If You Will Meet Conditions
Yours Can Be A Changed Life, A Changed Ministry
By Wesley L. Duewel
“You shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you” (Acts 1:8).
If one-tenth of the work done in the name of Christ were done in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit, this world would be turned upside down for God! It is significant that in the letters to the churches found in Revelation 2:3 the phrase repeatedly occurs, “I know thy works.” The church has always been known for its works. The church that does not work will soon die. The minister who does not bend every energy to fulfill his sacred calling is not worthy of the name of Christ.
Satan is not necessarily opposed to all Christian work! He cares little how zealously we busy ourselves at good things so long as we do not work in the power of the Holy Spirit. He is often pleased if we work so hard and so long that we begin to fret and worry. He is happy if we undertake more work than we can saturate with prayer. He would not seriously oppose if every Christian were a tireless worker – so long as they worked only in their human energy and were not empowered and anointed by the Spirit of God.
Living in the Spirit
It is possible to have the witness of the Spirit that we are the children of God and yet undertake the most of our activities in our human strength and wisdom rather than with the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. It is possible to be filled with the Spirit and yet do things in our own strength rather than in the power of the Holy Ghost.
The temptation is constantly present to depend upon human logic rather than Holy Spirit guidance, to “get along,” depending on past experience and blessing rather than seeking and obtaining constant anointing and fresh enduements from on high.
Crucified – Purified – Filled
The New Testament standard of spiritual life is a crisis experience of being crucified with Christ, purified by faith, and filled with the Spirit – followed by repeated outpourings, anointings and fillings with the Holy Spirit!
There must come a time in your experience when you enter the life of the Spirit, but there need also to be repeated appropriations of new power and new blessing, new anointing and new help for your life and service. The reason the church of the apostles was so invincible, so victorious, and so fruitful was that it was a church which experienced a crisis cleansing and filling with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, followed by definite new infillings of the Spirit as emergencies arose and as the needs of their work demanded.
The central fact of their experience was not the outward manifestations of wind, fire and languages. The central fact is that their lives were pure and powerful (Acts 15:8-9). If you are not filled with purity and power, you are not Spirit-filled no matter what experiences you may claim.
Ask the Spirit to Perform His Office Work
If you have entered into the life in the Spirit you have the right to appropriate a new anointing of filling of the Spirit to prepare you and strengthen you for every new responsibility, every new undertaking for Christ. The anointing is an abiding anointing if the Holy Spirit abides in us (1 John 2:27), for the anointing is really the presence of the Anointer. If He abides in us we have a right to repeatedly ask Him to perform His office work in anointing us afresh.
God save us from the frustration of a life too busy to be anointed! God save us from fruitless endeavors which demonstrate that we failed to adequately live and work in the Spirit! The omnipotent God who spoke worlds into being wants to work through us.
The mighty power that raised Jesus from the dead has been given to us to energize our ministry. This is the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. The hour has come for God to demonstrate His mighty power anew in your life and mine, in your ministry and mine!
Beloved brethren, let us humble ourselves at the Cross until we experience anew the New Testament norm of life and ministry. You can see the supernatural power of God at work, if you will meet God’s conditions. Yours can be a changed life, a changed ministry. Obey, believe, receive!
– Quoted from God’s Power Is For You by Wesley L. Duewel. Copyright 1997. Used by permission of the Duewel Literature Trust, Inc., Greenwood, IN.