Absolute Surrender

I want to look at the life filled with the Holy Spirit more from the practical side, and to show how this life will express itself in our daily walk and conduct.

Under the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit often came upon people as a Spirit of revelation — to make known God's mysteries, or to give power for God's work. But He did not dwell in them permanently. Today, many Christians want only the Old Testament gift of power for work, while knowing very little of the New Testament gift of the indwelling Spirit who animates and renews the whole inner life. When God gives the Holy Spirit, His great purpose is the formation of a holy character. It is the gift of a holy mind and a spiritual disposition. Above all else, we need to say: "I must have the Holy Spirit sanctifying my whole inner life if I am truly going to live for God's glory."

You might say that when Christ promised the Spirit to His disciples, it was so they could be witnesses with power. That is true — but they received the Holy Spirit in such heavenly power and reality that He took possession of their entire being, fitting them as holy men to do powerful work. Christ spoke of power to the disciples, but it was the Spirit filling their whole being that produced the power.

I want to dwell on Galatians 5:22: "The fruit of the Spirit is love."

We read that "love is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom. 13:10). My desire in speaking about love as the fruit of the Spirit is twofold. First, I want this word to act as a searchlight in our hearts, giving us a test for all our thoughts about the Holy Spirit and all our experience of the holy life. Has it been your daily habit to seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of love? Has your experience been that the more you have of the Holy Spirit, the more loving you become? When you ask for the Holy Spirit, love should be your first expectation. The Holy Spirit comes as a Spirit of love.

Oh, if this were truly the experience of the Church, how different her condition would be! May God help us grasp this simple, heavenly truth — that the fruit of the Spirit is a love that shows up in real life, and that as the Holy Spirit truly takes possession of a life, the heart is filled with real, divine, universal love.

God Is Love

Why is the fruit of the Spirit love? Because God is love (1 John 4:8). And what does that mean? It is the very nature and being of God to delight in giving Himself. God has no selfishness. God keeps nothing back. His nature is always to be giving. You see it in the sun, the moon, the stars, every flower, every bird, every creature. God pours out life to His creation. The angels around His throne — where do they get their glory? Because God is love, and He imparts to them His brightness and blessedness.

One of the early church fathers said we cannot better understand the Trinity than as a revelation of divine love: the Father, the loving One, the Fountain of love; the Son, the beloved One, the Reservoir into which love poured; the Spirit, the living love that unites both and then overflows into this world. The Spirit of Pentecost — the Spirit of the Father and the Son — is love. When the Holy Spirit comes to us, will He be less a Spirit of love than He is in God? He cannot change His nature. The Spirit of God is love, and the fruit of the Spirit is love.

Humanity Needs Love

Why did this matter so much? Because restoring love to the world was the great purpose of Christ's redemption. When people sinned, what happened? Selfishness triumphed — they sought themselves instead of God. Adam immediately blamed the woman. Love for God was gone; love for others was lost. Of the first two children of Adam, one became the murderer of his brother. Sin robbed the world of love.

The Lord Jesus Christ came down from Heaven as the Son of God's love. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son" (John 3:16). Christ came to show what love looks like. He lived a life of love — in fellowship with His disciples, in compassion toward the poor and suffering, in love even toward His enemies — and He died the death of love. When He went to Heaven, whom did He send? The Spirit of love, to banish selfishness and envy and pride, and to plant the love of God in human hearts. The fruit of the Spirit is love.

What was the preparation for the promise of the Holy Spirit? You know that promise in John 14. But notice what comes before it in John 13. Before Christ promised the Spirit, He gave a new commandment: "As I have loved you, so love one another." His dying love was to be the only law governing how His followers treated each other. What a word for those fishermen, those men full of pride and self-interest — "Learn to love each other as I have loved you." By the grace of God, they did it. When Pentecost came, they were of one heart and one soul. Christ did it for them.

He also said: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples — if you love one another" (John 13:35). Love was to be the badge of Christ's followers. Has the world seen that badge on us? Or has the world instead seen quarreling and division among Christians? Let us ask God with one heart that we may truly wear the badge of Jesus' love.

Love Conquers Selfishness

The fruit of the Spirit is love, because nothing but love can expel and conquer our selfishness. Self is the great curse — in our relationship with God, in our relationship with others, in always thinking of ourselves and seeking our own. Christ came to redeem us from self. Sometimes we talk about deliverance from the self-life, and I'm thankful for every word that helps us there. But I'm afraid some people think that deliverance from self means simply that they will no longer struggle in serving God — and they forget that deliverance from self means becoming a vessel overflowing with love for everyone, all day long.

Many people pray for the power of the Holy Spirit and do receive something — but not nearly what is available, because they prayed for power to work and power to bless, but not for power to be completely delivered from self. And that means not just self in relation to God, but the unloving self in relation to other people. There is deliverance. The fruit of the Spirit is love. I bring you the glorious promise that Christ is able to fill our hearts with love.

Many people try hard to love — they force themselves to love — and while that is better than nothing, the end result is always sad confession: "I fail over and over." Why? Simply because they have never learned to believe and receive this truth: the Holy Spirit can pour God's love into their hearts. "The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 5:5). This has often been understood too narrowly — as merely God's love toward me. But the love of God is always the full thing: God's love to me, rising back to Him in love, and overflowing to my fellow human beings. The three are one; you cannot separate them.

Why is a lamb always gentle? Because that is its nature. The lamb doesn't have to work at being gentle — it flows from what the lamb is. A wolf doesn't have to summon courage to be ferocious — that is its nature. How can I learn to love? Only when the Spirit of God fills my heart with God's love. Only when I stop seeking that love selfishly — just as a comfort and pleasure to myself — and begin instead to long for it as an indwelling power for self-giving. Only when I begin to see that my glory and my blessedness is to be like God and like Christ, in giving up everything for the good of others. May God teach us that! The fruit of the Spirit is love.

Love Is God's Gift for Daily Life

Without this love, we cannot live the daily life of love. Think about temper. A clock's hands reveal what is happening inside the clock. If the hands point wrong, something inside is not working. Temper is exactly like that — it reveals whether the love of Christ is truly filling the heart. Many people find it easier to be holy and happy in church or prayer meeting or Christian work than at home with their spouse and children. Where is the love of God? In Christ. God has prepared a wonderful redemption for us, and He longs to make something supernatural of us. Have we longed for it and asked for it?

And what about the tongue? How much liberty many Christians give their tongues! When we speak about each other, about our neighbors, about fellow believers — how often there are sharp words, hasty judgments, unloving remarks, secret contempt, quiet condemnation. As a mother's love covers her children and rejoices over them, feeling tender compassion even for their failures, so there ought to be in every believer's heart a motherly love toward every brother and sister in Christ. Have you aimed at this? Have you sought it? Jesus said, "As I have loved you, so love one another" — and He made this not just one commandment among many, but the commandment, the defining one.

From love flow all the other graces in which love is expressed: joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness; no sharpness or harshness in your tone, no unkindness or selfishness; meekness before God and people. I have often noticed that in Colossians 3:12 — "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience" — if we had written this ourselves, we would have listed the more forceful virtues: zeal, courage, diligence. But the gentler virtues, the most tender and gracious ones, are especially connected with dependence on the Holy Spirit. These are heavenly graces, unknown in the ancient pagan world. Christ had to come from Heaven to teach them.

"No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God lives in us" (1 John 4:12). I cannot see God — but as a way of meeting with God, I can love my brother. If I love him, God dwells in me. And then: "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar. For whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen" (1 John 4:20).

Perhaps there is someone in your life who is difficult to be around — who irritates you every time you meet. Maybe he is untidy or unreliable, very different from you in temperament. You say, "I cannot love him." But that is precisely the lesson Christ most wanted to teach us. Whatever a person is like, you are to love them. Love is to be the fruit of the Spirit all day, every day. If you do not love that unlovable person you can see, how can you love God whom you have not seen? You can deceive yourself with beautiful thoughts about loving God. But your love for God is proven by your love for your neighbor — that is the standard by which God measures it. If the love of God is in your heart, you will love your brother. The fruit of the Spirit is love.

