Category: Daily Devotionals – Smith Wigglesworth

July 21

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. — Isaiah 26:3

Scripture reading: Isaiah 54:5–55:9

We must keep in the spiritual tide—God supreme, the altar
within the body. Faith is the evidence, the power, the principle, keeping us in rest. We must have the Spirit in anointing, intercession, revelation, and great power of ministry. To be baptized in the Holy Spirit is to be in God‘s plan—the Spirit preeminent, revealing the Christ of God, making the Word of God alive—something divine. “Our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the…Spirit; for the…Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:5–6).

I knew a believer whose job was to carry bags of coal. He had been in bed three weeks away from his work. I showed him Romans 7:25: “I thank God; through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” I said, “Keep your mind on God and go to work, shouting victory.” He did, and the first day he was able to carry a hundred bags, his mind stayed on God and kept in peace. “Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble” (Psalm. 119:165).

If your peace is disturbed, there is something wrong. Apply the blood of Jesus, and keep your mind stayed upon Jehovah, where “hearts are fully blessed, finding as He promised, perfect peace and rest.” Keep your mind on God, gaining strength in Him day by day.

“The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). This is a new dispensation, this divine place: Christ in you, the hope and evidence of glory (Colossians 1:27).

May God gird you with truth (Ephesians 6:14). I commend you to Him in the name of Jesus.

Thought for today: If you are not free in the Spirit, your mind is in the wrong place.

July 20

Nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus. — Acts 20:24

Scripture reading: Romans 13:14–14:19

The ministry of the Spirit has been entrusted to us. We must be in the place of edifying the church. Law is not liberty, but if there is a move of God within you, God has written His laws in your heart so that you may delight in Him. God desires to set forth in us a perfect blending of His life and our lives so that we may have abounding inward joy—a place of reigning over all things, not a place of endeavor. There is a great difference between an endeavor and a delight.

God says to us, “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16). Trying will never cause us to reach a place of holiness, but there is a place, or an attitude, where God gives us faith to rest on His Word, and we delight inwardly over everything. “I delight to do Your will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8). There is a place of great joy. Do we want condemnation?

We know there is something within that has been accomplished by the power of God, something greater than there could be in the natural order of the flesh. We are the representatives of Jesus. He was eaten up with zeal. (See John 2:17.) This intense zeal changes us by the operation of the Word; we do not rest in the letter, but we allow the blessed Holy Spirit to lift us by His power.

The disciples were with Jesus three years. He spoke out of the abundance of His heart toward them. John said, “We have touched Him; our eyes have gazed into His eyes.” (See 1 John 1:1). Did Jesus know about Judas? Yes. Did He ever tell? No. When Jesus told the disciples that one of them would betray Him, they said, “Lord, is it I?” (Matthew 26:22). The essence of divine order is to bring the church together, so that there is no schism in the body, but a perfect blending of heart to heart.

“The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). The sword cut off Malchus‘s ear, but the Spirit healed it again. (See Luke 22:50–51.) Our ministry has to be in the Spirit, “free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). When we live in the ministry of the Spirit, we are free; in the letter we are bound. If it is “an eye for an eye” (Matthew 5:38), we have lost the principle. If we are to come to a place of great liberty, the law must be at an end. Yet we love the law of God; we love to do it and not put one thing aside.
“Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered…by the Spirit of the living God…on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:3). It‘s heart worship when God has made the incision; the Spirit has come to blend with humanity.

Thought for today: Ours is not an endeavor society, but a delight to live in the will of God.

July 19

Be filled with all the fullness of God. — Ephesians 3:19

Scripture reading: Ephesians 3:14–21

We want our whole being to be so full of the life of our Lord
that the Holy Spirit can speak and act through us. We want to live always in Him. Oh, the charm of His divine plan! We cry out for the inspiration of the God of power. We want to act in the Holy Spirit. We want to breathe out divine life. We want the glory, miracles, and wonders that work out the plan of the Most High God. We want to be absorbed by God, and we want to know nothing among men except Jesus and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). Unto You, O God, be the glory and the honor and the power (Revelation 5:13)!

