Tag Archives: AB Simpson

How to be filled with the Holy Spirit

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This talk of “how to be filled with the Holy Spirit” may sound formulaic. But it’s not the same as how to build a deck or make a fancy dish. Actually, I believe God intends us to be filled with the Holy Spirit when we first accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord. It is both a one-time event and also a life-long process. But far too often, as in my own rebellious walk, being filled with the Holy Spirit came later. I asked Jesus into my life but did not quickly or totally surrender all to his authority over me. How thankful I am that God doesn’t apply my personal level of patience with me!

 
Being filled with the Holy Spirit is not an academic process. We aren’t filled by knowledge. Rather it is a matter of readiness and desire. That said, AW Tozer poses a number of preliminary questions for us to consider while examining our readiness and desire:

1. Am I ready to be filled?
Can I accept that Jesus accomplished everything at the cross and my good works don’t add to my salvation? Have I been accustomed to “considering the interests others before my own?” Am I ready to replace “my will” with “your will, Oh God?” The Spirit calls you to himself through prayer, meditation and scripture reading, and sometimes through the inspiration of others lives.

 

2. Do I want to be filled?

“Are you sure you want to be possessed by a spirit other than your own? That Spirit, if he ever possesses you, will be lord of your life!” Do I want to hand over the keys to my house, job, relationships, finances, personality, and even my motives and desires to the Holy Spirit and say, “I come and go as you tell me?” Am I convinced that I need to be filled? Have you come to the end of self and found it a futile way to live?

 

How to receive the Holy Spirit: (Reference AW Tozer)

1. You must present your whole self to his authority.
Just as we present ourselves to God to become clean before his eyes, so we must present all our body to the Spirit’s leading. (Romans 12:1-2) This may seem simple, but your response determines your readiness to let the Spirit have control over your whole life: your mind, your ambitions, and even your personality to his authority.

2. You must ask:
The Holy Spirit will not force himself on us but rather he only acts on our invitation.

3. You must obey.
It is senseless to submit ourselves to an authority unless we plan to willingly obey. The Holy Spirit is given to those who obey God. (Acts 5:31). Our obediance affirms what we believe. It seems simple to say this involves living by what the scriptures tell us but in today’s reality it is quite revolutionary.

4. You must have faith.
We receive and submit to the Holy Spirit by faith just as we submit to Jesus for our salvation – by faith. It is like building a house without knowing the whole purpose of its design, becoming a habitat of God. It’s like going on an adventurous journey without knowing all the details of the trip, letting him guide us, shape us, and lead us as only the Spirit of God can do. It’s considering yourself a vessel whose purpose is to be filled with God’s truth and grace and poured out on others for his redemptive plans.

 

Will you ask and believe him for the perfect plan he offers?

 

“We ask you, almighty God, let our souls enjoy this their desire, to be enkindled by your Spirit, that being filled as lamps by your divine gift, we may shine like burning lights before the presence of your Son Christ at his coming; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
– The Gelasian Sacramentary

 

A New Year’s note from your friend – A.B. Simpson

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imageA NEW YEAR’S GREETING FROM YOUR FRIEND, A. B. SIMPSON

In the name of the Lord, we wish for all to whom these words may come a happy New Year. In order that it may be so, let it be:

 

A year with Jesus. Let us seek its plan and direction from Him. Let us look to Him for our desire, ideals, expectations in it. Then shall it bring to us exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think. Let Him also be the sufficiency and strength of all the year. Let us not merely try to obey Christ or imitate Christ. Let us have Christ Himself in us to do the works, and let us every moment fall back on Him both to will and do in us of His good pleasure. And let our service be not our works, but the grace of Christ with us.

 

A year of self-forgetting ministry for Christ and others. Let us not drag our burdens through the year, but drop all our loads of care and be free to carry His yoke and His burden. Let us make the happy exchange, giving ours and taking His. So shall we lose our heaviest load—ourselves—and so shall we find our highest joy, divine love, the more blessed “to give” rather “than to receive.” Let us do good to all men as we have opportunity, let us lose no opportunity of blessing. Especially let us seek to win souls, and may 1886 [2015] be the harvest year of our lives.

 

A year of prayer. Let us learn the meaning of the ministry of prayer. Let us reach persons this year we cannot reach in person; let us expect results that we have never dared to claim before; let us count every difficulty only a greater occasion for prayer, and let us call on God for great and mighty things which we know not, and may the most glorious reminiscences of next New Year’s Eve be the wonders of answered prayer.

 

A year of joy and praise. Let us live in the promises of God and the outlook of His deliverance and blessing. Let us never dwell on the trial, but always on the victory just before. Let us not dwell in the tomb, but in the garden of Joseph and the light of the resurrection. Let us keep our faces toward the sun rising. In everything give thanks. Praise ye the Lord.

 

A year to forget the things that are behind and reach out unto those that are before. God has “a new thing” for us in 1886 [2015]. Let it be a year of deeper, wider, higher, diviner things. Let us hold fast that which we have attained, but go out also to “the regions beyond,” and arise and possess the length and breadth of the land which the Lord our God does give to us.

Yours in Him,

A.B. Simpson

(Excerpts reprinted from a personal letter to friends and acquaintances, January 1886—equally relevant for 2015.)

 

 

Hope for today and hope for tomorrow

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Our son Michael sent us a video from Sunrise Peak in Itchulbong, South Korea, Monday morning. Being 17 hours ahead of us in the Central time zone, the picture arrived to us simultaneously but in the late afternoon on SUNDAY, the day before. I love my sister’s reply when I forward it to her: “I have seen tomorrow and it is beautiful!”

A.B.Simpson wrote, “There is a spiritual law of choosing, believing, abiding and remaining steadfast in our walk with God. This law is essential to the working of the Holy Spirit in our sanctification and in our healing.” (from Days of Heaven Upon Earth)

Did you get that? A spiritual law that allows us to choose, believe, abide in, and stay steadfast regardless of our circumstances. We get to choose! Did somebody slight you or hurt you? You get to choose how you respond. Feeling lonely? You get to choose whether you stay that way. Feeling sorrowful? Again you get to choose whether and how long you stay in that place. Do you feel “stuck” where you are? It’s your choice of how that affects your day.

Every day we get to choose what kind of day it will be. We get to choose what tomorrow will be like too. It reminds me of the story of the old man who was about to be moved to a nursing home. “Would you like to see your room before you move,” asked the director? “No,” replied the man. “I have already decided that I like it just the way it is.”

In a commentary of the Civil War our 16th president was quoted as saying, “The struggle of today is not only for today. It is for a vast future also.” A. Lincoln 1862.

We have a great source of hope. Sure, we live in today’s reality and are directly affected by it, There is real sorrow and real pain to be dealt with. But the real battle of freedom is still my choice and I have real hope because of whom I trust. I hope your choices of trust bring you great joy, peace, and hope…for today, for a beautiful tomorrow, and for the vast future also.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13