Thank God for gathering us together again this time. Every time God’s people meet together, I feel, “Oh, God, for we are living at the end time, and God is still so gracious and merciful to us as to allow us to meet together in His name and to hear His word.”
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, as we gather together in Thy precious name, our hearts are full of gratitude. We thank Thee for loving us so much, as will not let us go, but continue to speak to us and to draw us unto Thyself.
Lord, we do commit this time into Thy hand, trusting Thy presence here with us. Our only prayer is, Lord, if there is any veil upon our hearts, please remove it, that Thy word may fall into good ground and bear fruit unto Thyself.
We trust Thy Holy Spirit to do His work among us this afternoon, and we give Thee all the praise, in the name of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The theme of this conference is “Serviceable to the Master,” and one of the key verses is found in 2 Timothy 2:21:
If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, meet for the Master’s use, prepared unto every good work.
Our three brothers, in the morning and evening, will address the main theme on service. In the afternoon, we will try to come in and speak more on the practical side.
Now, you notice that to be serviceable to the Master is preceded by the word sanctified. In other words, only after we are sanctified are we able to serve our Master, and the result will be all the good works.
So my burden for this time is on being wholly sanctified. Will you please turn to 1 Thessalonians 5? We will read verses 23 and 24.
And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it.
Here you find the benediction of the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonian believers. He said, “May the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and He will perform it.”
To be wholly sanctified is the will of God. God’s will for His own people is that they may be wholly sanctified. This is our calling. We are called to be a holy people because our God is holy; therefore, we must be holy.
You remember Romans 8:28-30:
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose.
For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren:
And whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
When all things work together for good for those who love the Lord, they not only love the Lord, but they are called according to purpose. God has a purpose concerning each one of us. He has foreknown us, and because of His foreknowledge, He has predestined that we may be conformed to the image of His beloved Son, that His Son might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Now, brothers and sisters, this is the eternal purpose of God concerning us. Whom He has called, He has justified; and whom He has justified, He has glorified.
Now, what do you mean by glorified? I think, brothers and sisters, we are familiar with the thought that God is righteous. In other words, whatever He does is right. Righteousness is His action.
But we also know that our God is holy. What do you mean by His being holy? Holiness is His nature, His very character, His very being. He is holy; that is what He is.
He is completely separated from everything. He is all by Himself. He is unique. He is alone. He is one of a class. There is no comparison whatsoever. He is altogether different. Now, that is holiness. That is what our God is.
But when you apply holiness to man, it means something more. It still has the basic thought of separation. We are being separated—separated from the world, separated from everything that is outside of God.
But more than being separated, there is another thought: we are separated that we may be devoted to God. So far as we are concerned, we are not only separated—that is the negative side—but there is a positive side. We are fully devoted to God. We belong to Him, and He is everything to us.
Holiness is our position in Christ. You remember 1 Corinthians 1:2. When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he said, “To those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints.”
We are sanctified in Christ Jesus. When we say that we are justified, it means that we can stand before God as if we had never sinned. That is justification. But what is sanctification? Sanctification is our position in Christ Jesus.
As we believe in the Lord Jesus, we are not only justified, but we are also sanctified. Not only can we stand before God as if we had never sinned, but also we are holy in Christ Jesus. This is our spiritual position.
That is the reason why Paul said, “Sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints.” Now, just think for a moment. If you have read the first letter to the Corinthians, would it give you the impression that these are saints?
Probably our reaction is that they are far from being saints, because you find so many errors and weaknesses among them. Yet the Bible says, “Called saints.” They are saints by calling. Why? Because they are sanctified in Christ Jesus.
Our Lord Jesus has not only forgiven our sins, but He has separated us from everything that is not of God and has brought us to Himself. So far as our spiritual position is concerned, we are saints.
Of course, if anybody calls you Saint So-and-so, you probably say, “Oh, no, I am not worthy.” And that is true: you are not worthy. But when you think of your position in Christ Jesus, thank God, this is where you are.
And because of our position, we need to be in the right condition, and it is possible.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Paul says, “Now the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly.” This matter of sanctification, or holiness, is the work of God. God Himself will sanctify us.