Yes, filled with God,
Yes, filled with God,
Emptied of self and filled with God.
For He is so precious to me,
For He is so precious to me;
It‘s heaven below
My Redeemer to know,
For He is so precious to me.

Can you wonder why I love Him so? May there be a cry until we witness Acts 11:15: “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them.”

Oh, be on fire, oh, be on fire,
Oh, be on fire for God.
Oh, be on fire, be all on fire,
Be all on fire for God.

Thought for today: To live two days in succession on the same spiritual plane is a tragedy.

July 18

Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt.
— Colossians 4:6

Scripture reading: James 3

Salt has three properties: first, it stings; second, it heals; and third, it preserves. In the same way, your words by the Spirit are filled with grace, yet they cut to the heart, and they bring preservation. We must be very careful to be salty. God‘s Word will not return void; it will accomplish, and it will prosper (Isaiah 55:11) — but our mouths must be clean and our desire wholly for God.

Jesus‘ words were straightforward. To the elite of the holiness movement of His day, He said, “Woe to you…hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs” (Matthew 23:27). To others He said, “You are deceived; you have the idea that you are the children of Abraham, but you are the children of the Devil, and you do his works.” (See John 8:39, 44.) His mouth was full of meekness and gentleness and yet was so salty because of their corruption. Unless you know the charm of Christ, you might think you are out of the working of His eternal power. However, see what the prophet Isaiah said: “A bruised reed He will not break” (Isaiah 42:3).

“Know how you ought to answer each one” (Colossians 4:6). This is not easy to learn. It is only learned in the place of being absorbed by God. When we are in that place, we seek to glorify God and can give a chastening word full of power to awaken and to save. Use the salt, beloved! Use conviction; use the healing for their preservation.

How true we have to be! You are seasoned with salt. I love it! It is inspiring! It is conviction! Thus the Holy Spirit writes on the fleshly tablets of the temple of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:3). O Lord, enlarge our sense of Your presence in the temple so that we may discern the Lord‘s body in our midst.

Thought for today: None are so deaf as those who won‘t hear the Word of God; none so blind as those who won‘t see its truth.

July 17

My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. — Psalm 45:1

Scripture reading: Isaiah 50:4; Psalm 15:1–16:1

Oh, for more people to believe God that “the tongue of the
dumb [might] sing” (Isaiah 35:6). When will they? When they believe and fulfill the conditions. Oh, beloved, it is not easy. But Jesus died and rose again for the possibility. “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22). The whole man needs to be immersed in God so that the Holy Spirit may operate and the dying world may have the ministry of life for which it is famished.

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead
dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also
give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells
in you. (Romans 8:11)

As the dead body of Christ was given life and brought out by the Holy Spirit, may we be given eyes to see and ears to hear and a tongue to speak as the oracles of God. “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1 Peter 4:11). Those are our orders: speaking what no one knows except the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit gives divine utterance—a language that would never come at all unless the Holy Spirit gave utterance and took the things of Christ and revealed them. Did God answer Paul‘s prayer to be able “to speak the mystery of Christ” (Colossians 4:3)? Yes! “In mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God…from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ” (Romans 15:19).

It was the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep, that brought to us redemption. It was by the grace of God—His favor and mercy, a lavished love and an undeserved favor—that God brought salvation. We did not deserve it.

Thought for today: The greatest gift to mankind is to be able to say, “Christ lives in me!”

July 16

[Pray] that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. — Ephesians 6:19–20

Scripture reading: Acts 26:1–29

Paul felt, as we do, the need for utterance. He had plenty of
language, but he wanted utterance. We can have inspiration, operation, tongue, mind, heart—we need all these. God works through these in this divine order to give forth the truth most needed for the time. But the supreme need of the hour is prayer for utterance.

Paul and his helpers were men sent forth by the power of the Holy Spirit. But without anointing, they could not open the door or give forth the right word for the hour. Paul and his helpers were unequal to the need. Was this an indication that something was out of order? No! We are all dependent on the Holy Spirit to breathe through us.

