THE FULL BLESSING - HOW GLORIOUS IT IS Part 2

The wisdom of the fathers

THE FULL BLESSING - HOW GLORIOUS IT IS??Part 2

From this first and principal blessing sprang the second: the Spirit of Jesus came into them as the life and the power of sanctification. Here I shall allude at the outset to only one feature in this change. We know how often the Lord had to rebuke them for their pride and exhort them to humility. It was all of no avail. Even on the last night of His earthly life, at the table of the Holy Supper, there was a strife amongst them as to which of them should be the greatest. The outward teaching of the outward Christ, whatever other influences it may have exercised, was not sufficient to redeem them from the power of indwelling sin; this could be achieved only by the indwelling Christ.?

Only when Jesus descended into them by the Holy Spirit did they undergo a complete change. They received Him in His heavenly humility and subjection to the Father, and in His self-sacrifice for others, as their life. Hence forth all was changed. From that moment onwards they were animated by the spirit of the meek and lowly Jesus. This, in very truth, is still the only way to a real sanctification, to a life that actually overcomes sin.?

It is just because so many preachers and so many Christians keep their minds occupied only with the external Christ on the Cross or in heaven, and wait for the blessing of His teaching and His working without understanding that the blessing of Pentecost brings Him into us, to work Himself all in us, that they make so little progress in sanctification.?

Christ Himself is of God made unto us sanctification: and that in no other way than by our living and being moved and existing in Him, because He lives and abides in our heart and works all there.?

(from "The Full Blessing of Pentecost" by Andrew Murray)