Our Love Shows God's Power

In Acts 2 and 4, we read that the disciples were of one heart and one soul. In three years walking with Christ they had never managed that. All of Christ's teaching could not produce it. But the Holy Spirit came from Heaven and poured God's love into their hearts, and they were of one heart and one soul. The same Holy Spirit must fill us too. Nothing less will do. Even as Christ could preach love for three years with angelic eloquence, it would not teach anyone to love unless the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them to plant heavenly love in their hearts.

Think about the divisions in the Church today. What differences arise over questions of holiness, the cleansing blood, the baptism of the Spirit — differences among deeply committed believers! Differences of opinion do not disturb me. But how often these very disagreements produce bitterness, contempt, and separation — the holiest truths of God's Word becoming mountains that divide us. Our doctrines and creeds have become more important than love. We think we are defending truth and forget that God commanded us to speak the truth in love.

If we want to pray with power, if we want the Holy Spirit to be poured out, we must enter into a covenant with God to love one another with heavenly love. Are you ready for that? Only the love that is large enough to embrace all God's children — even the most unloving, unlovable, and difficult — is true love. If your vow of absolute surrender to God is real, then it must include absolute surrender to divine love, to be a servant of love to every child of God around you.

Christian Work Requires Love

The fruit of the Spirit is love — and love is the only true power for Christian work. We often take up Christian work out of habit, or because a minister or friend asked us to, or with a certain zeal but without a genuine baptism of love. People often ask what the baptism of fire means. I know no fire like the fire of God — the fire of everlasting love that consumed the sacrifice at Calvary. The baptism of love is what the Church needs.

Many believers say, "I work for Christ. I feel I could work harder, but I don't know where to start or what I can do." Brother, sister — ask God to baptize you with the Spirit of love, and love will find its way. Love is a fire that burns through every obstacle. You may be shy or hesitant or unsure how to speak — but love can burn through everything.

Love Makes Us Intercessors

Love alone can fit us for the work of intercession. The hardest and most important work to be done for this sinful world is the work of intercession — going to God and taking time to truly lay hold of Him. May God give us the great gift of an intercessory spirit, a spirit of prayer and supplication!

Let me urge you not to let a day pass without praying for all of God's people. Paul's first plea was not primarily for the lost, but for believers — "I urge you to pray for the saints." Pray every day: "Lord, bless Your people everywhere." The state of Christ's Church is indescribably low. Plead for God's people. Let love fill your heart. Ask Christ to pour it into you afresh every day.

Have you a lack of love to confess before God? Then make that confession: "O Lord, I confess my lack of heart, my lack of love." And as you cast that lack at His feet, believe that the blood of Jesus cleanses you, that He comes in His mighty, cleansing, saving power to deliver you — and that He will give you His Holy Spirit.

"The fruit of the Spirit is love."

"Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen... and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia." (Acts 13:1–4)

The great lesson of this passage is this: the Holy Spirit is the director of God's work upon the earth. If we are to work rightly for God, and if God is to bless our work, we must stand in a right relationship with the Holy Spirit. We must give Him every day the place of honor that belongs to Him — both in all our work and, more importantly, in all our private inner life.

God Has His Own Plans

God had His plans for Asia and for Europe. He conceived them and made them known to His servants. Our great Commander organizes every campaign, and His workers do not always know the full strategy. They receive sealed orders and must wait on Him for what is next. God in Heaven has intentions and will regarding what ought to be done and how — and blessed is the person who gets into God's secrets and works under His direction.

Our position is simply to be faithful in obedience, carrying out His orders. God has a plan for His Church on earth. But too often we make our own plan, thinking we know what ought to be done. We ask God to bless our efforts rather than refusing to move unless God goes before us. The Holy Spirit has been given charge of this work. May God help us all to be careful about acting on our own impulse rather than waiting for the Spirit's leading.

God Reveals His Will to His Servants

Communications still come down from Heaven. As the Holy Spirit spoke here to the church at Antioch, so the Spirit still speaks to His Church and His people. In these later times He has often come to individual people, leading them by His divine teaching into fields of labor that others could not at first understand or approve — into ways and methods that did not seem obvious. But the Holy Spirit does still teach His people. Thank God for that.

Yet we must honestly confess: we have not learned enough to wait on Him. We should make a sincere commitment before God: "O God, we want to wait more for You to show us Your will." Do not ask God only for power. Many believers have their own plans and simply want God to supply the energy. But what is done in the will of God will have the blessing of God. Let our first desire be to have God's will revealed.

Is it difficult to receive these communications from Heaven? It is easy for those who are in true fellowship with Heaven and who have learned the art of waiting on God in prayer. God can only reveal His will to a heart that is humble, tender, and empty. He can only make His will known in perplexity to a heart that has learned to obey and honor Him faithfully in small things and in daily life.

The Heart That Hears

What kind of heart receives the Spirit's direction? Consider those men at Antioch. They were ministering to the Lord, fasting, waiting. They had a deep conviction: "Everything must come directly from Heaven. We are in fellowship with the risen Lord, and somehow He will let us know what He wants." There they were — empty, uncertain of their own wisdom, but humble and prayerful. "O Lord, we are Your servants. In fasting and prayer we wait on You. What is Your will?"

Think also of Peter on the rooftop, fasting and praying — with no idea that a vision was coming, no idea that he would soon be sent to Caesarea. He was completely open, having laid aside his own agenda. In hearts entirely surrendered to Christ, in hearts that have separated themselves from the pull of the world and given themselves over in intense prayer — in such hearts the will of God is revealed.

Those men fasted twice in this passage. When you pray, you go into your room and shut the door — you shut out business, distraction, and noise, and seek to be alone with God. But even then, in one sense the material world follows you. You still need to eat. These men wanted to shut out even the routine necessities of the physical world, to express in their fasting a full letting go of earth's concerns. Oh, may God give us that intensity of desire, that separation from everything, as we wait upon Him for His will.

Separated unto the Holy Spirit

What is God's will for us? The Holy Spirit's message contains it in one phrase: separation unto the Holy Spirit. "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."

Look at this message from two angles. The men were to be set apart to the Holy Spirit, and the church was to do the separating. The Holy Spirit could trust that church to do it in the right spirit — they were abiding in fellowship with the heavenly. And the two men were ones whom the Spirit had already prepared.

This brings us to the very root of what is needed for Christian workers. What is required for the power of God to rest more fully on us and for blessing to flow more abundantly through us? The answer from Heaven is: "I want people separated unto the Holy Spirit."

What does that mean? You know there are two spirits at work in the world. Christ said, "The world cannot receive the Spirit" (John 14:17). Paul said, "We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God" (1 Cor. 2:12). The great need for every worker is this: the spirit of the world going out, and the Spirit of God coming in to take possession of the whole inner life.

There are workers who cry to God for the Spirit to come upon them as a power for their work — and when they feel that power and receive blessing, they thank God. But God wants something more. God wants us to seek the Holy Spirit as a power in our own heart and life — to conquer self, cast out sin, and form the image of Jesus in us.

There is a difference between receiving the Spirit as a gift of power and receiving the Spirit as the grace of a holy life. A person may have a measure of the Spirit's power, but if there is not a large measure of the Spirit's holiness, the deficiency will show up in the work. People may be converted under such a ministry, but they will not be helped to a higher standard of spiritual life. But a person who is truly separated unto the Holy Spirit is one who has said: "Father, let the Holy Spirit have full dominion over me — in my home, in my temper, in every word of my tongue, in every thought of my heart, in every feeling toward others. Let the Holy Spirit have complete possession."

Is that what has been the longing and covenant of your heart with your God — to be a person separated and given up to the Holy Spirit? I pray you, listen to the voice of Heaven: "Separate me." Separated unto the Holy Spirit. If God reveals to us that we have not fully come out from the world — that self-will and self-exaltation are still present — let us humble ourselves before Him.

Partnership with the Holy Spirit

This holy partnership with the Holy Spirit becomes a matter of conscious action. After the church laid hands on Paul and Barnabas, it is written that the Holy Spirit sent them. What a picture! The Holy Spirit working from Heaven, human beings on earth carrying out His commission. After the ordination on earth, God's inspired Word records that they were sent by the Holy Spirit.