How can we live in this place, reliant on omnipotent power? It is by the Spirit of the Lord giving vent, speaking through us. It is not an easy thing. God said to David, “It is good that the desire is in your heart.” (See 2 Chronicles 6:8.) But that will not do for us who live in the latter days when God is pouring forth His Spirit, and rivers of power are available are at our word. We need to live by Mark 11:22–23: “Have faith in God.…Whoever…believes…will have whatever he says.” Let God arise. Let God breathe His Holy Spirit through your nature, through your eyes and tongue—the supernatural in the natural for the glory of God. God raised Paul for this ministry. What was the means? Jesus said, “By faith in Me” (Acts 26:18). The faith of God.

Thought for today: Apart from this living breath of the Spirit, the message is ordinary and not extraordinary.

July 15

Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. — Ezekiel 37:5

Scripture reading: Ezekiel 37

As we speak in the Spirit, we feel that the fire that burned in the hearts of the two men on their way to Emmaus, when
Jesus walked with them, is burning in our hearts. (See Luke 24:13–32.) It is sure to come to pass that when we walk with Him, our hearts will burn; the same power of the Spirit is present today to make it happen. The two men on their way to Emmaus could not understand what was happening on the road, but a few hours later, they saw Jesus break the bread, and their eyes were opened.

But, beloved, our hearts always ought to burn. There is a place where we can live in the anointing and the clothing of the Spirit, where our words will be clothed with power. “Do not be drunk with wine…but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). Being filled with the Spirit is a wonderful privilege.

It was necessary for John to be in the Spirit on the Isle of
Patmos so that the revelation could be made clear to him (Revelation 1:9-10). What does it mean to this generation for us to be kept in the Spirit? All human reasoning and all human knowledge cannot be compared with the power of the life that is lived in the Spirit. In the Spirit, we have power to loose and power to bind (Matthew 16:19). There is a place where the Holy Spirit can put us where we cannot be anywhere else but in the Spirit. But it is only in the Spirit.

Now, I read in Matthew 16:19 that Jesus says, in essence, “I
will give you power to bind, and I will give you power to loose.” This is a power that many of us have not yet claimed, and we will not be able to claim this manifestation of the Spirit unless we live in the Spirit. When are you able to bind and loose? It is only in the Spirit. You cannot bind things in human strength or with the natural mind. This power was never lacking in Jesus, but I feel that there is a great lack of it in most of us. God help us!

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me” (Luke 4:18). Beloved,
there was a great purpose in this Spirit being on Jesus, and there is a special purpose in your being baptized in the Spirit. We must not forget that we are members of His body, and by this wonderful baptismal power, we are partakers of His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

The revelation came this way: I saw Adam and Eve driven out of the Garden and a flaming sword at every side to keep them from entering into the Garden. But I saw that all around me was a flaming sword keeping me from evil, and it seemed this would be true if I would claim it, so I said, “Lord, I will.” The flaming sword was around me, delivering me from the power of hell. In this way, we are preserved from evil. God is like a wall of fire around us (Zechariah 2:5); why should we fear? What a wonderful salvation! What a wonderful Deliverer!

Notice Ezekiel 37. The only need of Ezekiel was to be in the
Spirit, and while he was in the Spirit, it came to him to prophesy to the dry bones and say, “O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD” (v. 4). And as he prophesied according to the Lord‘s command, he saw an “exceedingly great army” (v. 10) rising up about him. The prophet obeyed God‘s command, and all we have to do is exactly this: obey God. What is impossible with man is possible with God (Luke 18:27).

I pray to God that your spirit, soul, and body may be preserved holy (1 Thessalonians 5:23), and that you may be always on fire, always ready with the anointing on you. If this is not so, we are out of divine order, and we ought to cry to Him until the glory comes back upon us.

Thought for today: If we breathe the Holy Spirit‘s thoughts into our thoughts, and live in the anointing of the Holy Spirit as Jesus lived, then there will be evidences that we are in the Holy Spirit, and we will do His works.

