Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
A.W. Tozer
Started reading
November 6, 2020
Surely you know that in times past, when Christians met and declared this kind of belief, some had their tongues pulled out, some had their ears burned off, some had their arms torn off, some lost their lives—all because they stood for this: Jesus was Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Only God can claim omnipresence.
He is described as having power to create.
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As far as I can tell by church history and extensive reading, the sound of the rushing wind from heaven was never repeated again, either. I have never read about that anywhere among the Moravians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans or any gathering of Christians other than this first group.
Whatever you do in the name of God, He gives you the ability to do. He gives you the ability to be victorious, to live right, to behold Jesus and to live with heaven in view. It is ability to do.
The wind, the fire, and the appearance have never been repeated, as far as I know. But the Comforter came. He came and filled them. He came to abide in them. He came to make Jesus real. He came to give them inward moral ability to do right, and inward ability to do God’s work. That stayed, and it is still here. If we do not have it, it is because we have been mistaught.
I believe we are in a critical time in the life and history of the church. If we continue to go the way we have been going in fundamentalist and evangelical circles, the fundamentalists will all be liberals and most of the liberals will be unitarian.
If you wanted to compose music like Johann Sebastian Bach, you would have to have the spirit of Bach. If you wanted to be a statesman like a Gladstone, you would have to possess the spirit of Gladstone. Now, if we are going to reproduce Christ on earth and be Christlike and show forth Christ, what are we going to need most? We must have the Spirit of Christ!
I would rather have you meditate on the Scriptures, read the Word, and see for yourselves what God the Lord has spoken.
It is plain in the Scriptures that the gentle and good Holy Spirit wants to fill us and possess us if we are Christians.
The Holy Spirit is pure, for He is the Holy Spirit. He is wise, for He is the Spirit of wisdom. He is true, for He is the Spirit of truth. He is like Jesus, for He is the Spirit of Christ. He is like the Father, for He is the Spirit of the Father. He wants to be Lord of your life, and He wants to possess you so that you are no longer in command of the little vessel in which you sail.
He will expect obedience to the written Word of God.
The Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures will expect obedience to the Scriptures, and if we do not obey the Scriptures, we will quench Him. This Spirit will have obedience—but people do not want to obey the Lord. Everyone is as full as he wants to be.
Everyone has as much of God as he desires to have.
The Holy Spirit will expect obedience to the Word of God.
What are the self-sins? Start with the love of self, and most of us must confess that we cultivate it. We go to school and learn how to put on and show off. God the Holy Spirit will never allow a Spirit-filled Christian to be like that. He is the Spirit who brings humility to the heart, and that humility will be in evidence or He will be quenched and grieved.
You will not be able to dictate to the Holy Spirit. This is our trouble—we are dictators, full of self-confidence. We need to be reminded that we are full of self-righteousness, too.
But, if someone called us a liar, our face would turn white and we would say, “What do you mean?” We say that we are bad—but we don’t really believe it!
Again, do you want to be filled with the Spirit badly enough that you are willing to stand against the easy and dishonest ways of the world and live the hard life of a Christian?
If there is anything in your life bigger than your desire to be a Spirit-filled Christian, you will never be a Spirit-filled Christian until that is cured.
We don’t need God and something else. God does give us Himself and lets us have other things, too, but there is that inner loneliness until we reach the place where it is only God that we desire.
The first thing is: You must present your vessel.
Now, the second thing is this: After presenting your vessel, you must ask!
The third important step is this: There must be willing obedience.
The fourth thing, of course, is this: to have faith in God.
The word “anointing” is what I want to emphasize at this point. The anointing is not a gradual thing. “Anointing” is an Old Testament word and an act accomplished by pouring oil on an individual’s head. When they poured oil on a man’s head, it was not a gradual process—when they poured the oil they turned the thing over and poured it out, and it ran all over and down the skirts of his garment.
1. God made promises about the coming of the Holy Spirit.
2. The three periods relating to the Holy Spirit and the Church.
3. Teachings about the Holy Spirit that hinder God’s people.
I have never tried to bend people to the working of God merely by eloquence, for if I don’t teach according to the truth found in the Bible, I’m wrong no matter how eloquent I try to be.
In Luke 11:13, I am sure God had in mind the love we have for our children when He said, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”
In making the Spirit the promise of the Father, I believe God wanted to show that we don’t have to be afraid of the Holy Spirit. I say this because I have found that it is very difficult to get Christians over the fear of the Holy Spirit. Just remember that He is given to us as the Father’s promised gift.
