Lesson 7 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts
to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father, give the Holy
Spirit to them that ask Him. Luke 11:13
In the Sermon on
the Mount, the Lord had already said ‘How Much More.’ Here in Luke, where He repeats the question,
there is a difference. Instead of
speaking as then, of giving good gifts, He says, “How much more shall the
Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit?”
He teaches us that
the chief and the best of these gifts is the Holy Spirit, or rather, that in
this gift all others are comprised. The
Holy Spirit is the first of the Father’s gifts, and the one He delights most to
bestow. The Holy Spirit is therefore the
gift we ought first to seek. The
unspeakable worth of this gift we can easily understand. Jesus spoke of the Spirit as ‘the promise of
the Father’. The one promise in which
God’s fatherhood revealed itself. The
best gift a good and wise Father can bestow on a child on earth is His own
Spirit. This is the great object of a
Father in education, to reproduce in His child his own disposition and
character. If the child is to know and
understand his Father, if, as he grows up, he is to enter into all His will and
plans; if he is to have his highest joy in the Father, and the Father in him,
he must be of one mind and spirit with him.
And so it is impossible to conceive of God giving any higher gift on his
child than this, His own Spirit.
God is what He is
through His Spirit; the Spirit is the very life of God. Just think what it means God giving His own
Spirit to His child on earth or was not this the glory of Jesus as a Son upon
earth, that the Spirit of the Father was in Him? At His baptism in Jordan, the 2 were united,
the voice, proclaiming Him the beloved Son, and the Spirit, descending upon
Him. And so the apostle says of us,
‘because you were sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying
Abba Father.’
A king seeks in
the whole education of his son to call forth in him a kingly spirit. Our Father in heaven desires to educate us as
His children for the holy, heavenly life in which He dwells, and for this He
gives us, from the depths of His heart, His own Spirit. It was the whole aim of Jesus, after having
made atonement with His own blood, that He entered for us into God’s presence,
that He might obtain for us, and send down to dwell in us, the Holy
Spirit. As the Spirit of the Father and
of the Son, the whole life and love of the Father and the Son are in Him; and,
coming down to us, He lifts us up into their fellowship. As Spirit of the Father, He sheds abroad the
Father’s love with which He loves the Son, in our hearts, and teaches us to
live in it. As Spirit of the Son, He
breathes in us the childlike liberty, and devotion, and obedience with which
the Son lived on the earth. The Father
can bestow no higher or more wonderful gift than this; His own Holy Spirit, the
spirit of Sonship. This truth naturally
suggests the thought that this first and chief gift of God, must be the first
and chief object of all prayer. For
every thought of the spiritual life this is the one thing that is needful, the
Holy Spirit. All the fullness is in
Jesus; the fullness of grace and truth, out of which we receive grace for
grace. The Holy Spirit is the appointed giver,
whose special work it is to make Jesus and all there is in Him, ours. A personal
appropriation of Grace in blessed experience.
He is the Spirit of life in Christ; as wonderful as the life is, so
wonderful is the provision by which such an agent is provided to communicate it
to us. If we but yield ourselves
entirely to the disposal of the Spirit, and let Him have his way with us, He
will manifest the life of Christ in us.
He will do this with a divine power, maintaining the life of Christ in
us in uninterrupted continuity. Surely,
if there is one prayer that should draw us to the Fathers throne and should
keep us there, it is this; for the Holy Spirit whom we as children have
received, to stream into us and out from us in greater fullness.
In the variety of
the gifts that the Spirit has to dispense, He meets the believer’s every
need. Just think of the names He
bears. The Spirit of Grace, to reveal
and impart all there is in Jesus. The
Spirit of Faith, teaching us to begin and go on and increase in ever
believing. The Spirit of adoption and
assurance, who witnesses that we are God’s children, and inspires the confiding
and confident Abba, Father! The Spirit of
Truth, to lead into all truth and to make each Word of God ours, in deed and in
truth. The Spirit of Prayer, through
whom we speak with the Father; prayer that must be heard. The Spirit that convicts, to search the heart
and convince of sin. The Spirit of
holiness, manifesting and communicating the Father’s holy presence within
us. The Spirit of Power, through whom we
are strong, to testify boldly and work effectually in the Father’s
service. The Spirit of Glory, the pledge
of our inheritance, the preparation and the foretaste of the Glory to
come. Surely the child of God needs but
one thing, to be able really to live as a child: it is to be filled with His
Spirit.