And see how this partnership calls us to renewed prayer and fasting. After the Holy Spirit spoke, the disciples returned to more fasting and prayer before sending the two men out. This teaches us that it is not only at the beginning of Christian work that we must be saturated in prayer, but all the way through. Our strength must continuously be found in prayer.

We have the key that can unlock the dungeon of a world in spiritual darkness. But we are often more occupied with our work than with prayer. We believe more in speaking to people than in speaking to God. Learn from these men: the work the Holy Spirit commands must drive us to new fasting and prayer, new separation from the pleasures of the world, new consecration to God. If in all our ordinary Christian work there were more prayer, there would be more blessing in our inner life. If we truly lived and testified that our only strength was staying in constant contact with Christ — allowing God to work through us every moment — would our lives not be holier? Would they not bear more abundant fruit?

Paul warns in Galatians 3:3: "Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" A terrible danger in Christian work — and in the Christian life — is this: work that began in the Spirit gradually drifts onto the track of the flesh. In our early days of helplessness, we prayed much, and God answered and blessed. But as our organization grew, the rush of activity has so consumed us that the power of the Spirit in which we began has quietly faded. More prayer and fasting, sustained prayer — this is what keeps the work from slipping into fleshly effort.

The Blessing of Holy Spirit-Led Work

What a wonderful blessing comes when the Holy Spirit is truly allowed to lead and direct the work! You know the story of the mission Paul and Barnabas went out on — the great power, the Holy Spirit leading them from place to place, even redirecting Paul away from Asia toward Europe. And the blessing that rested on that little company and their ministry was extraordinary.

God has a blessing for us today. The Holy Spirit — into whose hands God has entrusted the work of the kingdom — is willing to bless. Why is there not more blessing? There can be only one answer: we have not honored the Holy Spirit as we should. Is there anyone who can honestly say that is not true? Every thoughtful heart must be ready to cry: "God forgive me that I have not honored the Holy Spirit as I should. I have grieved Him. I have allowed self and the flesh and my own will to operate where the Holy Spirit should have had full authority."

No wonder there is so much weakness and failure in the Church. Oh, that God would bring us into true, deep, continuous fellowship with the Holy Spirit — separated unto Him, and therefore filled with Him!

"The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: 'Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.' And he went outside and wept bitterly." (Luke 22:61–62)

That was the turning point in Peter's life. Christ had said to him, "You cannot follow me now" (John 13:36). Peter was not ready to follow Christ because he had not yet come to the end of himself — he did not truly know himself. But when he went out and wept bitterly, the great change came. Earlier, Christ had told him: "When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." Here is the moment Peter was converted — from self to Christ.

I am grateful for the story of Peter. No one in the Bible gives us greater comfort. When we look at his character, so full of failure, and then see what Christ made of him by the power of the Holy Spirit, there is hope for every one of us. But remember — before Christ could fill Peter with the Holy Spirit and make a new man of him, Peter had to go out and weep bitterly. He had to be humbled. Let us look at four things: Peter the devoted disciple, Peter living the self-life, Peter in his repentance, and what Christ made of Peter by the Holy Spirit.

Peter the Devoted Disciple

When Christ called Peter to leave his nets and follow Him, Peter did it immediately. He could rightly say later: "We have left everything to follow you" (Matt. 19:27). Peter was a man of absolute surrender — he gave up everything. He was also a man of ready obedience. When Christ said, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets," Peter the fisherman knew there were no fish — they had fished all night and caught nothing. But he said: "Because you say so, I will let down the nets" (Luke 5:4–5). He submitted to Christ's word. Peter was also a man of great faith. When he saw Jesus walking on the water, he said, "Lord, if it's you, tell me to come to you on the water" — and at Christ's voice, he stepped out and walked (Matt. 14:28). And he was a man of spiritual insight. When Jesus asked the disciples, "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Christ responded: "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah — flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven."

Peter was a remarkable man, a devoted disciple. And yet — how much was still missing.

Peter Living the Self-Life

Right after Christ said, "Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven," Jesus began to speak of His coming suffering. And Peter dared to say: "Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!" Then Jesus had to say: "Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns" (Matt. 16:22–23). There was Peter in his self-will, trusting his own wisdom, actually trying to prevent Christ from going to die.

More than once among the disciples there was arguing about who would be greatest, and Peter was in the middle of it, convinced he deserved the first place. Self-seeking was strong in Peter. He had left his boats and his nets — but not his old self.

After that exchange, Christ said: "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matt. 16:24). That is the only way to follow Christ — self must be utterly denied. When Peter denied Christ, he said three times: "I don't know the man" — essentially, "I have nothing to do with Him; He and I are strangers." That is exactly what Christ told Peter he must do with self: deny it, ignore it, refuse all its claims. But Peter did not understand this, and could not obey it.

On the night of the betrayal, Christ told Peter: "Before the rooster crows twice, you will disown me three times." And with what confidence Peter replied: "Even if all fall away, I will not. I am ready to go with you to prison and to death" (Mark 14:29; Luke 22:33). Peter meant every word of it. He was being completely honest. But Peter did not know himself. He did not believe he was as weak as Jesus said he was.

Notice how Christ used the word deny twice. First He said to Peter, "Deny self." Then: "You will deny me." It is one or the other. We must either deny self or deny Christ. Two great powers are at war within us — our sinful nature and Christ in the power of God. One of these must rule.

Peter's Repentance

Peter denied his Lord three times — and then the Lord turned and looked straight at him. That look broke Peter's heart. All at once the terrible sin he had committed opened before him — the complete failure, the depths to which he had fallen — and "he went outside and wept bitterly."

Who can fully imagine that repentance? Through the remaining hours of that night, and the next day watching Christ be crucified and buried, and the Sabbath day following — in what hopeless despair and shame Peter must have spent those hours.

"My Lord is gone. My hope is gone. And I denied Him — after three years of love, after that blessed fellowship, I denied my Lord."

We cannot fully grasp the depth of humiliation Peter sank into. But that was the turning point and the change. On the first day of the week Christ was seen by Peter. In the evening He met him with the others. Later, at the lake of Galilee, He asked: "Do you love me?" — three times, until Peter was grieved because Jesus kept asking. And finally Peter said in sorrow, but also in honesty: "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you" (John 21:17).

Peter Transformed

Now Peter was ready for deliverance from self. Christ took him and the others to wait in Jerusalem, and on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came, and Peter was a changed man. I want you to see not only the outward change — that boldness, that power, that insight into the Scriptures, that blessing in preaching. Thank God for all of that. But there was something deeper and better in Peter — his whole nature was transformed. What Christ began in Peter with that look, the Holy Spirit completed when Peter was filled.

Read 1 Peter to see it clearly. His failings had been rooted in misunderstanding suffering and in self-confidence. But now he writes: "If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you" (1 Pet. 4:14). And: "To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you" (1 Pet. 2:21). What a transformation! Instead of running from the cross, he found joy in it. Instead of denying Christ to save himself, he became one who rejoiced to suffer for Christ's name.

He who once demanded the highest place now writes: "Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another" (1 Pet. 5:5). The self-pleasing, self-trusting, self-seeking Peter — impulsive, unstable, full of failure — now filled with the Spirit and life of Jesus. Christ had done it for him by the Holy Spirit.

What This Means for Us

Peter's story must be the story of every believer who is truly going to be made a blessing by God. That story is a prophecy of what everyone can receive.

First lesson: you may be a very earnest, godly, devoted believer, and yet the power of the flesh may still be very strong in you. Peter had cast out demons and healed the sick before he denied Christ — and yet the flesh still had room in him. The great God is longing to double His blessing through us — but something hinders Him, and that something is the self-life. Pride, impulsiveness, self-confidence — all rooted in one word: self. Christ had said "Deny self," and Peter had never understood or obeyed it, and every failure came from that.

Second lesson: it is the work of our Lord Jesus Himself to reveal the power of self. Christ watched over Peter and worked in him through warnings, through patience, through that final look of love in His suffering. The Christ who brought Peter to Pentecost is waiting today to take charge of every heart that is willing to surrender to Him.

Are you saying, "The self-life is exactly my problem — self-comfort, self-will, self-seeking — how do I get rid of it?" The answer is: only Christ Jesus can deliver you. And what does He ask? That you humble yourself before Him. Come to Him in that humility, and He will do the rest.

"Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'" (Luke 18:27)

Christ had told the rich young ruler: "Sell everything you have... and come, follow me." The young man walked away sad. Christ then turned to His disciples and said: "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!" The disciples were astonished and asked: "Who then can be saved?" And Christ gave this blessed answer: "What is impossible with man is possible with God."

The text contains two great thoughts. First: in matters of salvation and following Christ in a holy life, it is impossible for human beings on their own. Second, alongside that: what is impossible with people is possible with God. These two thoughts mark the two great lessons a person must learn in the spiritual life. And often, learning them takes a long time. You may learn the first without learning the second — and that leads only to despair.

What People Cannot Do

The first stage comes when a person tries their utmost and fails — tries again and fails again — tries harder and still fails. And yet often, even then, they do not learn the lesson: with people, it is impossible to serve God. Peter spent three years in Christ's school and never learned this until he had denied his Lord and wept bitterly. Then he learned it.

Watch the stages a person goes through. At first they resist this truth. Then, reluctantly and in despair, they submit to it. Finally, they accept it willingly and even rejoice in it. At the start of the Christian life, a new believer has no idea of this reality. He has been converted, has joy in the Lord, begins running the race with confidence — and then fails where he didn't expect to. He is disappointed but not yet ready to give up: "I wasn't watchful enough. I didn't commit firmly enough." He vows and prays again — and fails again. He thinks: "I am a reborn child of God. I have God's life in me. I have Christ to help me. Surely I can live a holy life."

Later, he begins to see the impossibility — but he doesn't fully accept it. Many Christians reach this point: "I cannot," and then conclude that God never really expected them to do what they cannot do. Some live a life of repeated failure and quiet despair, operating under the assumption: "I'll do my best, but I don't expect to get very far."

But God leads His children to a third stage: when a person accepts the full weight of "it is impossible" — and yet refuses to give up. Their renewed will, in intense longing and prayer, cries out to God: "Lord, what does this mean? How can I be freed from the power of sin?" This is the regenerate man of Romans 7. He can honestly say: "I delight in the law of God in my inner being. I want to do good. My heart loves God's law and my will has chosen it." Can such a man still fail? Yes — Romans 7 teaches exactly that. Wanting to do good is not enough. There must be divine power working in me. That is what Paul teaches in Philippians 2:13: "It is God who works in you, both to will and to do according to His good purpose."

Notice the contrast. In Romans 7, the regenerate man says: "I want to do right, but I cannot perform it — to will is present with me, but not the power to do." In Philippians 2, a man who has been led further understands that when God has worked the renewed will, God will also give the power to live out what that will desires. Let us receive this as the first great lesson of the spiritual life: "This is impossible for me, O God. Let there be an end of the flesh and its powers. Let it be my glory to be helpless." Praise God for the divine grace that teaches us we are helpless!

When you thought about absolute surrender to God, were you not brought to the end of yourself? Did you see how you could not possibly live a life of absolute surrender every moment — at your table, at home, in business, under temptation? Good. Accept that position and hold it before God: "My heart's desire is absolute surrender, but I cannot produce it. It is impossible for me." Fall down in that helplessness, and learn that God will come to work in you — not only the willingness, but also the doing.

What God Can Do

Now comes the second lesson: "With God all things are possible." Many people have learned that it is impossible with people — and then they give up in hopeless despair, living a defeated Christian life without joy, strength, or victory. Why? Because they have not humbled themselves to learn the other truth: with God, all things are possible.

Your religious life is meant to be a daily proof that God works impossibilities. It is to be a series of things impossible to people, made real by God's almighty power. That is what the Christian needs. We worship an almighty God — and we must learn that we do not need just a little of God's power, but we need the whole of His omnipotence to keep us right and to enable us to live as Christians. The Christian life from beginning to end is a work of God's omnipotence.

Look at the birth of Christ Jesus — a miracle of divine power. "With God nothing is impossible," the angel said to Mary. Look at the resurrection — we are taught that it was according to the surpassing greatness of God's power that He raised Christ from the dead. Every tree grows on the root from which it sprang. Christianity began in the omnipotence of God, and in every soul it must continue in that omnipotence. All the possibilities of the higher Christian life flow from a fresh understanding of Christ's power to work all of God's will in us.

Have you learned to deal so closely with an almighty God that you know omnipotence is working in you? Paul said: "I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my preaching was in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." From the human side — weakness. From the divine side — omnipotence. And that is true of every godly life.

Have you studied God's omnipotence in the Bible? Not just His power in creation, but His power in redemption? Look at Abraham. When God called him to be the father of the people through whom Christ would come, God said: "I am God Almighty — walk before me and be blameless." God trained Abraham to trust Him as the all-powerful One. Whether it was moving to an unknown land, living as a pilgrim among the Canaanites, waiting twenty-five years for a promised son, or offering that son on Mount Moriah — Abraham believed God. He was strong in faith, giving glory to God, because he was fully convinced that God could do what He had promised.

The cause of weakness in your Christian life is that you want to do part of the work yourself and have God help with the rest. That cannot work. You must come to utter helplessness, let God do the work, and God will work gloriously. Moses, Joshua, and all of God's servants in the Old Testament counted on God's omnipotence to do the impossible. This same God lives today. And yet many of us want God to give us a little help while we do our best, rather than coming to see what God truly wants — and saying: "I can do nothing. God must and will do all."

Have you said: "In my worship, my work, my striving to be holy, my obedience to God — I can do nothing by myself, and so my place is to worship the all-powerful God and trust that He will work in me every moment"? Oh, that God would show you by His grace what a God you have, and what this God — all-powerful, willing to give the full weight of His omnipotence to every one of His children — is ready to do for you!

God Works in People

Coming back to absolute surrender: the great want in the Church is that believers have never truly understood what it means to be absolutely surrendered to God as Jesus was. Many will say, "Amen, I accept the message of absolute surrender." And yet think, "Can that ever really be mine? Can God truly make me someone who lives in absolute surrender?" Friend, "what is impossible with people is possible with God." When God takes charge of you in Christ, He is able to make you a person of absolute surrender. And He is able to maintain it — to let you rise each morning with the quiet confidence: "I am in God's care. He is working out my life for me."

Some are weary of seeking holiness — you have prayed, longed, cried for it, and it seemed so far off. The holiness and humility of Jesus seems far beyond you. But the only doctrine of sanctification that is truly scriptural and real and effective is this: "With people it is impossible, but with God all things are possible." God can sanctify people, and by His almighty power keep them every moment.

Think of Paul's prayer: "That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being." An omnipotent God, working by His omnipotence in the hearts of His believing children, so that Christ becomes a living, indwelling Savior. You have tried to grasp this and could not. That is because you have not yet fully come to believe: "With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

And about love: if you have been led to say, "What this message asks of me — a love utterly beyond what I can produce — is absolutely impossible for me," then come to God and say, "But it is possible with You." If we long for a great revival — and oh, how my heart prays for that — we must begin by believing that the omnipotent God is willing to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we can ask or think. Let our hearts say: "Glory to God, the all-powerful One, who can do above what we dare to ask or imagine!"

All around is a world of sin and sorrow, and the enemy is at work. But Christ is on the throne. Christ has conquered, and Christ will conquer. Wait on God. My text first casts us down — "With people it is impossible" — but then lifts us high: "With God all things are possible." Get linked to God. Adore and trust Him as the all-powerful One, not only for your own life, but for every soul entrusted to you. Never pray without worshiping His omnipotence and saying: "Mighty God, I claim Your almightiness." Like Abraham, you will grow strong in faith, giving glory to God, fully convinced that He who promised is able to perform.

"What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24–25)

This text stands at the end of Romans 7 as the doorway into Romans 8. In the first sixteen verses of chapter 8, the name of the Holy Spirit appears sixteen times. There you find the description and promise of the life God's children can live in the power of the Holy Spirit. That life begins in verse 2: "The law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death." From there Paul goes on to describe the great privileges of the child of God, led by the Spirit.

The doorway into all of that is Romans 7:24: "What a wretched man I am!" — the words of a person who has come to the end of himself. After struggling in his own strength to obey God's holy law and failing, he finally finds the true answer and cries: "Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!" From there he goes on to describe the deliverance he has found.

