Category: Daily Devotionals – Smith Wigglesworth

August 17

For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. — 2 Corinthians 3:9

Scripture reading: Psalm 11

Nothing is as beautiful as righteousness. All the excellent glory is in Him. All righteousness is in Him. Everything that pertains to holiness and godliness, everything that denounces and brings to death the carnal, everything that makes you know you have ceased to be forever, is found in the knowledge of the endless power in the risen Christ. As Paul wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

When you come to the very essence of Christ‘s ministry, you see the righteousness of His purpose. The excellence of His ministry was the glory that covered Him. His Word was convincing, inflexible, divine, and eternal. It never failed.

Oh, the righteousness of God. If Christ said it, it was there. He said it, and it stood fast (Psalm 33:9). It was an unchangeable condition with Him. When God spoke, it was done (v. 9). And His righteousness abides. God must have us in this place of righteousness. We must be people of our word. People ought to be able to depend on our word. God is establishing righteousness in our hearts so that we will not exaggerate about anything.

Jesus was true inwardly and outwardly. He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and on these things we can build; on these things we can pray; on these things we can live. When we know that our own hearts do not condemn us (1 John 3:21), we can say to the mountain, “Be removed” (Matthew 21:21). But when our own hearts condemn us, there is no power in prayer, no power in preaching, no power in anything. We are just sounding brass and clanging cymbals (1 Corinthians 13:1).

May God the Holy Spirit show us there must be a ministry of righteousness. We ought to stand by our word and abide by it. If we were cut in two, our persecutors should find pure gold right through us. That is what I call righteousness. Jesus was righteousness through and through. He is lovely! Oh, truly, He is beautiful!

One thing God wants to establish in our hearts is the importance of being like Him. Be like Him in character. Don‘t be troubled so much about your outward appearance, but be more concerned about your heart. Makeup won‘t change the heart. All the adorning of silks and satins won‘t create purity. Beloved, if I
was going down a road and I saw a fox tail sticking out of a hole, I wouldn‘t ask anybody what was inside. And if there is anything hanging outside of us, we know what is inside. God wants righteousness in the inward parts, purity through and through.

The Bible is the plumb line of everything. And so, may God the Holy Spirit bring us into that blessed ministry of righteousness. Amen! Glory to God!

Thought for today: Unless we are lined right up with the Word of God, we will fail in the measure in which we are not righteous.

August 16

How will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? — 2 Corinthians 3:8

Scripture reading: 1 Peter 1:13–25

May the Lord help us to understand His word. I see the truth as it was brought to the Israelites in the law. Paul had something to glory in when he kept the law and was blameless, but he said he threw that to one side to win Him who is even greater than that (Philippians 3:8).

Now we come to the question: what is in the law that isn‘t glorious? Nothing. It was so glorious that Moses was filled with joy in the expectation of what it was. But what is ours in the excellence of glory? It is this: we live, we move, we reign over all things. It is not “Do, do, do”; it is “Will, will, will.” I rejoice to do. It is no longer “Thou shalt not”; it is “I will.” “I delight to do Your will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8). So the glory is far exceeding. And, beloved, in our hearts there is exceeding glory. Oh, the joy of this celestial touch!

Oh yes, the glory is exceeding. The glory is excellent. When Peter was describing that wonderful day on the Mount of Transfiguration, he said, “Such a voice came to Him [Christ] from the Excellent Glory” (2 Pet. 1:17). And so we are hearing from the Excellent Glory. It is so lovely.

If I were to say to you, “Whatever you do, you must try to exercise self-control in order to be holy,” I would miss it. I would be altogether outside of His plan. But by the Holy Spirit, I take the words of the epistle that says, “Be holy” (1 Peter 1:16). For when you lose your heart and Another takes your heart, and you lose your desires and He takes the desires, then you live in that sunshine of bliss that no mortal can ever touch.

Divine immortality swallows up all natural mortality. It is lovely to walk in the Spirit; then we will not fulfill any part of the law without the Spirit causing us to dwell in safety, rejoice inwardly, praise God reverently, and know that we are an increasing force of immortality swallowing up life. Hallelujah!

Thought for today: It is as easy as possible to be holy, but you can never be holy by trying to be.

August 15

The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. — 2 Corinthians 3:6

Scripture reading: John 6:53–71

As I go on with God, He wants me to understand all His deep things. We cannot define, separate, or deeply investigate and unfold this holy plan of God unless we have the life of God, the thought of God, the Spirit of God, and the revelation of God. The Word of Truth is pure, spiritual, and divine. If you try to discern it without the help of the Spirit, you will end up with a limited, human understanding.