He is the God of peace. That is to say, He is at peace with Himself. There is no conflict in the Godhead. There is perfect harmony, perfect peace, and perfect oneness in God. God is peace.
He is not only peace, but He will bring peace to the world. He will bring peace to us. Of course, we know today that man is not at peace with God.
In the Garden of Eden, man rebelled against God and disobeyed God. Because of that disobedience, man became fallen. Peace with God was broken. We may even say that not only was peace broken, but man became at odds with God. Man turned against God, and there is a natural hatred in man toward God.
But thank God, even so, He is the God of peace. He began the work of reconciling us back to Himself, that we may be at peace with God.
In order that there may be peace between God and man, God sent His only begotten Son into this world to become a man and to die for us. Through His blood and through His broken body, we may be reconciled back to God.
Those who believe in the Lord Jesus today are at peace with God. Not only that, but the peace of God resides in our hearts, that we may be at peace with ourselves and at peace with one another.
The blood of our Lord Jesus will even reconcile this whole creation back to Himself. So thank God that He is the God of peace, and He will personally see to it that we may be wholly sanctified.
I want to emphasize this: to be wholly sanctified is not just our work. We cannot do that. It is the work of God by the Holy Spirit.
But here in these two verses, you find that being wholly sanctified is not only a matter of position. Why? Because it continues to tell us that our whole spirit, soul, and body are to be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This being sanctified is more than a position. It takes us into our experience, our condition. To be wholly sanctified means that our whole being—our spirit, our soul, and our body—will be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus.
Thank God, He who calls us is faithful, and He will perform it. He will see to it that this is done.
So, brothers and sisters, in these three afternoons, God willing, we will fellowship together on this matter of how our whole being—our spirit, soul, and body—may be wholly sanctified and preserved blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus.
Our Lord is coming soon. Very soon we will stand before His judgment seat. It is our longing and desire, as you find in the heart of Paul, that when we see Him, we shall be blameless. We shall not be put to shame because we are like Him. He is holy, and we are being wholly sanctified.
I pray that during these afternoons God will create within us a real desire to be holy, because He is holy. He wants us to be like Him, and He will do everything for us to bring us there. But there is something with which we need to cooperate.
For this afternoon, we will concentrate on the spirit being wholly sanctified.
First Thessalonians 5:23 is one of the clearest statements we find in the Bible concerning our composition. How are we made up? Here we find that we are made up of spirit, soul, and body.
When God created man, He created us as a tripartite being. Just as God Himself is a triune God, so when He created us, He created us three parts in one. We have a spirit, we have a soul, and we have a body. These three make up our being.
When you turn to Genesis 2:7, in the creation of man, we know God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
When God created man, He used the red earth and formed that red earth into a shape, a body. That is the body of man. Our body is made of earth. The elements in our physical body are the same as the elements found in the earth. It comes out of dust, and one day it will return to dust. This is our body.
But as God formed that human body with red earth, there was no life there. So the Bible says that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life—something coming out from God—and the result was that man became a living soul.
Notice here, in the Hebrew, it says that God breathed into the nostrils of man the breath of lives. In other words, it is not life in the singular number; it is lives in the plural. This breath is a breath of lives.
Now, it is possible that this is simply a Hebrew expression of excellence, and that is true. But on the other hand, there is also the possibility that this breath of life does two things.
This breath of life, primarily entering into that earthen vessel, becomes the spirit of man. We know that God is Spirit. When He created man, He gave man a spirit so that man might commune with God.
So this breath of life, as it entered into the nostrils of this earth-shaped body, became the spirit of man. It comes directly from God.
But when God breathed the breath of life into man and it became the human spirit, that spirit, in contact with the body, produced a third thing: the soul. It is almost like a chemical reaction.
Here you find that you not only have a spirit, a living human spirit, but also man becomes a living soul. In the Chinese Bible, there is a little phrase that says, “God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of man, and man became a living soul with a spirit.” I think it gives the right thought.