Let me trace the path by which a person can move out of spiritual bondage into spiritual freedom. We are clearly warned that returning to bondage is the great danger of the Christian life. I want to describe the man of Romans 7: a regenerate man, an impotent man, a wretched man — and a man on the border of complete freedom.

The Regenerate Man

Throughout verses 14–23, there is clear evidence of new birth. "It is no longer I who do it, but sin that lives in me" (Rom. 7:17) — this is someone who knows his heart has been renewed, and who recognizes that sin is now a power operating in him that is not his true self. "In my inner being I delight in God's law" (Rom. 7:22) — again, regenerate language. He dares to say, when he does evil, "It is no longer I who do it, but sin that lives in me."

In the first half of Romans, Paul deals with justification — actual sins, specific transgressions. In the second half, beginning in chapter 5, he deals with sin as a power — not just what we do, but what rules in us. The regenerate person is one in whom the will has been renewed, who can honestly say: "I delight in the law of God in my inner being."

The Impotent Man

Here is the great mistake many Christians make: they think that a renewed will is enough. It is not. This regenerate man tells us plainly: "I want to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out." How often people insist that if you are determined enough, you can do what you will — but this man was as determined as anyone could be, and still confesses: "The will is there, but how to actually do it — I find I cannot" (Rom. 7:18).

Why would God allow a regenerate person to make such a confession? What has God given us our will for? Our will is an empty vessel — it needs to be filled with God's power. The creature must find everything it is to be, in God. And notice something striking about Romans 7:6–25: the name of the Holy Spirit does not appear once, nor does the name of Christ. The law is mentioned nearly twenty times. And the little words "I," "me," and "my" appear more than forty times.

This is the picture of a regenerate believer — doing his very best to obey God's law with a renewed will, without being filled with the Spirit. This is the experience of almost every believer after conversion. We try hard, we fail, and God allows that failure to teach us our utter helplessness. It is in this struggle that the full weight of our sinfulness settles on us. "I am carnal, sold as a slave to sin" (Rom. 7:14). "I see another law at work in me, making me a prisoner to the law of sin" (Rom. 7:23). "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me?" (Rom. 7:24). This is a person who is utterly unable to obey God by his own effort.

The Wretched Man

This person is not only regenerate and impotent — he is also deeply miserable. And what makes him so miserable? God has given him a nature that loves God. He is wretched because he keeps failing the God he loves. "It is not I who do it — I am under the awful power of sin, which holds me down. It is me, and yet not me; I am so bound up with this sin, so entangled in my very nature with it." Blessed be God when a person learns to say from the depth of his heart: "What a wretched man I am!" He is on his way to Romans 8.

Many use this confession as an excuse for sin. They say: if Paul had to confess such weakness, what can I expect? And so the call to holiness gets quietly set aside. Would to God that every Christian who keeps sinning and rationalizing it would take this verse to heart. Every time you lose your temper, every time a sharp word comes out, every time you sin against the Lord Jesus in His humility and self-sacrifice — say, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this?" Say it not as a comfortable excuse, but as a desperate, honest cry. Because it is precisely when a person comes to this confession that deliverance is near.

What made him so wretched? Not only the awareness of his impotence, but above all the aching sense of continually sinning against God. The law was doing its work, making sin look utterly terrible in his eyes. The thought of repeatedly grieving God became unbearable — and that is what drew out the cry: "What a wretched man I am!" As long as we merely analyze our failure and debate what Romans 7 means, it profits us little. But when every sin adds fresh intensity to our wretchedness, and we feel our whole condition to be not only helpless but genuinely sinful before God, we will be pressed not just to ask "Who will rescue me?" but to cry out in gratitude: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

The Almost-Delivered Man

This man has tried to obey God's law. He has loved it, wept over his failures, and tried to conquer sin — and every time has ended in failure. He speaks of "this body of death." In Romans 8:13, we find the answer to what he means: "If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." That is the body of death he is seeking to escape — and in Romans 8, the way of escape is revealed.

He is on the very brink of deliverance. Verse 23 describes him as a captive: "I am a prisoner of the law of sin." But chapter 8 verse 2 answers: "The law of the Spirit who gives life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death." That is the deliverance through Jesus Christ — freedom for the captive, brought by the Spirit. Can anything keep captive a person freed by the law of the Spirit of life?

God does not work mechanically, as a blind force of nature. He leads His people as thinking, understanding people. So when He wants to give us the promised Holy Spirit in fullness, He first brings us to the end of our self-effort, to the full conviction that though we have striven to obey, we have failed. Only then does He show us that in the Holy Spirit we have the power for obedience, for victory, for real holiness.

God works the renewed will, and then He is ready to work the doing — but many Christians misunderstand this. They think that because they have the will, they have enough. They do not. The renewed will is a permanent gift — an attribute of the new nature. But the power to act on that will must be received moment by moment from the Holy Spirit. It is the person who is conscious of his own helplessness as a believer who will truly discover that by the Holy Spirit he can live a holy life.

So I ask this solemn question: Where are you living? Is it "What a wretched man I am — who will rescue me?" with occasional glimpses of the Spirit's power? Or is it "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ! The law of the Spirit has set me free from the law of sin and death"?

The Holy Spirit gives the victory. "If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live" (Rom. 8:13). It is the Holy Spirit — the third Person of the Godhead — who, when the heart is opened wide to receive Him, comes in and reigns there, putting to death the deeds of the body day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment.

There are two very different types of believers described in Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians: those who yield to the flesh, and those who are led by the Spirit. The first group — the experience of tens of thousands of believers — is characterized by a lack of joy in the Holy Spirit and a lack of the freedom He gives. This is the flesh ruling the life. The Spirit is within them, but not on the throne. Being led by the Spirit is what they need.

God has given His dear Son to watch over you every day. All you have to do is trust. The Holy Spirit's work is to keep you in constant connection with Jesus, to help you every moment to remember Him and rest in Him. The Spirit has come to keep that link unbroken, every moment. Praise God for the Holy Spirit!

Who longs to have the liberty of the Holy Spirit? Then bow before God in honest despair and cry: "O God, must I go on sinning forever? Who will rescue me, this wretched person, from this body of death?" Are you ready to sink before God in that cry — and then to say: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord"?

What good is it to attend church, to read the Bible and pray, if our lives are not filled with the Holy Spirit? That is what God wants, and nothing else will give us a life of real power and peace. Do not remain forever groaning the question without giving the answer. Say: "I, a wretched person, thank God — through Jesus Christ. Even though I cannot yet see all of it clearly, I am going to praise God." There is deliverance. There is the liberty of the Holy Spirit. "The kingdom of God is... joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17).

"I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?" (Galatians 3:2–3)

When we speak of the deepening or strengthening of the spiritual life, we are acknowledging that something is feeble and wrong. May God work that conviction in every heart: "O God, our spiritual life is not what it should be."

As we look at the Church, we see so many signs of weakness, failure, and sin, and we have to ask — why? Is it necessary for God's people to live in such a low condition? Is it actually possible for God's people to live always in the joy and strength of their God? Every believing heart must answer: it is possible. Then comes the great question: why does the vast majority of Christians fall so far short of their privileges? There must be a reason for it. God has given His Son and His Spirit. How is it that believers do not live in that fullness?

Paul's letter to the Galatians gives a sobering answer: having begun by the Spirit, they tried to perfect in the flesh what the Spirit had started. They fell under the influence of teachers who told them they still needed to follow the law, and they began to seek their religion in outward observances rather than in the Spirit's inward work. Paul describes this as seeking "to make a good impression outwardly in the flesh" (Gal. 6:12–13).

Beginning in the Spirit

Paul's ministry to the Galatians was not just about justification by faith — it was about the whole of the Christian life being lived through the Holy Spirit. When a person trusts Christ, they receive the Holy Spirit. Paul could point back to a powerful time of revival among them: "You received the Holy Spirit — not by works of the law, but by hearing and believing." That was real. They knew it. But then something went wrong.

There are many Christians today who can say, "I received forgiveness, I received peace." But if you ask them, "Have you received the Holy Spirit?" they hesitate. They know it doctrinally but not experientially. The beginning of true Christian life is receiving the Holy Spirit — and the work of every Christian minister is to remind people that they have received the Spirit, and must now live by His guidance and in His power.

