Don’t Strive to Receive the Holy Spirit

20 Feb

Now the principle on which we receive the enduement of the Holy Spirit is the very same as that on which we receive forgiveness of sins. The Lord has been crucified, therefore our sins have been forgiven; the Lord has been glorified, therefore the Spirit has been poured out upon us. Is it possible that the Son of God shed his Blood and that your sins, dear child of God, have not been forgiven? Never! Then is it possible that the Son of God has been glorified and you have not received the Spirit? Never! Some of you may say: I agree with all this, but I have no experience of it. Am I to sit down smugly and say I have everything, when I know perfectly well I have nothing? No, we must never rest content with objective facts alone. We need subjective experience also; but that experience will only come as we rest upon divine facts… Enduement with the Holy Spirit becomes yours… by putting your faith in what the Lord has already done.

Watchman Nee

The Normal Christian Life, Tyndale House 1957/1977, 128

2 Responses to “Don’t Strive to Receive the Holy Spirit”

  1. marion schaaf March 11, 2011 at 8:09 pm #

    i love this book!!!

  2. jeremypenwarden March 11, 2011 at 9:08 pm #

    My conviction from scripture is that the experience we call being filled with the Spirit does not come into us like water poured into an empty glass.

    What happens is that the Spirit, already deposited in our hearts (see John 20:22), is released to flow out of us (see John 7:38) as rivers of living water and by this act of outflowing we are filled.

    This explains why at Pentecost the sound was like a mighty rushing wind – 120 rivers of water gushing out would be like the Niagra Falls. To anyone who’s never seen such a sight Niagra Falls sounds like wind.

    And so what we are doing is simply believing that what Jesus said would happen in John 7:38 is true.

Comments are closed.

%d bloggers like this: