INSIGHTS & NOTES FROM
CHAPTER 2
"Pathway To The Deeper Life" "They are not pressing on into the deeper things of the Spirit because they have never been taught that the baptism in the Spirit is not God's ultimate purpose for them, but that it is in reality the 'doorway' to the fulness of God (Eph. 3:14-19; 4:11-13)." "...it is a threshold experience." "...the Holy Spirit ...the purpose of His coming to them was to reveal the deeper things of God, & bring them into a place of consecration that they had never experienced before - which is the crucified life." "...the baptism in the Spirit, is an immediate experience received by a simple act of faith & accompanied with the evidence of speaking in tongues; the other, the fulness of God, is a growth & process which is accomplished when one yields himself to the ministry of the Spirit after his baptism (Eph. 4:11-15)." "...'pentecostal' Christians (all those who have received the baptism in the Spirit) must learn the difference between being 'Bible-taught' & 'Spirit-taught.' The deeper truths of God's Word must be taught us by the Spirit, & a good deal of this must come by revelation." I Corinthians 2:9, 10 "To remain in darkness concerning the deeper life in the Spirit & God's great purpose in this hour, after one has received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, is to frustrate the very purpose for which God has poured out His Spirit now at the end of the age." "5-FOLD PATHWAY TO THE DEEPER LIFE" "...eliminating the popular misconceptions." "The deeper life is not merely the acceptance of the full gospel message, as many suppose." "...the full gospel (healing, baptism in the Spirit, the charismatic gifts, deliverance from the powers of darkness, & so on)" "...all these things were intended to characterize the normal Christian life & should not be thought of as evidence of the deeper life in the Spirit." "The baptism in the Spirit, we must remember, is but the 'doorway' to the deeper life in the Spirit." "The deeper life is not, secondly, increased religious activity." "Flesh cannot crucify flesh. Many, in a sincere effort to please God & draw closer to Him, make a determined effort to fast & pray more, as well as increase their study in the Scriptures. They decide to be more faithful in their attendance in religious meetings, engage in visitation of the sick & the lost, & put forth a real effort to see more of the fruit of the Spirit manifested in their lives." "...we have found that sooner or later they will usually abandon the effort, admitting the goal is beyond their spiritual capacities. One may do all these things & still remain a babe in Christ. Some of the busiest people in the churches are often the least spiritual. The Israelites practically exhausted themselves with outward religious observances, but were not any closer to God spiritually than their heathen neighbors (Mt. 15:8-9; Isa. 1). The deeper life is not just 'doing things' for God; it is not 'busyness with church work,' nor mere religious activity, but it involves inward change, wrought by the Holy Spirit. The deeper life is developing a greater concern for 'becoming' something spiritually, more than merely 'doing' something religiously. Many seem to be more interested in religious form & activity than in learning how to walk in the Spirit, die to self, & grow in a deeper knowledge of Christ." "The deeper life is not, in the third place, great supernatural manifestations in one's life." "...Joel 2:28 tells us that those who receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit will be recipients of visions & revelations & will prophesy." "Moreover, we are told in Mark 16:17f that supernatural signs will follow any believer who will act in faith on God's Word. In fact, the supernatural will even be manifested in the lives of some whom Christ will ultimately reject, according to Matthew 7:21-23." "...we must distinguish between 'manifestations' of the Spirit & the 'deeper life' in the Spirit. Great manifestations of the Spirit of God will be seen in the lives of those who go on beyond Pentecost to full stature in Christ, but they are not the criteria to determine if one is walking in the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit are gifts of grace (I Cor. 12:4-11); a believer who has recently been baptized in the Spirit can receive a divine anointing to use the gifts, whereas the deeper life is a growth (Eph. 4:15). The deeper life is walking in the Spirit along a 5-fold pathway in the footsteps of Christ. It involves the following concepts which will be discussed next: yielding, emptying, dying, overcoming, & committal." "1. Yielding. The pathway into the deeper life is, first of all, total yielding of one's life to the Holy Spirit." "...the life of Jesus ...'I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things ...for I do always those things that please him' (Jn. 8:28-29)." "...to the extent that we are fully yielded to the Spirit will we also know His fulness. The reason many do not manifest much spiritual growth after having received the baptism in the Holy Spirit is because, being unaware of the real purpose for which He came to them, they do not yield themselves fully to Him. In the Parable of the Sower it is the hard ground which cannot yield to the seed that was sown, & as a consequence cannot produce any fruit." "As with Jesus, total yieldedness means that every thought, deed, aim, purpose, & desire is brought willingly under the direction & control of the Holy Spirit. One's entire being - body, mind, soul & spirit - is completely subjected to the Lordship of Christ & brought into submission to the Holy Spirit to direct & use as He sees fit." "...human nature hates control (even by God) & despises the term 'subjection,' although it frequently occurs in Scripture in various contexts as being spiritually desirable. Yieldedness is not surrender or loss of human will; it is surrendering it up to God to work His perfect will through ours (Phil. 2:13)." "'Just how am I to yield & what