If those Galatians, who had experienced the Holy Spirit's power, could still drift so quickly into the flesh — how much greater is the danger for those who barely know they have received the Spirit at all?

The Danger of Drifting

Imagine a train on the right track, but through an unnoticed switch it gets redirected onto a different line — on a dark night, those on board might not realize it for quite some time. That is what happens to Christians. God gives the Holy Spirit with the intention that every moment of every day should be lived in His power. But without noticing it, a person can be shifted off the track of the Spirit onto the track of the flesh.

A person may live a respectable, diligent, apparently religious life without that life truly being acceptable to God — because it is not lived in the joy of God's salvation, in the power of the new life, in genuine fellowship with the Spirit. And then, having begun in the Spirit, they try to perfect in the flesh what the Spirit started.

What is "religious flesh"? It is simply human nature and human will being very active in religion. After being converted, after receiving the Holy Spirit, a person may begin trying to serve God in their own strength — diligently, sacrificially — and yet all the time it is more the work of human effort than of God's Spirit. This happens subtly, without being noticed. A person can be a diligent preacher or worker, making great sacrifices, and yet you feel that something is missing — there is no spiritual power, no sense of God truly at work. That is what the Church so desperately lacks. It is all in that one word: flesh.

Flesh can show up as fleshly wisdom — a very active mind constantly occupied with religious things: preaching, writing, thinking, studying. And yet the power of the Holy Spirit is noticeably absent. Why is so much preaching and Christian activity producing so little lasting change? Because human energy has taken the place that the Holy Spirit ought to have.

The Fruit of the Flesh

What happens when a church or individual tries to serve God in the power of the flesh? Religious self-effort always ends in the sins of the flesh. The Galatians were striving to be justified by works of the law — and at the same time quarreling and in danger of destroying one another. Paul lists more than a dozen failures of love among them: envy, jealousy, bitterness, strife. All that religious effort, and the sinful nature still got the better of them.

There is a widespread complaint in the Church today about the lack of genuine integrity and godliness even among church members. Think about the lack of love, the harshness of temper, the sharpness of words, the envy, the pride, the strife among those who belong to the same congregation. Where are the marks of the Spirit of the Lamb of God? Sadly absent. Many speak of these things as unavoidable weaknesses. Many have given up hope of overcoming them. And that hopelessness will continue until there is a radical change — until the Church sees that every sin in the believer comes from the flesh, from living a self-powered life in the middle of religious activity.

The Reformation restored the great truth of justification by faith — but did it fully restore the power of the Holy Spirit? The feebleness in the Church is owing to the Church's failure to truly walk in the Spirit. And why? "We are too weak," you say. "We try to obey and keep failing." You fail because you are not accepting the strength of God. You cannot work out God's will on your own, but His Spirit can — and until believers stop trying by human effort and begin waiting on the Holy Spirit for enabling power, the Church will not be what God wants it to be.

The Way Back

The way back is simple: come back to where you went wrong. The Galatians had to return from all religious effort in their own strength and yield themselves humbly to the Holy Spirit. There is no other way.

Is your life one that knows little of the Holy Spirit's power? You have no idea what your life could be in His power. As truly as the Son of God came to this world and died for your redemption, so truly can the Holy Spirit come into your heart, sanctify you by His divine power, enable you to do God's will, and fill your heart with joy and strength. But we have forgotten Him, grieved Him, dishonored Him — and He has not been able to do His work.

The Father in Heaven loves to fill His children with the Holy Spirit. God longs to give each of us individually, specifically, the power of the Spirit for daily life. The command comes to each of us: bow before God, bring your sins before Him, cry out for mercy. "Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now trying to be perfected in the flesh?" Let us bow in shame, confessing how our self-effort and self-confidence have been the root cause of every failure.

Young Christians often ask me: "Why do I fail so? I vowed with my whole heart to serve God — why have I failed?" My answer is always the same: "My dear friend, you are trying to do in your own strength what only Christ can do in you." When they say, "But I was trusting Christ, not myself," my reply is: "If you had truly trusted Christ, He could not have failed. If you failed, somewhere you were trusting yourself."

This error of perfecting in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit runs deeper in us than we realize. Let us ask God to show us our utter emptiness, so that we may be ready to receive the blessing from on high. And then come to God in genuine surrender — not trusting in the act of consecration itself, but trusting God who accepts and seals the consecration. God alone can strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being. To every waiting heart that will make the sacrifice, give up everything, and take time to cry out to God — the answer will come. The blessing is not far off. God delights to help us. He will enable us to perfect — not in the flesh, but in the Spirit — what was begun in the Spirit.

"Through faith you are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time." (1 Peter 1:5)

We have two wonderful truths about the keeping of a believer. One is the divine side: kept by the power of God. The other is the human side: kept through faith. God's almighty power offered to us every moment as our Keeper — and on our part, nothing to do but trust, and let God do the keeping. We are born again to an inheritance kept in Heaven for us, and we are kept here on earth by God's power for that inheritance. A double keeping: the inheritance kept for me, and I kept for the inheritance.

There is no doubt about the first part. God keeps the inheritance in Heaven perfectly — it is waiting there safely. And the same God keeps me for it. Think about how foolish it would be for a father to spend his whole life accumulating an inheritance for his children, but take no care to prepare the children for it. He keeps the inheritance but not the heirs. Many Christians think: "My God is keeping the inheritance for me" — but cannot believe: "My God is keeping me for the inheritance." The same power, the same love, the same God doing both.

Kept by the Power of God

This keeping is all-inclusive. What is kept? You — the whole of you. Does God keep one part and leave another unguarded? Some people imagine this is a vague, general keeping — that God will somehow get them to Heaven in the end. But God's intent is not to keep the shell and bring back a ruin. If you were lent a watch and told to keep it safely, and you returned it with the hands broken, the face damaged, and the works spoiled, the owner would say: "I meant for you to keep every part of it." God's keeping applies to every particular of our being — not just spiritually, but in daily life, in business, in relationships, in times of both prosperity and hardship.

Some think God keeps them in spiritual things but leaves them on their own in temporal matters. But God sends you into the world to work, and He did not say, "You are on your own there." He knows you are not able to keep yourself. Not a cent you spend, not a decision you make, not an hour in your workday — God says, "My child, I will take that up into my keeping." Others think God keeps them in times of trial but not in prosperity, or in prosperity but not in adversity. But God is ready to keep you all the time — in the sunshine and in the dark.

And there are those who think God will keep them from gross sin but not from smaller ones — bad temper, sharp words, unkindness. But the great commandment of the New Testament is "Love one another as I have loved you" (John 13:34). When temper breaks out and harsh words flow, you have sinned against the highest law — the law of love. God will keep you from that too, if you will trust Him for it. "Can believers be kept in fellowship with God? Can they experience the keeping power of God all the day, kept from sin?" My answer from God's Word: Kept by the power of God. There is no qualifying clause. If you will entrust yourself entirely to God's omnipotence, He will delight to keep you. Is there any sin your God cannot keep you from? The heart must answer: no.

This keeping is all-powerful. I want this burned into my soul: the Almighty God offers Himself to work in my heart, to do the work of keeping me. God is almighty, and I need to get linked not to a power, but to the Person — the living God. David in the Psalms understood this. He spoke of God as his Fortress, his Refuge, his strong Tower, his Strength and Salvation. He lived in the reality of the everlasting God as the hiding place of his soul.

Have you understood that in every act of grace in your heart, the whole omnipotence of God is engaged to bless you? When a person gives you money, he gives you a portion of what he has. But God cannot give you a portion of His omnipotence — you can only access it by staying in fellowship with Him. When you draw near to God, you draw near to the whole omnipotence of God, and have it working for you in every moment. A son with a wealthy father who says "Use as much as you need" — how differently he carries himself than one who has to scrape and strive alone. And the Father in Heaven says to you: "All I have is available to you through Christ." What is almighty God not going to do for the child who truly trusts Him? "Abundantly beyond all that we can ask or think" (Eph. 3:20) — that is what we have been promised.

This keeping is continuous and unbroken. People sometimes say: "God kept me wonderfully for a week or a month — I walked in the light of His presence, had fellowship with Him, felt carried on eagle wings. But it couldn't last. It was too good. It had to end." Some even say the falling was necessary to keep them humble.

