Category: Daily Devotionals – Smith Wigglesworth

December 17

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. — John 15:5

Scripture reading: John 15:1–17

Beloved, it is lovely to be in the will of God. Now then, how may we be something? By just being nothing, by receiving the Holy Spirit, by being in the place where we can be directed by God and filled with His power.

What it must be to have speaking ability, to have a beautiful language, as so many men have! It is wonderful to have the tongue of an angel so that all the people who hear you are moved by your use of language. Yet how I would weep, how my heart would be broken, if I came to speak before you in beautiful language without the power.

If I had an angel‘s language and the people were all taken with what I said, but Jesus was not glorified at all, it would all be hopeless, barren, and unfruitful. I myself should be nothing. But if I speak and say, “Lord, let them hear Your voice. Lord, let them be compelled to hear Your truth. Lord, anyhow, any way, hide me today,” then He becomes glorious, and all the people say, “We have seen Jesus!”

When I was in California, I spent many days with our dear Brother Montgomery when I had a chance. During this time, a man wrote to Brother Montgomery. This man had been saved but had lost his joy; he had lost all he had. He wrote, “I am through with everything. I am not going to touch this thing again; I am through.” Brother Montgomery wrote back to him and said, “I will never try to persuade you again if you will hear once. There is a man from England, and if you will only hear him once, I will pay all your expenses.” So he came. He listened, and at the end of the time he said to me, “This is the truth I am telling you. I have seen the Lord standing beside you, and I heard His voice. I never even saw you.

“I have a lot of money,” he continued, “and I have a valley five hundred miles long. If you speak the word to me, I will go on your word, and I will open that valley for the Lord.”

I have preached in several of his places, and God has used him wonderfully to speak throughout that valley. What I would have missed when he came the first day, if I had been trying to say something of my own instead of the Lord being there and speaking His words through me! Never let us do anything to lose this divine love, this close affection in our hearts that says, “Not I, but Christ; not I, but Christ!”

Lose all your identity in the Son of God. Let Him become all in all. Seek only the Lord, and let Him be glorified. You will have gifts; you will have grace and wisdom. God is waiting for the person who will lay all on the altar, fifty-two weeks in the year, three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and then continue perpetually in the Holy Spirit.

Thought for today: Forget yourself and get lost in Him.

December 16

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. — Jude 24–25

Scripture reading: Jude

It is very necessary that we receive the Holy Spirit in the first place; after receiving the Holy Spirit, we must earnestly desire the gifts. Then, after receiving the gifts, we must never forget that the gift is entrusted to us for bringing the blessings of God to the people.

For instance, divine healing is a gift for ministering to the needs of the people. The gift of wisdom is a word in season at the moment of need, to show you just what to do. The gift of knowledge, or the word of knowledge, is to inspire you and to bring you life and joy. This is what God intends.

Then there is the gift of discernment. We are not to discern one another, but to discern evil powers and deal with them and command them back to the pit from which they came. Regarding the gift of miracles, God intends for us to come to the place where we will see miracles worked. God also wants us to understand that tongues are profitable only when they exalt and glorify the Lord. And oh, that we might really know what it means when interpretation is given! It is not merely to have beautiful sensations and think that is interpretation, but it is such that the man who has it does not know what is coming, for if he did, it would not be interpretation. Interpretation is not knowing what you are going to say, but it is being in the place where you say exactly what God says. So when I have to interpret a message, I purposely keep my mind from anything that would hinder, and I sometimes say “Praise the Lord” and “Hallelujah” so that everything will be a word through the Spirit, and not my word, but the word of the Lord!

We can have these divine gifts so perfectly balanced by divine love that they will be a blessing all the time. However, there is sometimes such a desire in the flesh to do something attention getting. How the people listen and long for divine prophecy, just as interpretation comes forth! How it thrills! There is nothing wrong with it; it is beautiful. We thank God for the office and the purpose that has caused it to come, but let us be careful to finish when we are through and not continue on our own. That is how prophecy is spoiled. Don‘t fail, beloved, because the people know the difference. They know what is full of life, what is the real thing.

Then again, it is the same with a person praying. We love people to pray in the Holy Spirit; we love to hear them pray even the first sentences because the fire is there. However, what spoils the holiest person in prayer is when, after the spirit of prayer has gone forth, he continues on and people say, “I wish he would stop,”and the church becomes silent. They say, “I wish that brother would stop. How beautifully he began; now he is dry!” But he doesn‘t stop.

A preacher was once having a wonderful time, and the people enjoyed it, but when he was through, he continued. A man came and said to someone at the door, “Has he finished?” “Yes,” said the man, “long since, but he won‘t stop!” May God save us from that. People know when you are praying in the Spirit. Why should you take time and spoil everything because the natural side has come into it? God never intended that. God has a supernatural side; that is the true side, and how beautiful it is! People sometimes know better than we do, and we would also know if we were more careful.

May the Lord grant us revelation; we need discernment; we need intuition. It is the life inside. It is salvation inside, cleansing, filling; it is all inside. Revelation is inside. It is for exhibition outside, but always remember that it is inside. God‘s Son said as much when He said, “The pure in heart will see God.” (See Matthew 5:8.) There is an inward sight of God, and it is the pure in heart who see God. Lord, keep us pure so that we will never block the way.

Thought for today: If you continue to prophesy on your own, at the end of the anointing, you are using false fire.

December 15

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. — 1 Corinthians 13:3

Scripture reading: Mark 6:30–56

Though I can lay my hands on millions of dollars, though I can do all kinds of things with the money, and though, after I have given it all, I show the people more by giving my body to be burned, saying, “I will show what I am made of!” this is nothing, nothing! Five dollars given in the name of the Lord is of more value than thousands without acknowledging Him.

A man came to me, and we had long talks about the Lord. He told me, “I was in a very difficult place. I had been working very hard in the church and had given all my strength….”

Oh, I see such godly, holy people doing more than they ought to, thereby giving themselves away. Don‘t you know that your body belongs to God (1 Corinthians 6:19–20), and that, if you overtax your body, God says He will judge you for it? We have to be careful because the body that is given to us is to exhibit His power and His glory, and we cannot do this if we give ourselves all the time to work, work, work and think that that is the only way. It is not the way.

The Scriptures teach us that Jesus had to go and renew His spiritual vision and power in solitude with His Father (Mark 1:35), and it was also necessary for the disciples to draw aside and rest awhile (Mark 6:30–31). Couldn‘t Jesus give them all they needed? My dear brother, whatever God gives you, He will never take away your common sense.

Suppose I unwisely overextended my body and knew that I had done so? How could I ask anyone to pray for me unless I repented? We must be careful. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, and He has to dwell in them, and they have to be for His purpose in the world. We are not working for ourselves; God is to be glorified in our bodies. Many today are absolutely withered up, years before their time, because they went beyond their knowledge.

Thought for today: Your gifts will perish unless the gifts are used for the glory of Jesus.

December 14

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. — 1 Corinthians 13:2

Scripture reading: Psalm 31

Lots of people desire to have faith; many desire to have prophecy; some long to know mysteries. Who knows mysteries? “The secret of the LORD is with those who fear Him” (Psalm 25:14). Don‘t change the Scriptures. “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17). Do not alter the Scriptures.

Do not forget that prophecy is beautiful when you understand the principle of it. Prophecy is the sixth gift mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12. What fruit or grace do you think would coincide with prophecy? Why, goodness, of course.

Why goodness? Because if you are living in holiness, entire sanctification, perfection, you would never take advantage of the Holy Spirit and would speak only as the Spirit gave prophecy. You would never say human things just because you had the gift of prophecy. You would speak according to the Spirit, giving prophecy because you had been holy.

When you speak in the natural after you have received the gift of prophecy, it is because you have come to be nothing; you are nothing; you are not counted in the great plan of the great purpose of God. But if you are hidden in Christ and your whole heart is perfected in God, and you will prophesy only when the Spirit of the Lord is upon you, then it will be something that lasts forever. People will be blessed forever and God will be glorified forever.

Suppose that I have all faith so that I could move mountains. Now, suppose that I also have a big farm, but that some of my farmland is not very profitable. It is stony; it has many rocks on it as well as some little mountains that are absolutely untillable and do no good. But because I have faith without love, I say, “I will use my faith and I will move this land. I do not care where it goes as long as my land is clean.”