And now, the
lesson Jesus teaches us today in His school is this; that the Father is longing
to give Him to us, if we will but ask in childlike dependence on what He says;
“if you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall Your
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.”
In the Words of
God promise, “I will pour out my Spirit abundantly”; and of His command; “Be
filled with the Spirit”. We have the
measure of what God is ready to give, and what we may obtain. As God’s children, we have already received
the Spirit. But we still need to ask and
pray for His special gifts and operations as we require them. And not only this, but for Himself to take
complete possession; for His unceasing momentary guidance. Just as the branch, already filled with the
sap of the vine, is ever crying for the continued and increasing flow of that
sap, that it may bring its fruit to perfection, so the believer, rejoicing in
the possession of the Spirit, ever thirsts and cries for more. And what the great Teacher would have us
learn is, that nothing less than God’s promise and Gods’ command may be the measure
of our expectation and our prayer; we must be filled abundantly. He would have us ask with the assurance that
the wonderful, ‘how much more’, of the Fathers love is the pledge that, when we
ask, we do most certainly receive.
Let us now believe
this. As we pray to be filled with the
Spirit, let us not seek for the answer in our feelings. All spiritual blessings must be received,
that is, accepted and taken in faith.
Let me believe, the Father gives the Holy Spirit to His praying
child. Even now, while I pray, I must
say in faith; I have what I ask, the fullness of the Spirit is mine. Let us continue steadfast in this faith. On the strength of God’s word, we know that
we have what we ask. Let us, with
thanksgiving that we have been heard, and that we have received and taken and
now hold as ours, continue steadfast in believing prayer that the blessing,
which has already been given us, in which we hold in faith, may break through
and fill our whole being. It is in such
believing, thanksgiving and prayer, that our soul opens up for the Spirit to
take entire and undisturbed possession.
It is such prayer that not only asks and hopes, but takes and holds,
that inherits the full blessing. In all
our prayer let us remember the lesson, the Saviour would teach us this day,
that if there is one thing on earth that we can be sure of it is this; that the
Father desires us to be filled with His Spirit, that He delights to give us His
Spirit. And when once we have learned to
believe this, for ourselves, and each day to take out of the treasure we hold
in heaven what liberty and power, to pray for the outpouring of the Spirit on
the Church of God, on all flesh, individuals or on special efforts! He that has once learned to know the Father
in prayer for himself, learns to pray most confidently for others too. The Father gives the Holy Spirit to them that
ask Him, not least, but most, when they ask for others.
Lord Teach us to Pray
Father in Heaven, you sent your son to reveal yourself
to us, the Father love, and all that the love has for us. And He has taught us that the gift above all
gifts which You would bestow in answer to prayer is, the Holy Spirit. Oh Father, I come to You with this prayer; There
is nothing I desire more than to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The blessings He brings are so unspeakable
and just what I need. He sheds abroad
the Father’s love in my heart and fills it with Yourself. I long for this. He breathes the mind and life of Christ in
me, so that I live as He did, in and for the Fathers love. I long for this. He endues with power from on high for my walk
and my work. I long for this. Oh Father, I ask You, give me this day the
fullness of Your Spirit. Father, I ask
this, resting on Jesus words; “how much more the Holy Spirit.” I do believe that You hear my prayer; I
receive now what I ask. Father, I claim
and I take it; the fullness of Your Spirit is mine. I receive the gift this day as a faith gift;
in faith I reckon my Father works through His Spirit all that He has
promised. The Father delights to breath
His Spirit into His waiting child as he tarries in fellowship with You. AMEN
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