So here you are: in the creation of man, man is made of three parts—the spirit, the soul, and the body.
The body is physical and material. With the body, we can contact our environment, the world. With the five senses, we are in touch with the physical world. We can see it, hear it, taste it, touch it, and feel it. This is our body.
And man becomes a living soul, animated. Our soul gives us self-consciousness. We are conscious that we are. How do you know that you are? Because you have a soul. Just as the philosopher said, “I know I am because I think.”
We are a living soul. We are conscious of ourselves. We have our feelings, our thinking, and our opinions. We know that we are living. The soul gives us self-consciousness and puts us in touch with ourselves.
But then you find the third dimension. God created man with a human spirit, and with that spirit we can be in touch with God. This is the difference between man and all other animals.
You look at a mountain. It is huge. It has a body, but there is no soul. It is not living. You see a bird. It has a small body, but it has a soul. All living animals have souls.
Your dog has a soul; he loves his master. Your cat has a soul; it is very selfish and wants to be served. But none of these living animals has a spirit.
Of all creation on earth, only man is created with a spirit. Because man is created with a spirit, man can communicate with God. True, angels are spirits, but they have no body.
Brothers and sisters, just think who you are and what you are. God created us in three parts, and according to God’s divine order, our spirit is to be in the highest place of our being. Why? Because through our spirit we can communicate with God.
Our soul is the central part of our lives, because this is “I”; this is “me.” That is our soul. It gives us individuality and personality. It is the central part of our being.
So in God’s divine order, our spirit is supposed to be the master in our being. Our soul is to be the steward, and our body is to be the servant.
In other words, our spirit is to be in touch with God and receive from God His will. Then it gives His command to our soul. Our will accepts it, our thought consents to it, and our feelings go for it. Then the steward relays God’s order to the body and says, “Do it.” That is God’s divine order, and that is the order when man was created.
First of all, I think to some of you it may be new that people in the world do not know they have a spirit. People think they have only soul and body. That is all.
I remember when I was a boy, we had a grandmother—we called her Grandmother—who was an American from Virginia. She led my father to the Lord, and she stayed with us.
Whenever she was in exasperation, she would say, “Oh, my soul and body!” That is just an American term. But where is your spirit? To the world, people do not even know they have a spirit.
There is a reason for it. After God created man, He put our forefather, Adam, into the Garden of Eden, the garden of pleasure.
God said to man, “Of all the trees God has planted in the garden, you may freely eat, including the tree of life in the very center of the garden. But the tree beside the tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat; because in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die.”
God loved the man He created. He prepared a garden for man to enjoy. He provided everything that man needed. Why did God forbid him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
One reason is that God wanted to remind man that man was created above all but below One. God gave man dominion over the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, and the fishes of the sea—but under God. It was a reminder and a command for man to obey.
But unfortunately, our forefathers disobeyed God. When the tempter came to tempt Eve, she was tempted. She took the forbidden fruit, ate it, and gave it to her husband, Adam.
Adam knew that he was rebelling against God, but Adam ate. Sin entered into the world. God’s word is forever true: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Physically, Adam lived hundreds of years afterward. Soulishly, he had a family and produced many sons and daughters. But on the day that he ate, his spirit was dead.
In other words, on that day communication with God was cut off. It does not mean that the human spirit was no longer there. It was there, but it had lost its proper communication with its proper environment.
That is the meaning of death. Death is the cessation of communication with its proper environment. When does the body die? When it loses communication with its proper environment—the physical world.
You have eyes but cannot see. You have ears but cannot hear. You have hands but cannot touch. You have lost communication with the proper environment. That is the death of the body.
What is the death of the spirit? When its communication with its proper environment, which is God, is cut off, the spirit is dead.
The spirit is still there, but it is dead toward God. That is the reason why today you find people can communicate with evil spirits, but they cannot communicate with God. Their spirit is dead to God but alive to sin.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is why people today do not even know that they have a spirit: because it is dead.
You find in Jude 1:19 that it speaks of natural men, “having not the Spirit.” It is as if there were no spirit. Man has become merely soul and body and has lost his touch with God. That is the condition of man today.