So I use my faith to clear my land. The next day, my poor next door neighbor comes and says, “I am in great trouble. All your wasteland and stony, rocky land has been tipped onto mine, and my good land is ruined.”

And I, who have faith without love, say to him, “You get faith and move it back!”

That profits nothing. If God brings you into a place of faith, let it be for the glory of God. Then, when you pray, God will wonderfully answer you; nothing will hinder your being used for God, for God delights to use us.

Gifts are not only given; they are also increased to those who can be used, who can keep in a place of usefulness. God keeps these yielded ones in a place of being continually supplanted—a new place that is deeper, higher, holier, richer, more heavenly.

In addition, gifts are not only usable, but God is also glorified in Jesus when you pray the prayer of faith. Jesus Himself said, “When you pray and believe, the Father will be glorified in the Son.” (See John 14:12–13.)

Thought for today: It takes a just man to live by faith.

December 13

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. — 1 Corinthians 13:1

Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 13

Did you ever read a verse like this? It is the state of being brought into a treasury. Do you know what a treasury is? A treasury holds or handles priceless things.

God puts you into the treasury to hold or handle the precious gifts of the Spirit. Therefore, so that you may not fail to handle them correctly, He gives you a picture of how you may handle them.

What a high position of authority, of grace, the Lord speaks about in this verse! “Speak with the tongues of men and of angels.” Oh, isn‘t that wonderful!

There are men who have such wonderful qualifications for speaking. Their knowledge in the natural realm is so outstanding that many people go to hear their eloquent addresses because the language in them is so beautiful. Yet, through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, God puts you right in the midst of them and says that He has given you the capability to speak like men, with power of thought and language at your disposal, so that you can say anything.

People are failing God all the time all over the world because they are taken up with their own eloquence, and God is not in it. They are lost with the pretentiousness of their great authority over language, and they use it on purpose to tickle the ears and the sensations of the people, and it profits nothing. It is nothing. It will wither up, and the people who use it will wither up.

Yet God has said there is a way. Now, how would language “of men and of angels” come to prosper?

When you wept through to victory before, you were able to do anything. You were so undone that unless God helped you to do it, you couldn‘t do it. You were so broken in spirit that your whole body seemed to be at an end unless God reinstated you. Then the unction came, and every word was glorifying Jesus. Every sentence lifted the people, and they felt as they listened, “Surely God is in this place! He has sent His Word and healed us.” (See Psalm 107:20.) They saw no man there except Jesus. Jesus was so manifested that they all said, “Oh, wasn‘t Jesus speaking to our hearts this morning!”

If you minister in this way, you will never become nothing. Tongues of men and angels alone will come to nothing. Yet if you speak with tongues of men and angels that are bathed in the love of God until it is to Him alone that you speak, then it will be written down forever in the history of the glory. So let the Lord help us to know how to act in the Holy Spirit.

Thought for today: When you are used only for and desire only the glory of God, your acts and life, ministry, and power will be recorded endlessly in the glory of heaven—for the Acts of the Apostles are being recorded in the glory.

December 12

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. — Philippians 2:8

Scripture reading: Philippians 2:1–18

It is very important to minister in the gifts of the Spirit in the proper way. There is no anointing like the unction that comes out of death, when we are dead with Christ. It is this position that makes us live with Him. If we have been conformed to His death, then, in that same death, like Paul, we will be made like Him in His resurrection power (Philippians 3:10–11).

But do not forget that Jesus was coequal with the Father and that He made Himself of no reputation when he became man and came to earth (Philippians 2:6–7). He did not come out and say that He was this, that, or the other. No, that was not His position. Jesus had all the gifts. He could have stood up and said to Peter and John and James and the rest of them, when the dead son was being carried through the gate of the city of Nain (see Luke 7:11–15), “Stand to one side, Peter. Clear out of the way, John. Make room for Me, Thomas. Don‘t you know who I am? I am coequal with the Father. I have all power, I have all gifts, I have all graces. Stand to one side; I will show you how to raise the dead!”

Is that how He did it? No! Never. Then what made it come to pass? He was observant. The disciples were there, but they did not have the same observance. What did He see? He saw the widow and knew that she was carrying to burial that day all her help, all her life. Her love was bound up in that son. There she was, broken and bent over with sorrow, all her hopes blighted.

