Tag Archives: Hudson Taylor

Holy Spirit

How Much of the Holy Spirit Do You Have?

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How much of the Holy Spirit do you have? Interesting question, huh?  Especially since some people believe that Christians either have “it” or they don’t have “it.” Wrong!

First of all, “it” is not an “it.” The Holy Spirit is a Person and is best referred to as “He.” This often-misunderstood member of the Holy Trinity has a personality, a purpose, and a plan. He has feelings, desires, and reasons for what He does or doesn’t do. He has assignments from the Father, gifts to deliver to believers, and a mission on earth. He was sent by Jesus, as a promise given to the earliest disciples and extended to every disciple since. And that promise, my friend, is to indwell every person who becomes a believer in Jesus Christ.

The question as to whether or not all true believers have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of them is answered in Romans 8:9 “…And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.” Therefore, we can conclude that every person who is born-again has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him from the time of conversion, or else he hasn’t been born-again.

From that amazing first encounter with the Holy Spirit, we can begin to grow up into Christ because we now have a personal teacher to guide us into all truth. His goal is to eventually transform us into the image of Jesus Himself; however, His ability to do so is directly helped or hindered by our willingness to cooperate with Him. When we cooperate with our Indwelling Houseguest, we grow quickly. When we do not cooperate—well, not so much!

I think a better question, be it in 6 months after conversion, 6 years, or 60 years, is not how much of the Holy Spirit do you have, but how much of you does the Holy Spirit have? You see, the Holy Spirit is a gentleman, and He does not overpower us and take away our freewill. He occupies only the territory of our lives that we freely and willingly yield to Him. He will control only what we allow Him to control.

That explains why we sometimes see what should be mature Christians no further advanced than newborn Christians. They have given the Holy Spirit very little control of their lives. They continue to sit at the helm and steer their ship where they want to go, with little thought as to where the Holy Spirit wants to take them.

There has been much teaching on how to be blessed by the Holy Spirit, experience His presence, and enjoy His gifts; yet, very little on how to yield our lives over to His complete control. Unfortunately, the church of today is mostly obsessed with the gifts and experiences, and we remain untrained in how to relinquish that control to Him. There is a widely believed misconception that the Holy Spirit is here to bless us, and at the same time, we get to keep our besetting sins. The problem is—that doesn’t line up with the Holy Spirit’s mission on earth.

Hudson Taylor, the famous missionary to China, used the term “the exchanged life” for the giving up of his life for the Christ-life. In other words, Taylor gave up what he wanted for what the Holy Spirit wanted, and died to the self that we all inherited from Adam and Eve. Of course, that sounds rather foreign to our modern-day easy-believe-ism teachings, wouldn’t you say?

This excerpt from Taylor’s writings clearly depicts a life that has been yielded up to the control of the Holy Spirit: “I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me….”

So, how much of the Holy Spirit do you and I have? We have an amount equal to the area of our inner being that we have currently yielded to the Holy Spirit’s control—that much, and no more.  The Apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:18 say to be filled with the Spirit, implying that we can be partially filled, completely filled, or somewhere in between. So, which is it—a little, some, or filled?

Next, we will discuss being full of the Holy Spirit—what it looks like and how we can get there. ~ Janie Kellogg

1Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, Moody Publishers, Chicago, IL, 2009, Pg. 165

The Secret Place Secrets

There is more to this walk with God ~

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It has been 15 years since I first heard God’s call to write. The big question is: Write what?

I record this call in my journal every time I hear it—“Call to write ~ 2001; Call to write ~ 2004; 2006; 2010; 2011; 2012; 2013; 2014.” I write it in the margins of the books I read and re-read. Perhaps dozens of times I have documented my call to write—to write something anyway.

In those 15 years, I have filled many journals with something. In 2005-2007, I completed a two-year writing course through the Christian Writer’s Guild. Yet, even upon finishing the course, I wasn’t any closer to knowing what to write.

However, through that writing course God put me on the trail of a new ideology—new to me anyway. I didn’t question its validity because of the spiritual giants who embraced it, such as: D.L. Moody, Andrew Murray, Hudson Taylor, and A.W. Tozer, to name a few.

I found it in many places, often obscure and not fully defined, but it was there nonetheless. One very helpful book was: “They Found the Secret” by V. Raymond Edman, who wrote about the lives of 20 spiritual gurus and their discoveries. I gradually dug deeper into the lives of many of those 20 people, always coming up with the same conclusion.

Today, I can sum up my findings with this one single statement: There is more to this walk with God than I currently know and possess. That has been the crux of my on-going search and that search has clearly led me to the secret place.

That something will be the content of The Secret Place Secrets. ~ Janie Kellogg

Small footprintKey Concept: There is more to this walk with God than I currently know and possess.

 

See other Secret Place Secrets at http://www.treasureinearthenvessels.net.