A person can be very brilliant. He can know anything under the sun. But when you speak with him about God, there is a block. The spirit is dead.
Before we believed in the Lord Jesus, that was our whole condition. We had become flesh. The Spirit of God was not striving with us. We were lost—eternally lost.
Even when people try, there is still intuitively a sense of their Maker and Creator. That is why, when people are in great danger, even if they are atheists, they cry out to heaven—not this physical heaven, of course, but to the One who dwells in the heavens—for help. But there is no contact.
Thank God, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
How does God work in wholly sanctifying the dead spirit? Number one: the first thing God does is bring our dead spirit into new life.
You remember one day an elderly scholar, a rabbi, a teacher of Israel, came to our Lord Jesus at night. He was a person who knew the law, kept the law, and was highly religious—a master, a teacher of others, a person seeking spiritual realities.
He was humble. He came to our Lord Jesus. Humanly speaking, our Lord was a carpenter who had never been to school. Yet he came to the Lord and said, “Rabbi, Teacher, You are different. I am a teacher on earth, but You are a Teacher from heaven. Teach me. How can I enter into the kingdom of God?”
Here was a man who disciplined himself in his search for eternity and spiritual things. From every human standpoint, he had reached almost the height of his search, yet he knew something was missing.
He came to the Lord that night, and the Lord knew exactly where he was. The Lord said:
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
You think by your own effort that you are very near to the kingdom of God—almost there, just one more step and you are in. The Lord says, “No, you have not even seen it yet. You are a complete stranger. You are completely cut off.” Why? Because you are dead. Your spirit is dead in trespasses and sins. There is no contact with your proper environment, God.
Unless you are born again, born anew, born from above, you do not even see it.
Dear brothers and sisters, this matter of our spirit being born again is something humanly impossible. Nicodemus said, “How can a person who is old go back to his mother’s womb and be born again?”
Our Lord Jesus said, “You are a teacher, and you do not understand.” Even if you could go into your mother’s womb and be born again, you would still be dead. This is being born from above.
Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Once we were born of the flesh; we were flesh. But now we need to be born of the Spirit. This Spirit is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. If you are born of the Spirit of God, then your dead spirit will be quickened into new life.
There is no one in this universe who can bring your dead spirit into life—not yourself, not anybody, but God.
Thank God, He has provided salvation for us. He sent His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus, into this world to die for us, to shed His blood for the remission of our sins. He gave His own life to us. Everything is prepared for us to receive new life.
Then the Spirit of God convicts us of sin and convinces us that the only way to have our sins forgiven is through God’s gift of His beloved Son. If you believe in the Lord Jesus, you shall be saved.
We who have already experienced this new birth know that it is such a wonderful experience. It is so heavenly, so spiritual. It is something the world never knows, but we know.
One day we are convicted of our sins. One day we are convinced that God loves us and gave us His only begotten Son to save us. When the Holy Spirit brings us into repentance and confession, we confess Jesus as Lord.
As we do that, the Spirit of God comes in, quickens our dead spirit, and brings it into new life.
Brothers and sisters, we who have experienced it know it. I was brought up in a Christian home. From my childhood I was taught Christian truths. I knew the Bible. I knew how to pray.
But I have to confess that my prayer seemed to hit the ceiling and come back. There was no communication with God. I knew there was a God, but where?
Until one day, when I confessed my sins and accepted Jesus as my personal Saviour, the burden of sin rolled away. Immediately, I could lift up my head and say, “Abba, Father.” God became a Father to me. Why? Because the spirit was born again.
Not only that, but the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God Himself, comes into our new spirit and dwells there. The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Glory!
I hope that if there is anyone here who does not have this experience, you will open your heart, confess your sin, and trust in the Lord Jesus. Believe in His atoning death. He died for you on the cross. He shed His blood for you. Believe in Him, and the Spirit of God will do this work in your life. Praise the Lord.
That is the beginning. When you receive a new spirit, immediately you find that it begins to communicate with its proper environment, which is God. God is no longer a stranger, a distant God. God is your Father. He is with you, and He is in you.
