestow. The Holy Spirit is therefore the gift we ought
first and chiefly to seek.
Because
ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father.
The
unspeakable worth of this gift we can easily understand. Jesus spoke of
the Spirit as the promise of the Father the one promise in which
God's Fatherhood revealed itself. The
best gift a good and wise father can bestow on a child on earth is his
own spirit. This is the great object of a father in education to
reproduce in his child his own disposition and character. If the
child is to know and understand his father; if, as he grows up, he is to
enter into all his will and plans; if he is to have his highest joy in
the father, and the father in him, he must be of one mind and spirit
with him. And so it is impossible to conceive of God bestowing any
higher gift on His child than this, His own Spirit. God is what He
is through His Spirit; the Spirit is the very life of God. Just
think what it means God giving His own Spirit to His child on earth.
Or was not this the glory of Jesus as a Son upon earth, that the Spirit
of the Father was in Him? At His
baptism in Jordan the two things were united, the voice, proclaiming Him
the Beloved Son, and the Spirit, descending upon Him. And so the
apostle says of us, Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of
His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. A king seeks in
the whole education of his son to call forth in him a kingly
spirit. Our Father in heaven desires to educate us as His children
for the holy, heavenly life in which He dwells, and for this gives us,
from the depths of His heart, His own Spirit. It was this which
was the whole aim of Jesus when, after having made atonement with His
own blood, He entered for us into God's presence, that He might obtain
for us, and send down to dwell in us, the Holy Spirit.
He is
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus...
As
the Spirit of the Father, and of the Son, the whole life and love of the
Father and the Son are in Him; and, coming down into us, He lifts us up
into their fellowship. As Spirit of the
Father, He sheds abroad the Father's love, with which He loved the Son,
in our hearts, and teaches us to live in it. As Spirit of the Son,
He breathes in us the childlike liberty, and devotion, and obedience in
which the Son lived upon earth. The Father can bestow no higher or more
wonderful gift than this: His own Holy Spirit, the Spirit of son-ship.
This
truth naturally suggests the thought that this first and chief gift of
God must be the first and chief object of all prayer. For
every need of the spiritual life this is the one thing needful, the Holy
Spirit. All the fullness is in Jesus; the fullness of grace and
truth, out of which we receive grace for grace. The Holy Spirit is
the appointed conveyer, whose special work it is to make Jesus and all
there is in Him for us, ours in personal appropriation, in blessed
experience. He is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus; as wonderful
as the life is, so wonderful is the provision by which such an agent is
provided to communicate it to us.
Surely
the child of God needs but one thing to be able really to live as a
child: it is, to be filled with this Spirit.
If
we but yield ourselves entirely to the disposal of the Spirit, and let
Him have His way with us, He will manifest the life of Christ within
us. He will do this with a Divine power, maintaining the life of
Christ in us in uninterrupted continuity.
Surely, if there is one prayer that should draw us to the Father's
throne and keep us there, it is this: for the Holy Spirit, whom we as
children have received, to stream into us and out from us in greater fullness.
In
the variety of the gifts which the Spirit has to dispense, He meets the
believer's every need. Just think of
the names He bears. The Spirit of grace, to reveal and impart all
of grace there is in Jesus. The Spirit of faith, teaching us to
begin and go on and increase in ever believing. The Spirit of
adoption and assurance, who witnesses that we are God's children, and
inspires the confiding and confident Abba, Father!
Surely the child of God needs but
one thing to be able really to live as a child: it is, to be filled with
this Spirit.
The Spirit of
truth, to lead into all truth, to make each word of God ours in deed and
in truth. The Spirit of prayer, through whom we speak with the
Father; prayer that must be heard. The Spirit of judgment and
burning, to search the heart, and convince of sin. The Spirit of
holiness, manifesting and communicating the Father's holy presence
within us.
The Spirit of power, through whom we are strong to
testify boldly and work effectually in the Father's service.
The
Spirit of glory, the pledge of our inheritance, the preparation and the
foretaste of the glory to come. Surely the child of God needs but
one thing to be able really to live as a child: it is, to be filled with
this Spirit.
In
the words of God's promise, I will pour out my Spirit abundantly;
and of His command, Be ye filled with the Spirit; we have the
measure of what God is ready to give, and what we may obtain.
And now, the lesson Jesus teaches us today
in His school is this: That the Father is just longing to give Him to us
if we will but ask in the childlike dependence on what He says, If ye
know to give good gifts unto your children, How Much More shall
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. In
the words of God's promise, I will pour out my Spirit abundantly;
and of His command, Be ye filled with the Spirit; we have the
measure of what God is ready to give, and what we may
obtain.
As
God's children, we have already received the Spirit.
