Tuesday 21 February 2012

Tozer on being filled by the Spirit

This year I am trying to read from A .W. Tozer.  So on Sunday I concluded my thoughts of John 7 as follows:
 
I want to finish with a plea to experience more of this living water that is the person of the Holy Spirit.  In a book entitled God’s Pursuit of Man A. W. Tozer writes, ‘I want to boldly assert that it is my happy belief that every Christian can have a copious outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a measure far beyond that received at conversion …’  The apostle Paul urges the Ephesians to go on being filled with the Holy Spirit. 
 
This filling may work in different people in different ways but it always result in them acting more like Christ.  I think of a woman people in Richhill referred to as Auntie Emma.  I first met her in a nursing home.  She was suffering with dementia.  Her short-term memory covered only a few minutes.  Her conversation was limited.  But she would quote hymns and Scripture and tell you how much she loved Jesus.  She may have had a damaged mind but it was a mind in love with God.  It was an inspiration.
   
Do we desire for the Holy Spirit to have more influence in our lives?  Do we desire that he would go on filling us?  Do we desire that he would enable us to become more like Jesus?  Surely all of us who know Jesus must desire this.  But how much do we desire it?  Tozer writes, ‘Before we can be filled by the Spirit the desire to be filled must be all-consuming … The degree of fullness in any life accords perfectly with the intensity of true desire.  We have as much of God as we actually want.’ ...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Bravo! well said

Unknown said...

Bravo! well said