Jesus had compassion upon her, and the compassion of Jesus was greater than death. His compassion was so marvelous that it went beyond the powers of death and all the powers of demons. Isn‘t He a lovely Jesus? Isn‘t He a precious Savior?

Thought for today: Observance comes from an inward holy flame kindled by God.

December 11

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD! — Psalm 150:6

Scripture reading: Psalm 150

If you ever get to the place where you cannot praise the Lord, it is a calamity in your life and it is a calamity to the people who are around you. If you want to take blessing into homes and make all the people around you know that you have something more than an ordinary life, you must know that God has come to supplant you and put within you a perfect praise.

God has a great place for us, so that His will may be done and we may be subject to His perfect will. When that comes to pass, no one can tell what may happen, for Jesus reached the highest place when He said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38). So there is something in a place of yielding where God can have us for His own.

God desires that we would lose ourselves in Him in a way we have never done before. I want to provoke you to love so that you will come into this place of blessing.

Beloved, believe today that God has a way for you. Perhaps you have never come that way before. God has a way beyond all your ways of thought. He has a plan for you.

There is a great need today. People are hungry for truth. People are thirsting, wanting to know God better. There are thousands “in the valley of decision” (Joel 3:14), wanting someone to take them right into the depths of God.

Are you ready to pray? You say, “What should I ask for?”

You may not know what to ask for, but if you begin, the Spirit knows the desire of your heart, and He will pray according to the mind of God. You do not know, but God knows everything, and He is acquainted with you altogether and desires to promote you.

So I say, “Are you ready?” You say, “What for?” Are you ready to come promptly into the presence of God so that you may ask this day as you have never asked before? Ask in faith, doubting nothing, but believing that God is on the throne waiting to anoint you afresh today.

Are you ready? What for? Are you ready to be brought into the banquet house of God, even as Esther came in before King Ahasuerus? God will put out the scepter, and all that your heart desires He will give to you. (See Esther 5–7.)

Father, in Jesus‘ name we come before You believing in Your almightiness, that the power of Your hand does move us, chasten us. Build us. Let the Word of God sink into our hearts this day. Make us, O God, worthy of the name we bear, that we may go about as real, holy saints of God. Just as if You were on the earth, fill us with Your anointing, Your power, and Your grace. Amen.

Thought for today: God wants you to be blessed so that you will be a blessing.

December 10

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. — 1 Corinthians 10:12

Scripture reading: Philippians 3:3–21

There are people today who have lived holy lives, preached sanctification, and their language of tongues has been helpful, but something has come in the way. They have lost their zeal and fire, but they still hold onto the language. This can take place in anyone‘s life.

I would like you to know that the speaker is no good unless he judges himself every day. If I do not judge myself, I will be judged (1 Corinthians 11:31). It is no good to me if I look good to you. If there were one thing between me and God, I would not dare to speak to others unless I knew that God had made me holy, for they who bear the vessels of the Lord must be holy unto the Lord (Isaiah 52:11). And I praise God because I know:

His blood can make the vilest clean,
His blood can make the vilest clean,
His blood avails for me,
His blood avails for me.

You cannot assume that someone is still living in the center of God‘s holy will. Because I am only a man, it is possible that I may have grieved the Spirit. If I were to speak in a formal language without unction, that would not move the people. In this type of situation, someone in the place—and this is what tongues are for—someone in the place who is hungry for God and cannot rest because he is not getting the cream of the truth would begin travailing and groaning in the Spirit and speaking in tongues. Another person would travail in the same way, receiving the interpretation of these tongues, and would arise and give that interpretation, thus lifting the people where the prophet could not because he was out of the will of God.

Thought for today: It is not sufficient for me to have your good word; I must have the Master‘s good word.

December 9

Desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in order. — 1 Corinthians 14:39–40

Scripture reading: I Thessalonians 5:11–24

In 1 Corinthians 14:30 we read, “If anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent.” I hope that someday the church will so completely come into its beauty that if I am preaching and you have a revelation on that very thing, a deep revelation from God, and if you stand, I will stop preaching at that moment. Why? Because the Scripture says that if, when a prophet is speaking, anything is revealed to someone in the audience, let the first hold his peace and then let that other one speak.