am I to do in order to give total surrender to Christ?'" "What must one do to yield himself totally to the Holy Spirit? Nothing, absolutely nothing! Yieldedness is not something one does - it is an attitude of the heart, a state of the mind." "Many, who for years have been striving to overcome this or that habit, or conquer some besetting weakness, & who have sought earnestly to conform to Romans 12:1-2 & yield themselves fully to Christ, are, although spiritually exhausted from the effort, no closer to their desired goal than before. Yielding is a passive state; it is not something we do. It is characterized by 3 things: (1) It is the absence of resistance." "Yielding to the Spirit is not doing something - it is simply not resisting the Holy Spirit when He would seek to teach us something, correct us, discipline us, or lead us into some wilderness of trial to prove us & mature our faith. It is not resisting when He heats the furnace of testing 7 times hotter to refine us, or removes some of the fleshly assurances which we have been leaning on to support our faith & requires us either to stand on the Word of God alone or sink. Yielding is humbly to submit to His work in our hearts as He unmercifully cuts out root & branch some of those cherished, but unscriptural 'denominational doctrines' & 'traditions of men,' which we have held to with such confidence for years, certain they were inspired of God." "Efforts at sleep usually result in insomnia. The dough does not try to yield to the hand of the baker; it simply does not resist. A mother does not try to love her child; she loves without trying, for the simple reason that there is no resistance in her heart. One does not try to yield to Christ; all one needs is a receptive heart. Instead of praying, 'O, God help me to yield to Thy will,' we need simply to cease resisting His will & do it." "Jesus did not try to yield to His Father's will. He simply did not resist it. Every believer can do the same, if he will cease trying to yield to God's will & simply stop resisting it. We must allow the Spirit to bring us to the place where we confess our utter inability to 'help' God, & surrender everything without reservation to Him to work His perfect will through us." "(2) It is the absence of any expression of self-will." "Self-will resulted in the Fall of Adam. Israel's failure & rejection were due to the expression of her sinful self-will (Isa. 1, 2, 19-20). The unwillingness to surrender one's will & bring it into harmony with God's is the cause of much affliction, trial, sickness, adversity & defeat in the lives of many Christians. There is real peril in a will which is not fully yielded to the Holy Spirit, for that aspect of the will not surrendered to God is vulnerable for Satan to influence & control. Any part of the will not totally consecrated to God is self-will & is either under our influence & control or Satan's, & in either case is an expression of sinful self-will." "The total yielding of one's life to the Holy Spirit requires the full surrender & consecration of one's will to God. The Christian ought never to pray as Jesus instructs us in Matthew 6:10, 'Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven,' unless he is first willing to let God's will be done fully through him. It is hypocrisy to pray this & then ignore His will in some area of our lives." "Do we expect His will to be done through the drug addicts, or the gamblers & prostitutes?" "If God's will is ever to be done on earth at all, it will have to be realized through Christians who, as they offer up this petition, yield their wills to Him in full consecration." "...some believe that to lose their self-will would mean the loss of their freedom of will. But total consecration of one's will to the Holy Spirit is not the surrender of the free expression of one's will, but the surrender of the independent, selfish exercise of one's will, & bringing it into harmony with God's. Man's will not in harmony with God's will is not free anyway, for in such a state he is only free to choose how he will oppose God's will & how he will disobey God's purpose." "God never destroys man's power of self-determination or choice, but asks only that we surrender our selfish wills & bring our will into harmony with His. Such a harmonious blending of the 2 wills is perfectly illustrated in the yielding up of our voices to God in the baptism in the Holy Spirit, for in this blessed experience it is we who will to speak as the Holy Spirit gives us the utterance. Such a perfect union of the 2 wills, human & divine, is not to be limited merely to praying in the spirit, but is to characterize the lives of those who are pressing into the deeper life in total surrender to Christ." "(3) It is an affection of the heart." "...we are to understand yielding as an attitude of the heart or an affection of the soul." "Without a spiritual rebirth the sinner may, by an act of his will decide temporarily to change his ways, stop drinking & cursing, & will to do so, because this manner of life holds no real interest to him, for there is no affection in his heart for it." "Soldiers may submit to the discipline & hardships of warfare, but this does not imply that such dangers & trials hold any real affection in their hearts." "When there is no affection in the heart, then all the willing in the world will not produce a calm, satisfied, enjoyable experience. So too, in yielding one's total life to God - it results from the affection of a receptive heart." "It is not enough, then, merely to will to yield our lives to God; we must first set our affections on things above (Col. 3:1f), then yielding will come from the heart without effort." Deeper Life In The Spirit, Hobart E. Freeman, pgs. 35 - 45.
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AuthorCross Preaching Pentecostal Pastor. Husband to Tonia, Father to 3 beautiful girls, Monica, Zoe & Briana, & Grandfather to Wesley & Elliott Archives
September 2023
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