But we still need to ask and pray for His special gifts and operations
as we require them. And not only this, but for Himself to take
complete and entire possession; for His unceasing momentary
guidance.
On the
strength of God's Word we know that we have what we ask.
Just
as the branch, already filled with the sap of the vine, is ever crying
for the continued and increasing flow of that sap, that it may bring its
fruit to perfection, so the believer, rejoicing in the possession of the
Spirit, ever thirsts and cries for more.
And what the great Teacher would have us learn is, that nothing less
than God's promise and God's command may be the measure of our
expectation and our prayer; we must be filled abundantly. He would
have us ask this in the assurance that the wonderful How Much More
of God's Father-love is the pledge that, when we ask, we do most
certainly receive.
Let
us now believe this. As we pray to be filled with the Spirit, let us not
seek for the answer in our feelings. All
spiritual blessings must be received, that is, accepted or taken in
faith.1 Let
me believe, the Father gives the Holy Spirit to His praying
child. Even now, while I pray, I must say in faith: I have what I
ask, the fullness of the Spirit is mine. Let us continue steadfast
in this faith. On the strength of God's Word we know that we have
what we ask.
...if
there is one thing on earth we can be sure of, it is this, that the
Father desires to have us filled with His Spirit, that He delights to
give us His Spirit.
Let
us, with thanksgiving that we have been heard, with thanksgiving for
what we have received and taken and now hold as ours, continue steadfast
in believing prayer that the blessing, which has already been given
us, and which we hold in faith, may break through and fill our whole
being. It is in such believing
thanksgiving and prayer, that our soul opens up for the Spirit to take
entire and undisturbed possession. It is such prayer that not only
asks and hopes, but takes and holds, that inherits the full
blessing. In all our prayer let us remember the lesson the Saviour
would teach us this day, that, if there is one thing on earth we can
be sure of, it is this, that the Father desires to have us filled with
His Spirit, that He delights to give us His Spirit.
And
when once we have learned thus to believe for ourselves, and each day to
take out of the treasure we hold in heaven, what liberty and power to
pray for the outpouring of the Spirit on the Church of God, on all
flesh, on individuals, or on special efforts!
He that has once learned to know the Father in prayer for himself,
learns to pray most confidently for others, too. The Father gives
the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, not least, but most, when they ask
for others.
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LORD, TEACH
US TO PRAY:
...the
gift above all gifts which Thou wouldst bestow in answer to prayer is,
the Holy Spirit.
Father
in heaven! Thou didst send Thy Son to reveal Thyself to us, Thy
Father-love, and all that that love has for us.
And He has taught us, that the gift above all gifts which Thou wouldst
bestow in answer to prayer is, the Holy Spirit.
O
my Father! I come to Thee with this prayer; there is nothing I would may
I not say, I do desire so much as to be filled with the Spirit, the Holy
Spirit. The blessings He brings are
so unspeakable, and just what I need. He sheds abroad Thy love in
the heart, and fills it with Thy self. I long for this. He
breathes the mind and life of Christ in me, so that I live as He did, in
and for the Father's love. I long for this. He endues with
power from on high for all my walk and work. I long for
this. O Father! I beseech Thee, give me this day the
fullness of Thy Spirit.
Father!
I ask this, resting on the words of my Lord: How Much More The Holy
Spirit. I do believe that Thou
hearest my prayer; I receive now what I ask; Father! I claim and I
take it: the fullness of Thy Spirit is mine. I receive the gift
this day again as a faith gift; in faith I reckon my Father works
through the Spirit all He has promised. The Father delights to
breathe His Spirit into His waiting child as He tarries in fellowship
with Himself. Amen.
1The Greek word for
receiving and taking is the same. When Jesus said, Everyone that asketh receiveth,
He used the same verb as at the Supper, Take, eat; or on the
resurrection morning, Receive, accept, take the Holy Spirit.
Receiving not only implies God's bestowment, but our acceptance.
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Text
is in the Public Domain.
Candle Photo, Logo, & Layout: Copyright © 2002 S.G.P. All rights reserved.
Next Andrew Murray Index Next Topic
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Andrew Murray
1828-1917
Author of over 250 books,
he was the minister at the Dutch Reformed Church of
Wellington (South Africa) from 1871 to 1906, and lived there until his
death in 1917.
This statue of Andrew Murray was
erected in Wellington in 1923.
His vision for winning Africa
for Christ led him beyond the borders of Wellington. Missionaries from
Wellington penetrated into the heart of Africa.
He was a
proponent and at the forefront in founding schools both of education for
girls, and of Higher Education for women.
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Copyright
© 2001 S.G.P. All
rights reserved.
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Andrew
Murray
With
Christ
In
the School
of Prayer:
