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June 9

A Fresh Vision for Each Day

His compassions fail not. They are new every morning.
—Lamentations 3:22–23

Scripture reading: Psalm 62

I am out to win souls. It is my business to seek the lost. It is
my business to make everybody hungry, dissatisfied, mad,
or glad. I want to see every person filled with the Holy Spirit. I must have a message from heaven that will not leave people as I found them. Something must happen if we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Something must happen at every place. Men must know that a man filled with the Holy Spirit is no longer a man. A man can be swept by the power of God in his first stage of revelation of Christ, and from that moment on, he has to be an extraordinary man. In order to be filled with the Holy Spirit, he has to become a free body for God to dwell in.

I appeal to you who have been filled with the Holy Spirit:
whatever the cost, let God have His way. I appeal to you who have to move on, who cannot rest until God does something for you. God has been revealing to me that anyone who does not sin yet remains in the same place spiritually for a week is a backslider. You say, ―How is it possible?‖ Because God‘s revelation is available to anyone who will wholeheartedly be committed to following God.

Staying the same for two days would almost indicate that you had lost the vision. The child of God must have a fresh vision every day. The child of God must be more active by the Holy Spirit every day. The child of God must come into line with the power of heaven, where he knows that God has put His hand upon him.

Jesus went about doing good, for God was with Him. God
anointed Him. Beloved, is that not the ministry to which God would have us become heirs? Why? Because the Holy Spirit has to bring us a revelation of Jesus, and the purpose of being filled with the Holy Spirit is to give us a revelation of Jesus. He will make the Word of God just the same life as was given by the Son, as new, as fresh, as effective as if the Lord Himself were speaking.

I wonder how many of you are a part of the bride of Christ?
The bride loves to hear the Bridegroom‘s voice (John 3:29). Here it is, the blessed Word of God, the whole Word, not just part of it. No, we believe in the whole thing. Day by day, we find out that the Word itself gives life. The Spirit of the Lord breathes through us. He makes the Word come alive in our hearts and minds. So I have within my hands, within my heart, within my mind, this blessed reservoir of promises that is able to do so many marvelous things.

God has indeed been manifesting Himself. I must tell you one of those cases. In Oakland, California, I held meetings at a theater. Only to glorify God, I tell you that Oakland was in a very serious state. There was very little Pentecostal work there, and so a large theater was rented. God worked especially in filling the place until we had to have overflow meetings. In these meetings, we had a rising flood of people getting saved by standing up voluntarily, all over that place, getting saved the moment they stood. Then we had a large number of people who needed help in their bodies, rising up in faith and being healed.

One of them was an old man who was ninety-five years of age. He had been suffering for three years until he gradually got to the place that for three weeks he was consuming only liquids. He was in a terrible state, but this man was different from the others. I got him to stand while I prayed for him, and he came back and told us with such a radiant face that new life had come into his body. He said, ―I am ninety-five years old. When I came into the meeting, I was full of pain with cancer in the stomach. I have been healed so that I have been eating perfectly, and I have no pain. Similarly, many people were healed.

I hope you are expecting big things.

Thought for today: No man can have the Trinity abiding in him and be the same as he was before.

June 8

Serving the Lord with all humility. — Acts 20:19

Scripture reading: James 4

None of us will be able to be ministers of the new covenant
of promise in the power of the Holy Spirit without humility. It is clear to me that in the measure the death of the Lord is in me, the life of the Lord will abound in me. To me, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a goal; it is an infilling that allows us to reach the highest level, the holiest position that it is possible for human nature to reach. The baptism of the Holy Spirit comes to reveal Him who is filled fully with God.

To be baptized with the Holy Spirit is to be baptized into death, into life, into power, into fellowship with the Trinity, where we cease to be and God takes us forever. Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). I believe that God wants to put His hand upon us so that we may reach ideal definitions of humility, of human helplessness, of human insufficiency, until we will rest no more upon human plans, but have God‘s thoughts, God‘s voice, and God the Holy Spirit to speak to us. Now here is a word for us: “And see, now I go bound in the spirit” (Acts 20:22). There is the Word. Is that a possibility? Is there a possibility for a person to align himself so completely with the divine will of God?

Jesus was a man, flesh and blood like us, while at the same time, He was the incarnation of divine authority, power, and majesty of the glory of heaven. He bore in His body the weaknesses of human flesh. He was tempted “in all points…as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). He is so lovely, such a perfect Savior. Oh, that I could shout ―Jesus‖ in such a way that the world would hear. There is salvation, life, power, and deliverance through His name. But, beloved, I see that “the Spirit drove Him” (Mark 1:12), that He was “led by the Spirit” (Luke 4:1), and here comes Paul “bound in the spirit” (Acts 20:22).

What an ideal condescension of heaven that God should lay hold of humanity and possess it with His holiness, His righteousness, His truth, and His faith so that Paul could say, ― I go bound‟ (v. 22); I have no choice. The only choice is for God. The only desire or ambition is God‘s. I am bound with God. Is it possible, beloved?

If you look at the first chapter of Galatians, you will see how
wonderfully Paul rose to this state of bliss. If you look at the third chapter of Ephesians, you see how he became “less than the least of all saints” (v. 8). In Acts 26, you will hear him say, “King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (v. 19). In order to keep the vision, he yielded not to flesh and blood. God laid hold of him; God bound him; God preserved him. I ought to say, however, that it is a wonderful position to be preserved by the Almighty. We ought to see to it in our Christian experience that when we commit ourselves to God, the consequences will be all right. He who “seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17:33).

What is it to be bound by the Almighty, preserved by the Infinite? There is no end to God‘s resources. They reach right into glory. They never finish on the earth. God takes control of a man in the baptism of the Holy Spirit as he yields himself to God. There is the possibility of being taken and yet left—taken charge of by God and left in the world to carry out His commands. That is one of God‘s possibilities for humanity: to be taken over by the power of God while being left in the world to be salt as the Scripture describes (Matt. 5:13).

Thought for today: The way to get up is to get down.