Then the Scripture says, “For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged” (v. 31). This refers to the one who is preaching. He may be led to hold his peace while one in the midst of the congregation speaks his line of thought that is divinely appointed; then, after he finishes, another may have a prophecy, and he may get up, and so on, until you may have several who have prophesied and you have such revelations in this manner that the whole church is ablaze. I believe that God is going to help us so that we might be sound in mind, right in thought, holy in judgment, separated unto God, and one in the Spirit.

Allow me to say this, and then you judge it afterward. You are not in the right place if you do not judge what I say. You are not to swallow everything I say; you are to judge everything I say by the Scriptures. But you must always use righteous judgment. Righteous judgment is not judging through condemnation, but it is judging something according to the Word of God. In this way, the church may receive edification so that all the people may be built up according to the Word of God.

Perhaps not everyone will affirm what I have to say about this. However, I truly believe, because God has revealed it to me, that the words “Let there be two or at the most three, each in turn” (v. 27) mean that often the speaker will not have finished his message after giving the first insight. So often I have seen in an assembly of believers that the first person has spoken and the Spirit of the Lord has been mightily upon him, but the anointing is such that he did not finish his message with his first insight of truth, and he realizes that he is not through with that message. He speaks in the Spirit again, and we feel that the tide is higher. Then he speaks a third time, and the tide is higher still, and then he stops.

This has led me to believe that “each in turn” (1 Corinthians 14:27) means that one person may be permitted to speak in tongues three times in one meeting. In our conferences in England, we very often have nine utterances in tongues, but there will only be three people speaking. You can have nine, but it is not necessary unless the Lord is prompting it. Sometimes I find that the Spirit will take us through in prophecy in such a way that there will not be more than one, sometimes two people speaking. If I am correct, and I believe I am correct when I say this, when we are full of prophecy, the Spirit has taken our hearts and has moved them by His power. When this happens to me, I speak as fast as I can, but I am not expressing my own thoughts. The Holy Spirit is the thought, the language, and everything; the power of the Spirit is speaking. And when the power of the Holy Spirit is speaking like this, there is no need for tongues or interpretation because you are getting right from the throne the very language of the heart and the man. Then when the person‘s language gives out, the Spirit will speak and the Lord will give tongues and interpretation, and that will lift the whole place.

“At the most three.” Don‘t say four or five, but three at the most. The Holy Spirit says it.

Thought for today: Righteous judgment is not focused on criticism, but righteous judgment judges the truth of something.

December 8

Desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in order. — 1 Corinthians 14:39–40

Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 14:1–25

You are not to consider, under any circumstances, that, because you have a spiritual gift, it is right for you to use that gift, unless the unction of the Spirit is upon you. Unless you adhere to this word, every assembly where you are will be broken up, and you will cause trouble. Until you come to a right understanding of the Scriptures, you will never be pleasing to God.

You have to be very careful that you never use tongues and interpretation in confusion with prophecy. When prophecy is going forth and the truth is being heard and all the people are receiving it with joy and are being built up, then there is no room for tongues or interpretation. But just at the time when the language in my heart seems too big to express, then tongues come forth and God looses the whole thing, and we get a new purpose in that.

So you who have this wonderful gift of tongues must see to it that you never break in where the Spirit is having perfect right-of-way. But when the Spirit is working with you and you know there is a line of truth that the Lord desires to express, then let the name of God be glorified.

You see, God wants everything to be in perfect order by the Spirit. That is why Paul said, “If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three” (1 Corinthians 14:27). You will never find me speaking if three have spoken before me. And you will never find me interpreting any word in tongues if three have spoken already. This is in order to keep the bonds of peace in the body so
that the people will not be weary, because there are some people who have known nothing about what is right.

Unless you come to the Word of God, you will be in confusion and you will be in judgment. God does not want you to be in confusion or in judgment, but He wants you to be built up by the Scriptures, for the Scriptures are clear.

If the Lord reveals truth to me, and if I have said anything previously in relation to this that has not been absolutely scriptural, I will no longer say it. I allow God‘s Word to be my judge. If I find that anything I have said is not scriptural, I repent before God. As God is my Judge, I never say anything unless I believe it is the sincere truth. But if I find out later that it is not exactly in the most perfect keeping with the Word of God, I never say it again.

Thought for today: May the Lord help us to be true to God first; then, if we are true to God, we will be true to ourselves.