6.29.2018 TFTS - Adoniram Judson Gordon - The Disciplined life

*75  ....so on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit, as the Comforter, advocate, Helper and Teacher and Guide, was given to the church. the disciples who before had been regenerated by the spirit, as is commonly held, now received the Holy Ghost to qualify and empower than for service. it was another and higher experience than that which they had hitherto known. it is the difference between the Holy Spirit for renewal and the Holy Spirit for ministry. even Jesus, begotten by the Holy Ghost and therefore called 'the son of God', did not enter upon His public service till he had been 'anointed' or 'sealed' with that same Spirit through whom he had been begotten. so of his immediate apostles; so of paul,  who had been converted on the way to Damascus. so of the others mentioned in the acts, as the Samaritan Christians and the Ephesian disciples (19.1-8).  and not a few thoughtful students of Scripture maintain that the same order still holds good:  that there is such a thing as receiving the Holy Ghost in order to qualify for service. it is not denied that many may have this blessing in immediate connection with their conversion, from

*76  which it need not necessarily be separated. only let it be marked that as the giving of the Spirit by the Father is plainly spoken of, so distinctly is the receiving of the Spirit on the part spoken of, so distinctly is the receiving of the spirit on the part of the disciples constantly named in Scripture...

'God forbid, said Gordon, that we should lay claim to any higher attainment that the humblest. we are simply trying to answer, as best we may from Scripture, the question asked above about the baptism of the Holy Ghost. on the whole and after prolonged study of the Scripture, we cannot resist this conviction: As Christ, the second person of the Godhead, came to earth to make atonement for sin and to give eternal life and as sinners must receive him by faith in order to have forgiveness and Sonship, so the Holy Spirit, the third person of the godhead, came to the earth to communicate the 'power from on high' and we must as believers in like manner receive Him by faith in order to be qualified for service. both gifts have been bestowed, but it is not what we have but what we know that we have by a conscious appropriating faith,  which determines our spiritual wealth. why then should we be satisfied with 'the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace' (Eph 1.7), when the Lord would grant us also 'according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man? Ephesians 3.16
..Dr. Gordon gave ..illustration:  'Just in front of the study window whee I write is a street, above which i is said that a powerful electric current is constantly moving. i cannot see that current;  it does not report itself to hearing, or sight, or taste,  or smell, and so far as the testimony of the senses is to be taken, I might reasonably discredit its existence. but i see a slender arm, called the trolley, reaching up and touching it and immediately the car with its heavy load of passengers moves along the track as though

*77 seized in the grasp of some might giant. the power had been there before, only now the car lays hold of it or is rather laid hold of by it, since it was a touch, not a rip, through which the motion was communicated. and would it be presumptuous for one to say that he had known something of a similar contact with not merely a divine force but a divine person?  the change which ensued may be described thus: instead of praying constantly for the descent of a divine and ever-present being; instead of a constant effort to make use of the Holy spirit for doing my work there arose a clear and abiding conviction that the true secret of service lay in so yielding  to the Holy Spirit that he might use me to do His work...'
the dynamic for discipleship is indeed the gift of God, even the Holy Spirit; yet it is costly to our human nature, even death to self.
it costs much, said Dr. Gordon in one of these convention addresses, 'to obtain this power. it costs self-surrender and humiliation and the yielding up of our most precious things to God. it consists the perseverance, of long waiting and the faith of strong trust. but when we are really in that power, we shall find this difference: that, whereas before it was hard for us to do the easiest things, now it is easy for us to do the hardest'.
...'as we become deeply instructed in this matter, we shall learn to pray less about the details of duty and more about the fullness of power. the manufacturer is chiefly anxious to secure an ample head of water for his mills; and, this being found, he knows that his 10,000 spindles will deep in motion without particular attention to each one. it is, in like manner, the sources of our power for which we should be most solicitous and not the results'.
This Is The Dynamic For Discipleship!