People who are spiritual can only be fed with spiritual food. We must see that we not only need the baptism of the Spirit, but we also need to come to a place where there is only the baptism of the Spirit left. In John‘s gospel, Jesus says He does not speak or act of Himself: “The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works” (John 14:10).

We must know that the baptism of the Spirit immerses us into an intensity of zeal, into a likeness to Jesus; it makes us into pure, liquid metal so hot for God that it travels like oil from vessel to vessel. This divine life of the Spirit will let us see that we have ceased, yet we have begun. We are at the end for a beginning.

God, help us to see that we may be filled with the letter without being filled with the Spirit. We may be filled with knowledge without having divine knowledge. And we may be filled with wonderful natural things and still remain natural men. But we cannot remain natural men in this truth that I am dealing with here. No one is able to walk this way unless he is in the Spirit. He must live in the Spirit, and he must realize all the time that he is growing in that same ideal of his Master, “in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2), always beholding the face of the Master, Jesus (Matthew 18:10).

Thought for today: We can understand the Word of God only by the Spirit of God.

August 14

We have such trust through Christ toward God. — 2 Corinthians 3:4

Scripture reading: Psalm 37

We need to get to a place where we are beyond trusting in ourselves. It is not bad to have self-confidence, but we must never rest upon anything in the human. The only sure place to rest is where you are trusting fully in God.

In His name we go. In Him we trust. And God brings us the victory. When we do not trust in ourselves, but when our whole trust rests upon the authority of the mighty God, He has promised to be with us at all times, to make the path straight, and to make a way through all the mountains. Then we understand how it was that David could say, “Your gentleness has made me great” (2 Samuel 22:36).

Ah, God is the lover of souls! We have no confidence in the flesh. Our confidence can only be placed in and rest upon the One who never fails, the One who knows the end from the beginning, the One who is able to come in at the midnight hour as easily as at midday. In fact, God makes the night and the day alike to the person who rests completely in His will with the knowledge that “all things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28) and trust in Him. And we have such trust in Him.

This is the worthy position; this is where God wants all souls to be. We would find that we would not run His errands and make mistakes; we would not be settling down in the wrong place. We would know that our lives were as surely in agreement with the thoughts of God as the leading of the children of Israel through the wilderness. And we would be able to say, “Not one good thing has the Lord withheld from me” (Psalm 84:11), and “All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

May the Lord help you to have less confidence in yourself, and to trust wholly in Him. Bless His name!

Thought for today: There is so much failure in self-assurance.

August 13

Clearly you are an epistle of Christ. — 2 Corinthians 3:3

Scripture reading: Colossians 3:12–25

Think about these words: “Clearly you are an epistle of Christ.” What an ideal position that now the sons of God are being manifested; now the glory is being seen; now the Word of God is becoming an expressed purpose in life until the Word has begun to live in God‘s children.

This position was truly evident in the life of Paul when he came to a climax and said, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20).

How can Christ live in you? There is no way for Christ to live in you except by the manifested Word in you, declaring every day that you are a living epistle of the Word of God.

It is the living Christ; it is the divine likeness to God; it is the express image of Him. The Word is the only factor that works out and brings forth in you these glories of identification between you and Christ. It is the Word richly dwelling in your hearts by faith (Colossians 3:16).

We may begin at Genesis and go right through the Scriptures and be able to recite them, but unless they are a living power within us, they will be a dead letter. Everything that comes to us must be quickened by the Spirit. “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).

We must have life in everything. Who knows how to pray except as the Spirit prays (Romans 8:26)? What kind of prayer does the Spirit pray? The Spirit always brings to your remembrance the Scriptures, and He brings forth all your cries and your needs better than your words. The Spirit always takes the Word of God and brings your heart, mind, soul, cry, and need into the presence of God.

So we are not able to pray except as the Spirit prays, and the Spirit only prays according to the will of God (v. 27), and the will of God is all in the Word of God. No man is able to speak according to the mind of God and bring forth the deep things of God by his own mind.

God, help us to understand this, for it is out of the heart that all things proceed (Matthew 12:34). When we have entered in with God into the mind of the Spirit, we will find that God enraptures our hearts.

“Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, ‘The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?’” (James 4:5). I have been pondering over that verse for years, but now I can see that the Holy Spirit very graciously, very extravagantly, puts everything to one side so that He may enrapture our hearts with a great inward cry for Jesus. The Holy Spirit “yearns jealously” for us to have all the divine will of God in Christ Jesus right in our hearts.

When I speak about the “tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:3), I mean the inward love. Nothing is as sweet to me as to know that the heart yearns with compassion. Eyes may see, ears may hear, but you may be immovable on those two lines unless you have an inward cry where “deep calls unto deep” (Psalm 42:7).

When God gets into the depths of our hearts, He purifies every intention of the thoughts and the joys. We are told in the Word that it is “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

Beloved, it is true that the commandments were written on tablets of stone. Moses, like a great big loving father over Israel, had a heart full of joy because God had shown him a plan by which Israel could partake of great things through these commandments. But God says that now the epistle of Christ is “not on tablets of stone” (2 Corinthians 3:3), which made the face of Moses shine with great joy. It is deeper than that, more wonderful than that: the commandments are in our hearts; the deep love of God is in our hearts; the deep movings of eternity are rolling in and bringing God in. Hallelujah!

Oh, beloved, let God the Holy Spirit have His way today in unfolding to us all the grandeur of His glory. Yes, He is mine! Beloved, He is mine!

Thought for today: No one is perfected or equipped in any area except as the living Word abides in him.

August 12

When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men. — Ephesians 4:8

Scripture reading: 1 Thessalonians 4:1–12

God has gifts for men. You ask, “What kind of men?” Even for rebels. Did they desire to be rebels? No. Sometimes there are transgressions that break our hearts and make us groan and travail. Was it our desire to sin? No. God looks right at the very canvas of our whole life histories, and He has set His mind upon us.

Your weakness has to be sifted like the chaff before the wind, and every seed will bring forth pure grain after God‘s mind. The fire will burn like an oven to burn up the stubble (Malachi 4:1), but the wheat will be gathered into the granary, the treasury of the Most High God, and He Himself will lay hold of us.

What is this process for? The perfecting of the saints. (See Ephesians 4:11–12.) Oh, just think—that brokenness of yours is to be made whole like Him; that weakness of yours is to be made strong like Him! You have to bear the image of the Lord in every detail. You have to have the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5) in perfection, in beauty.

Beloved, don‘t fail and shrivel up because of the hand of God upon you, but realize that God must purify you for the perfecting of the saints. Oh, Jesus will help you. Friend, what are you going to do with this golden opportunity, with this inward pressure of a cry of God in your soul? Are you going to let others be crowned while you lose the crown? Are you willing to be brought into captivity today for God?

You must decide some things. If you are not baptized, you must seek the baptism of the Spirit of God. And if there is anything that has marred the fruit or interfered with all of His plan, I implore you to let the blood so cover, let the anointing of Christ so come, let the vision of Christ be so seen, that you will have a measure that will take all that God has for you.

Thought for today: There are no buts in the sanctification of the Spirit. But and if are gone, replaced with shall and will.

August 11

To each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ‟s gift. — Ephesians 4:7

Scripture reading: Romans 12

Grace and gifts are equally abounding in Jesus. As you place your strength on Jesus, as you allow the Holy Spirit to penetrate every thought, always bringing on the canvas of the mind a perfect picture of holiness, purity, and righteousness, you enter into Him and become entitled to all the riches of God.

How do you measure up today? God gives a measure. “To each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ‟s gift.”

I know that salvation, while it is a perfect work, is an insulation that may have any number of volts behind it. In the days when bare wires were laid, when electric power was obtained from Niagara, I am told that there was a city whose lights suddenly went out. Following the wires, the repairmen came to a place where a cat had gotten on the wires, and the lights had been stopped.

I find that the dynamo of heaven can be stopped with a smaller thing than a cat. An impure thought stops the circulation. An act can stop the growth of the believer.

So I find that if I am going to have all the revelations of Jesus brought to me, I must strive for all that God has for me through a pure and clean heart, right thoughts, and an inward affection toward Him. Then heaven bursts through my human frame, and all the rays of heaven flow through my body. Hallelujah! It is lovely!

The measure of the gift of Christ remains with you. I cannot go on with inspiration unless I am going on with God in perfection. I cannot know the mind of the natural and the mysteries of the hidden things with God unless I have power to penetrate everything between me and heaven. And there is nothing that goes through but a pure heart, for the pure in heart will see God (Matthew
5:8).

Thought for today: We must let Him be enthroned, and then He will lift us to the throne.