But is there any reason why God's keeping should not be continuous? Life is inherently continuous — if my physical life stopped for half an hour, I would be dead. God's life is the life of His Church, and it is almighty power. God comes to us as the Almighty One and offers to be our Keeper without condition or interruption — day by day, moment by moment.

God says of His vine: "I, the Lord, watch over it; I water it continually" (Isa. 27:3). Every moment, not just now and then. In South Africa, when farmers graft a cutting onto a rootstock, they sometimes tie a small bottle of water above the graft so that the moisture drips onto it continually until it takes hold and can withstand the heat on its own. Will our tender-hearted God not water our hearts with His presence every moment, when He has promised to do so? Oh, if we once truly grasped this truth — that our whole spiritual life is to be God's doing, that "it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" — and trusted Him for it fully, how different our lives would be.

Kept Through Faith

Faith begins with helplessness. At the root of all genuine faith is a sense of helplessness. When I trust a lawyer to handle a property transfer, that trust is a confession: I cannot do this myself. Faith always means: another must do for me what I cannot do myself. And in the spiritual life, the great change comes when a person is broken down into utter helplessness and despair of self — and says: "I can do nothing."

Paul had been caught up to the third heaven, and then was given a thorn in the flesh. He prayed three times for it to be removed, and the Lord said: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Paul learned then what he never forgot: to boast in his weakness. "When I am weak, then I am strong." Do you want to enter the higher life? Go lower. Going down is often the best way up. God brings us low, into a sense of emptiness and nothingness, so that the everlasting God can reveal Himself in His power, and so that our hearts learn to trust God alone.

What keeps us from trusting God perfectly? As long as we have our own wisdom and strength to rely on, we cannot fully trust God. But when God breaks us down, when we begin to see that we understand nothing in our own power, then God is drawing near — and if we bow in nothingness and wait upon Him, He will become everything.

Faith is rest. In the early stages, faith struggles. And as long as faith is struggling, it has not yet found its strength. But when faith, having struggled to exhaustion, throws itself on God and rests — then comes joy and victory. You know the story of how the Keswick Convention began. Canon Battersby had been a deeply godly evangelical clergyman for more than twenty years, but he lacked the conscious rest and victory over sin. One evening he heard a message on "Rest and Faith" — based on the story of the nobleman who came to Jesus to ask Him to heal his son (John 4:46–54). The nobleman believed Jesus could help, but he came somewhat experimentally, without full assurance. Then Jesus said: "Go — your son will live." And that man believed the word Jesus spoke. He rested on it. He had no proof yet; he walked back seven hours to Capernaum. On the way, he met his servants who confirmed: at the exact moment Jesus had spoken, the fever left. That man rested on the word of Christ alone, and found it utterly reliable.

When Canon Battersby heard that story, he went home that night and in the darkness found rest. He rested on the word of Jesus. The next morning he said to a friend: "I have found it." And from that experience grew the Keswick Convention, where believers could simply testify to what God had done. When God comes to me with the promise of His keeping — and I have nothing in myself to trust in — I say: "Your word is enough. Kept by the power of God." That is faith. That is rest.

Faith requires fellowship with God. Many people try to take God's Word and believe it, but find they cannot. The reason is that you cannot separate God from His Word. No goodness or power can be received apart from God Himself. A missionary once told me: "I get up at five in the morning, and there are workers waiting for instruction. Then there's the school, other duties — sixteen hours fly by and I hardly get time to be alone with God." That is the lack. You must take time for fellowship with God.

I have not told you to trust omnipotence as an abstract force, or the Bible as a written book. I have told you to go to the God of omnipotence and the God of the Word. Deal with God as that nobleman dealt with the living Christ — he believed because in the eyes and voice of Jesus he saw and heard something that made him feel he could trust Him completely. Look into the face of your living God. Don't try to stir up faith from within yourself. Look to Christ, listen to what He says about keeping you. Take time with the Father, come to Him daily in your poverty and emptiness, and let Him become your all. Trust God to do it — and He will open the windows of Heaven and pour out blessing beyond what you have room to receive.

Will you experience to the fullest this heavenly keeping for the heavenly inheritance? Enter into a fresh covenant with the everlasting God. In great helplessness but great restfulness, place yourself in His hands. And let this be the prayer and posture of your soul every day — deep helplessness, and simple childlike rest in your God. He will be your Companion, holding your hand every moment of the day. Your Keeper, watching over you without a moment's pause. Your Father, delighting to reveal Himself always.

"Moment by moment, I'm kept in His love;
Moment by moment, I've life from above;
Looking to Jesus, the glory doth shine;
Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine!"

An Address to Christian Workers

Everything depends on our being right ourselves in Christ. If I want good apples, I must have a healthy apple tree — and if I care for the tree, the tree will give me good apples. The same is true in the Christian life and work. If our life with Christ is right, everything will come right. There may be value in instruction, training, and various kinds of help — but in the long run, the greatest essential is to have the full life in Christ: to have Christ in us, working through us.

I will take my text from the parable of the Vine and Branches in John 15:5: "I am the vine; you are the branches."

What a simple thing it is to be a branch — the branch of a tree or vine! The branch grows out of the vine, lives and grows in it, and in due time bears fruit. It has no responsibility except to receive from the root and stem the sap and nourishment it needs. If only we truly understood — by the Holy Spirit — our relationship to Jesus Christ, our work would be transformed into the brightest and most heavenly thing on earth. Instead of soul-weariness or exhaustion, our work would become a new kind of experience, linking us to Jesus more closely than anything else can.

Alas, is it not often true that our work comes between us and Jesus? The very work He has given us to do gets taken up in a way that separates us from Christ. Many workers have complained of too much work and too little communion with Jesus — that constant busyness weakens their desire for prayer, and too much contact with people dulls the spiritual life. What a tragedy that bearing fruit should separate the branch from the vine! That can only happen when we have taken up our work as something other than what it truly is: the branch bearing fruit in union with the vine. May God deliver us from every wrong idea about the Christian life.

Absolute Dependence

The life of a branch is, first, a life of absolute dependence. The branch has nothing of its own. It depends on the vine for everything. A great theologian wrote that all of Calvin's theology can be summed up in the principle of absolute dependence upon God — and he was right. Another writer said that absolute, unchangeable dependence upon God alone is the essence of the religion of the angels, and should be that of people too. God is everything to the angels. He is willing to be everything to the Christian. If I learn every moment of the day to depend upon God, everything will come right.

The vine does an enormous amount of hidden work. It sends roots into the soil, drinks in moisture, absorbs nutrients, and transforms them into the specific sap that makes the fruit. The branch has just to receive that sap. There is a famous vine at Hampton Court in London that once bore over two thousand bunches of grapes. The secret was discovered: the vine had stretched its roots hundreds of yards underground until they reached the moisture-rich riverbed of the Thames, and drew all that nourishment up into the vine. The vine did all the work; the branches had only to depend on it and receive what it gave.

Is that literally true of my Lord Jesus? That when I go out to preach, or visit, or serve — all the responsibility of the work rests on Christ? That is exactly what He wants you to understand. Christ wants the very foundation of your work to be the simple, blessed awareness: Christ must care for everything. And how does He fulfill that trust? By sending down the Holy Spirit — not occasionally as a special gift, but continuously. The sap does not flow sometimes and stop, then flow again — from moment to moment it flows from the vine into the branches. And so my Lord Jesus wants me, morning by morning and hour by hour, to stand in the utter helplessness of one who knows nothing and is nothing and can do nothing — and in that place, let Him work.

Study the word nothing. "Oh, to be nothing, nothing" — have you truly sought this? If I am something, then God is not everything. But when I become nothing, God can become all, and His omnipotence can do its full work. The seraphim and cherubim are flames of fire because they know they are nothing, and they allow God to fill them with His fullness and glory. Become nothing in deep reality — as a worker, study how to become poorer and lower and more helpless, so that Christ may work all in you.

Deep Restfulness

The life of the branch is also a life of deep restfulness. If that little branch in the Hampton Court vine could speak to us today, what would it say?