Then number two: after you are born again with a new spirit, you need to go through a process of having your spirit strengthened.
In Ephesians 3:16, it says that the Holy Spirit will strengthen your inner man. The inner man is the human spirit. We need the strengthening of our spirit.
Why? Because after we are born again, we have a new spirit, with the Holy Spirit as life in our spirit, and we are in communication with God. But unfortunately, the old life—the soul-life, the fallen life—is still there also.
In your spirit there is the life of God, but in your soul, you yourself and your old life are still there. That is very true.
When you believe in the Lord Jesus, you repent. What is repentance? Repentance is a change of mind. Formerly, your mind was toward hell; now you change your mind and want to go to heaven. Formerly, your mind was set toward the world; now you change your mind and want God, Christ Jesus, and His salvation.
The Holy Spirit does touch your soul, because the mind belongs to the soul. He affects your will and enables you to be willing to accept the Lord Jesus. There is some change in your soul.
But remember: when you are born again, what is basically changed is the spirit, not the soul. The soul has undergone some shifting, but unfortunately it is not completely changed.
In the beginning of your Christian life, when you are constrained by His love, you may think that you are altogether new because you are willing to follow the Lord all the way.
But gradually, when your first love begins to cool down, you discover that your old thoughts, your own mind, your old desires, your old habits, your old will, your old affections, and your old feelings begin to come forth again.
That is why, in the beginning stage of your Christian life, you find that you have two lives in you. In your spirit there is the life of God. In your soul there is still that Adamic life that you inherited from your fathers.
In your spirit, because you have the Holy Spirit within you as life, you want to please God and do His will. But in your soul, your own life still wants to drag you down to do worldly things and go the worldly way.
So, brothers and sisters, in the beginning of your Christian life, you experience a civil war within yourself. The spirit strives against the flesh, and the flesh strives against the spirit. Do you have such an experience?
The reason is that your spirit-life is still young, but your soul-life is old. Often your old life overcomes your new life and forces you to do things you do not want to do.
Just as Paul says in Romans 7:
For not what I would, that do I practise; but what I hate, that I do.
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?
Brothers and sisters, is that your experience? Remember, this is Christian experience. Only after you have become a Christian can you have such an experience. Before you became a Christian, you had no such experience. Why? Because you were on one side. You had only one life, the fallen life.
But now you have two lives, and there is struggle. Therefore, your spirit needs to be strengthened.
Brothers and sisters, I am afraid this is something we neglect. How can our spirit be strengthened?
Our spirit is weak; it is young. Our spirit wants to do the will of God and wants to please God. That is what we want to do. But our soul, that old Adamic life, is used to exerting its will and wants to go the other way. Often it is stronger.
So we need to have our spirits strengthened. How can we strengthen our inner man, our spirit?
In Hebrews 5:14, there is a secret:
But solid food is for fullgrown men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.
In other words, our spirit needs to be exercised. After you are born again, have you been exercising your spirit?
Our spirit has its senses, and the spirit’s senses are three in number:
First, our spirit has the ability to commune with God, who is Spirit.
Second, our spirit has an intuitive knowledge of God—that is to say, a direct knowledge of God. God can speak directly to our spirit, and intuitively we know it.
Third, our spirit has the function of conscience. The Spirit of God can touch our conscience and show us what is right and what is wrong in God’s sight.
Because our spirit is young, we need to exercise it. We need to exercise these faculties. The more you exercise, the keener and stronger they become.
That is why every believer has to learn to commune with God. Why do we urge new believers to read the Bible? Why do we pray? Why do we seek the Lord for His will? It is because we want to exercise our spirit.
If we pray, we draw near to God. We have our morning watch. We have our quiet time before God. As we draw near to God, He draws near to us. The more we commune with God, the stronger our communion becomes.
We find that God is really close to us. He is not far away. He is always with us. Brothers and sisters, we need to cultivate, develop, train, and discipline ourselves in exercising our power of communion.
The more you commune with God, the more you know Him and the nearer you are to Him.