July 14

The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me. — Luke 4:18

Scripture reading: Luke 4:1–21

I believe God is bringing us to a place where we know that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us. If we have not gotten to that place, God wants to bring us to the fact of what Jesus said in John 14: “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper [‘Comforter,’ KJV], that He may abide with you forever” (v. 16). Because the Spirit of the Lord came upon Him who is our Head, we must see to it that we receive the same anointing, and that the same Spirit is upon us. The Devil will cause us to lose the victory if we allow ourselves to be defeated by him. But it is a fact that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, and as for me, I have no message apart from the message He will give, and I believe that the signs He speaks of will follow.

I believe that Jesus was the One sent forth from God, and the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). We see the manifestation of the Spirit resting upon Him so that His ministry was with power. May God awaken us to the fact that this is the only place where there is any ministry of power.

The Comforter has come. He has come, and He has come to abide forever. Are you going to be defeated by the Devil? No, for the Comforter has come so that we may receive and give forth the signs that must follow, so that we may not by any means be deceived by the schemes of the Devil. There is no limit to what we may become if we dwell and live in the Spirit. In the Spirit of prayer, we are taken right away from earth into heaven. In the Spirit, the Word of God seems to unfold in a wonderful way, and it is only in the Spirit that the love of God is poured out in us (Romans 5:5)

Thought for today: Who is the man who is willing to lay down everything so that he may have God‘s all?

July 13

If we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation….Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. — 2 Corinthians 1:6

Scripture reading: Isaiah 51:9–16

These consolations come out of deprivation, affliction, and
endurance. “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9).

Have we gone as far as Paul? Very few of us have. Can you see how Paul could help and comfort and sustain because he yielded to God all his trust as Jesus did? Because he was yielded to the Holy Spirit to work out the sentence of death, he could help others.

I pray to God that He may never find us “kick[ing] against the goads” (Acts 9:5). We may have to go through the testing; divine healing, purity of heart, baptism in the Holy Spirit and in fire—we are tested for these truths. We cannot get out of this testing. But in every meeting, the glory rises. We descend down into trials also to be sustained and brought out for the glory of God. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Oh, the joy of being worthy of suffering! How will I stand the glory that will be after?

Many of God‘s people are victorious in suffering but fail or
back out when things are going fine. Deprivation is often easier than success. We need a sound mind all the time to balance us so that we do not trade our liberty for something less.

We get glimpses of the glory all the time. To Paul in the glory, the presence of the Lord was so wonderful. But he said, “Lest I should be exalted…a thorn in the flesh was given to me” (2 Corinthians 12:7). That was the mercy of God. “The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations” (2 Peter 2:9) and “saves such as have a contrite spirit” (Psalm 34:18). What a revelation for the time to come! If Satan had his way, we would be devoured.

Thought for today: The truths you stand for, you are tried for.

July 12

For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. — 2 Corinthians 1:5

Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 12:12–27

Chastening provokes or bestows upon us fruits unto holiness. It is in the hard places where we see no help that we cry out to God. He delivers us so that we can help the tempted. It was said of Jesus that He was “in all points tempted as we are” (Hebrews 4:15). Where did He receive strength to comfort us? It was at the end of “vehement cries and tears” (Hebrews 5:7), when the angel came just in time and ministered and saved Him from death. Now He can send angels to us. When? Just when we are about to go straight down. At such times in the past, did He not stretch out to us a helping hand?

God takes us to a place of need, and before we are barely
aware of it, we are full of consolation toward the needy. How? The sufferings of Christ abound! The ministry of the Spirit abounds so often. It is a great blessing. We do not know our calling in the Spirit. It is so much greater than our appreciation of it. Then we speak a word in season (Isaiah 50:4); here and there we minister, sowing beside all waters as the Holy Spirit directs our paths.

Paul and the people he ministered to cooperated with one
another. Here is the value of testing: it results in a great flow of life from one to another. John Wesley woke up one day and became conscious of the need of one establishing another. In this way, he bore witness to the ministry of the Spirit, and multitudes were born again in his meetings when they heard the wonderful works of God. They heard stories and had consolation poured out to them by the revelation of the Spirit.

We are members of one another. When God‘s breath is upon us and we are quickened by the Holy Spirit, we can pour into each other wonderful ministries of grace and helpfulness.

Thought for today: We need a strong ministry of consolation, not deterioration or living below our privileges.