"I know you are wise and capable, and you have much strength given to you. But I have one lesson for you: with all your hurrying and striving in Christ's work, you will never truly prosper until you learn to rest in your Lord Jesus. That is all I have done since I grew out of this vine — I have simply rested in it. When spring came, I had no anxious thought — the vine began to pour its sap into me and bring forth the bud and leaf. In the summer heat I had no care — the vine brought me the moisture I needed. At harvest, if something was wrong with the grapes, the owner never blamed the branch — the vine was responsible. If you would be a true branch of Christ, the living Vine, just rest in Him. Let Christ bear the responsibility."

You say: "Won't that make me lazy?" No. No one who truly rests upon the living Christ becomes passive, for the closer your contact with Christ, the more of His zeal and love will fill you. But begin with that deep restfulness. Enter into a life where you can say:

"In Thy strong hand I lay me down, so shall the work be done;
For who can work so wondrously as the Almighty One?"

Take your place every day at the feet of Jesus in the blessed peace and rest of knowing: "I have no care — my cares are His. I have no fear — He cares for all my fears." Christ can give you a love that flows toward the most wretched and most difficult people you encounter. He can give you a wisdom and strength you could never find in yourself. Often, that restfulness is the best part of your message — more powerful than your arguments or your eloquence. When people sense a deep rest and holiness in you, it speaks to their hearts in ways that words cannot.

Much Fruitfulness

The branch also teaches a lesson of abundant fruitfulness. Jesus repeated the word "fruit" often in the parable — fruit, more fruit, much fruit. "This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit" (John 15:8). You are not merely called to bear some fruit. You are called to bear much fruit. The Father Himself, as the Gardener, watches over the connection between Christ and the branches — and it is in the power of God through Christ that we bear fruit.

The world around us is perishing. And workers are not just needed in greater numbers — we need workers with a different quality of life, a deeper power. The heavenly fruit — the grapes of the heavenly Vine — can only come as the child of God bears them out of an inner life in fellowship with Christ. If God's children are not filled with the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus, they cannot bear the heavenly fruit. There is plenty of work, plenty of earnest effort — but so little of the manifest power of God in it. What is lacking? Close connection with Christ, the heavenly Vine.

Do not confuse work and fruit. There can be a great deal of work for Christ that is not genuinely the fruit of the heavenly Vine. The very life and love and Spirit of the Son of God — that heavenly sap — must come into your heart. Stand in close connection with the heavenly Vine and say: "Lord Jesus, nothing less than the sap that flows through You, nothing less than the Spirit of Your divine life — that is what I ask."

The sap of the heavenly Vine is the Holy Spirit. Do not expect Christ to give you a bit of strength here and a bit of blessing there. As the vine gives its own sap to the branch, expect Christ to give His own Holy Spirit into your heart — and then you will bear much fruit. And if you want to bear more fruit, you simply need more of Jesus in your life and heart. We ministers of the Gospel are in constant danger of getting into a mode of work, work, work — praying about it, but losing the freshness and joy and heavenly quality of the life. Let us seek to understand: the life of the branch is a life of much fruit because it is a life rooted in Christ, the living Vine.

Close Communion

The life of the branch is also a life of close communion. What has the branch to do? That inexhaustible word of Jesus says it all: abide. Your life is to be an abiding life. Abiding as the branch abides in the vine — not sometimes, not seasonally, but every moment of every day, from January to December, without break or pause.

You may say: "But I am so occupied with other things." You may have ten hours of hard work daily, your mind fully engaged with temporal matters — God has ordered it so. But abiding is the work of the heart, not the mind — the work of the heart clinging to and resting in Jesus, a work the Holy Spirit maintains in the deep places of your inner life. Oh, believe it: deeper down than the preoccupied mind, deep in your inner life, you can abide in Christ constantly, so that every quiet moment brings the consciousness: "Blessed Jesus, I am still in You."

What does this close communion mean practically? It means close fellowship with Christ in secret prayer. Many Christians have had great seasons of blessing — real inflows of heavenly joy, real outflows of grace — but they fade. The reason: they have not understood that close personal communion with Christ is an absolute daily necessity. Take time to be alone with Christ. Nothing in Heaven or on earth frees you from this if you are to be a happy and holy Christian.

How many Christians treat time alone with God as a burden, a duty, a difficulty! That is the great hindrance to Christian life everywhere. We need more quiet fellowship with God. You cannot be a healthy branch — one through which heavenly sap can truly flow — unless you give plenty of time to communion with God. If you are not willing to sacrifice time to be alone with Him, and give Him time to work in you and keep the connection between you unbroken, He cannot give you the blessing of His fellowship. Let every heart say: "O Christ, this is what I long for, this is my choice." And He will gladly give it.

Absolute Surrender

Finally, the life of the branch is a life of absolute surrender. This word — absolute surrender — is great and solemn, and I do not think we understand its full meaning. But the little branch preaches it.

"Little branch, do you have anything to do besides bearing fruit?" "No, nothing." "Are you good for anything else?" The Bible says a vine branch cannot even be used as a peg — it is fit only for burning. "And what is your relationship to the vine?" "Simply this: I am utterly given over to the vine. It can give me as much sap or as little as it chooses. I am at its disposal; it can do with me what it likes."

We need this absolute surrender to Jesus Christ. What does it mean? It means that, as literally as Christ was given up entirely to God — doing nothing except what the Father willed, depending on the Father completely — I am given up entirely to Christ. Is that too strong? It should not be. Christ came to breathe His own Spirit into us, to make us find our very highest happiness in living entirely for God — just as He did.

Here is the terrible mistake at the root of so much of our religion. A person thinks: "I have my business, my family duties, my responsibilities as a citizen. I cannot change those. So alongside all of this, I will take on religion and the service of God, to keep me from sin and help me do my duties properly." That is not how it works. When Christ bought us with His blood, He bought us entirely. Like a servant purchased to serve the master of the house — that servant's whole life, every hour of it, is oriented around the master's interests. And I, bought by the blood of Christ, am to live every day with one thought: "How can I please my Master?"

We find the Christian life so difficult because we want God's blessing while living in our own will. We make our own plans and choose our own work, and then ask the Lord Jesus to bless it and keep us from too much sin. But our relationship to Jesus is meant to be one of complete availability — coming to Him humbly each day and asking: "Lord, is there anything in me that is not according to Your will, anything not ordered by You, anything not fully given over to You?"

If we would wait patiently in that posture, something remarkable would happen: a relationship with Christ so close and tender that we would afterward be amazed at how far away we once lived from Him. He can and does take actual possession of us and give unbroken fellowship all the day.

Do not hold one sin back. I know there are difficulties and differences among believers on questions of holiness. But what concerns me is whether people are honestly longing to be free from every sin. I am afraid there are often quiet compromises — "we have to sin a little, we can't help it." Oh, that people would cry to God: "Lord, keep me from sin!" Give yourself utterly to Jesus and ask Him to do His utmost in keeping you from sin.

Let your surrender to Christ be absolute. I do not fully understand the word absolute — it takes on new dimensions and deeper meaning over time. But speak it: "Absolute surrender to You, O Christ, is what I have chosen." And Christ will reveal what still remains out of harmony with His will, and lead you on to deeper and higher blessedness.

In conclusion: Christ Jesus said, "I am the vine; you are the branches." In other words: "I, the living One who have so completely given Myself to you — I am the Vine. You cannot trust Me too much. I am the almighty Worker, full of divine life and power." You are the branches. If there is a consciousness in your heart that you are not a strong, healthy, fruit-bearing branch — not closely linked with Jesus, not living in Him as you should — then listen to Him say: "I am the Vine. I will receive you. I will draw you to Myself. I will bless you, strengthen you, fill you with My Spirit. I, the Vine, have taken you to be My branches. I gave Myself utterly to you; children, give yourselves utterly to Me."

What shall our answer be? Let it be a prayer from the deepest part of our heart — that the living Christ may take each of us and link us close to Himself. Let us go away with our hearts singing: "He is my Vine, and I am His branch. I want nothing more. I have the everlasting Vine." Then, when you are alone with Him, worship and adore Him. Praise and trust Him. Love Him and wait for His love. "You are my Vine, and I am Your branch. It is enough. My soul is satisfied."

Glory to His blessed name!