August 10

You were called in one hope of your calling. — Ephesians 4:4

Scripture reading: John 3:1–21

Many people who are called miss the call because they are dull of hearing. There is something in the call, beloved. “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). And how will the choice be made? The choice is always your choice first. You will find that gifts are your choice first. You will find that salvation is your choice. God has made it all, but you have to choose. God wants you to make an inward call, to be in a great intercessory condition of imploring the Holy One to prepare you for that wonderful spiritual body.

Called! Beloved, I know that some people have the idea (and it is a great mistake) that because they are not successful in everything they touch, because they have failed in so many things that they desire to go forward in, because they don‘t seem to aspire in prayer as some do and perhaps don‘t enter into the fullness of tongues, there is no hope for them in this calling. Satan comes and
says, “Look at that black list of your weaknesses and infirmities! You can never expect to be in that calling!”

Yes, you can, beloved! God says it in the Scriptures. Oh, beloved, it is weakness that is made strong (2 Corinthians 12:9). It is the last who can be made first (Matthew 19:30). What will make the whole situation different? Confessing our helplessness. God says that He feeds the hungry with good things, but the satisfied He sends away empty (Luke 1:53). If you want to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the grace of God, get hungry enough to be fed; get thirsty enough to cry out; be broken enough that you do not want anything in the world unless He comes Himself.

Let God comfort your heart. Let Him strengthen your weakness. Let Him cause you to come into the place of profit. Let Him help you into the place He has chosen for you, for “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). But God has a big choice.

Thought for today: I am glad I cannot measure Jesus, but I am glad I can touch Him all the same.

August 9

There is one body and one Spirit. — Ephesians 4:4

Scripture reading: James 4:17; 5:1–12

We must recognize that there is only one body. The longsuffering of God reaches out to believers who have the idea that only those in their church are right. That way of thinking is foolishness. It is foolishness for people to come to their Communion table and think that their table is the only table. What about the hundreds of people who are sitting around their tables partaking of the bread and the wine? Friend, the body of Christ consists of all who are in Christ.

The Scriptures definitely say that all who are Christ‘s at His coming will be changed. It seems that we cannot be all Christ‘s unless something is done, and God will sweep away so many attitudes that are spoiling our unity. We must reach the place of perfect love.

Oh, the body appearing as one body! Oh, the entire body possessing the same joy, the same peace, the same hope! No division, all one in Christ! Who can make a body like that? This body is made deep in the Cross. The blood takes away all impurities and everything that will mar the vessel. God is making a vessel for honor, fit for the Master‘s use (2 Timothy 2:21), joined with that body— one body.

Let us be careful that we do not in any way defile the body, because God is chastening the body and fitting it together. There is something deeper down in the spirit of the regenerated person when the impurities of life and of the flesh fall off. Oh, there is a resemblance, a likeness, a perfection of holiness, of love! O God, take away the weaknesses and all the depravities.

“Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually [“in particular,” KJV]” (1 Corinthians 12:27). I like the word “particular”; it tells us that there is just the right place for us. God is making us fit in that place so that for all time we will have a wonderful place in that body.

Thought for today: You will never advance in the kingdom unless you see that in every church there is a nucleus that has as real a God as you have.

August 8

Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. — Ephesians 4:3

Scripture reading: Matthew 5:9, 17–24

Of all the things God intends for us to be, He intends for us to be peacemakers. I won‘t find a Scripture to help me make this point any better than Matthew 5:23–24:

“Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Most Christians are satisfied with the first meaning of this passage, but the second meaning is deeper. Most people believe it is perfectly right, if you have offended another, to go to that person and say, “Please forgive me,” and you win your brother when you take that part. But this is the deeper sense: “If you…remember that your brother has something against you,” go and forgive him his transgressions. It is so much deeper than getting your own side right to go and get his side right by forgiving him of all that he has done.

That will be a stepping-stone to very rich grace in the area of keeping “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Someone may say, “I cannot forgive them because she did that and he said that. You know, he didn‘t recognize me at all. And he hasn‘t smiled at me for at least six months.” Poor thing! May God help you through evil report and good report (2 Corinthians 6:4, 8). God can take us right through if we get to the right side of grace.

Friends, when you get to the place of forgiving your brother who has something against you, you will find that that is the greatest ideal of going on to perfection, and the Lord will help us “to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” The “bond of peace” is an inward bond between you and another child of God. Oh, glory to God!

Thought for today: God wants us to have a pure love, a love that always helps someone else at its own expense.