The same thing is true with intuition. After we believe in the Lord Jesus, we find that when we are talking, perhaps we are tempted to exaggerate. In the past, if you could exaggerate, you would feel glorious.
But after you believe in the Lord Jesus, when you are exaggerating, Someone within you says, “Stop. That is too much. If you go on, you have sinned.”
Do you have such an experience? Intuitively, the Holy Spirit’s anointing within you teaches you in all things—small things and great things. If you obey the teaching of the anointing, you will abide in Christ. Exercise your intuition.
Today Christians often walk outwardly, relying on outward teaching and outward instructions. But actually, we have the Teacher within us: the Holy Spirit.
Unceasingly, He teaches us in small things, very small things. Sometimes in a little matter, intuitively you know His will.
Conscience also needs to be exercised. We need to keep a clean and good conscience. Whenever our conscience accuses us, we need to go to the Lord, confess, and claim the blood of the Lord Jesus, that our communion with God will not be interrupted.
Bodily exercise is profitable for a little, but godly exercise is profitable both for this age and for eternity. So, brothers and sisters, we need to exercise our spirit.
The more you learn to exercise your spirit, the stronger your spirit will be, and you will be able to overcome the desires of the flesh.
There is much to say about this, but I think that is enough on this point. Now the third point: our spirit not only needs to be strengthened; our spirit needs to be purified.
This is found in 2 Corinthians 7:1:
Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Our spirit is an organ. In itself it is neutral. But when the Holy Spirit dwells in our spirit, He gives us a divine, godly inclination and attitude.
But that does not mean that everything that comes out of our human spirit is spiritually right. There is a wrong teaching which supposes that anything which comes from the human spirit is right. No. The Bible says our spirit can be polluted. It needs to be purified.
Why? Because sin can pollute our spirit. If a person knowingly, deliberately, and continually sins against his conscience and against the voice of the Spirit, he can become so hardened by the deceitfulness of sin that his conscience will almost become dead.
It is possible, and the Bible warns us about it. When our conscience is cauterized, it is like a ship with a hole: you will sink.
Our spirit can be polluted. It can be polluted by the world. The world can enter into our spirit and affect us so that we begin to love the world, and the love of the Father is not in us.
So not everything that comes from our spirit is right. Be sure that our spirit is purified. It is purified by the Holy Spirit. It is purified by the cross working in our lives. It is purified by our willingness to obey and yield to the Holy Spirit.
Thus, we will be delivered from the pollution of our spirit.
You know, brothers and sisters, we are all in the end time, and spiritual things will become rampant over this world. Unfortunately, it is not the right spirit; it is the evil spirit. Spiritism is everywhere.
We can be very easily deceived, thinking that because something is spirit, it is all right. No, it is not all right. We have to watch and pray, be careful, and keep our spirit pure before God.
Finally, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5 says:
And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit.
Brothers and sisters, we have a new spirit. This spirit needs to be strengthened. This spirit needs to be purified. And this spirit needs to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
What do you mean by being filled with the Holy Spirit? It is a command of God.
To be filled with the Holy Spirit simply means to be ruled by the Holy Spirit in our daily life. Be ruled by the Holy Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit rule over your life. That is being filled with the Holy Spirit.
It is more than just seeking for an experience of filling. It is to be daily, continuously filled. The original meaning is, “Be continuously ruled and filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Live a life in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit. Live in the Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit of God have complete control over us.
Then our spirit will be in such communion with God and in such harmony with God that our spirit will be the master of our being, our soul will be a faithful steward, and our body will be a loyal servant.
Brothers and sisters, this is spirit wholly sanctified. Thank God, at the coming of the Lord Jesus, our spirit can be preserved blameless in love. May the Lord help us.
Shall we pray?
Dear heavenly Father, we bow in worship. Thou dost love us so much. Thou hast given Thy only begotten Son to us to restore us to true manhood.
We praise and thank Thee for reviving the human spirit. O Lord, teach us how to strengthen it, to purify it, and to be filled with Thy Spirit.
O Lord, our prayer and our desire is that Thou, the God of peace, wilt sanctify our spirit wholly. In the name of Thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus. Amen.