Blessed Spirit of all grace how often have I grieved You, resisted Your dealings, quenched Your strivings; and yet You are still pleading with me! Oh, let me realize more than I do — the need of Your gracious influences. Ordinances, sermons, communions, providential dispensations, are nothing without Your life-giving power!

"It is the Spirit who gives life." "No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." Church of the living God, is not this one cause of your deadness? My soul, is not this the secret of your languishing frames, repeated declensions, uneven walk, and sudden falls — that the influences of the Holy Spirit are undervalued and unsought? Pray for the outpouring of this blessed Agent for the world's renovation, and your own. " I will pour out my Spirit on all people," is the precursor of millennial bliss!

Jesus, draw near, in Your mercy, to this dull heart, as You did of old to Your mourning disciples, and breathe upon it, and say, "Receive the Holy Spirit." It is the mightiest of all blessings; but, like the sun in the heavens, it is the freest of all, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"

Courtesy of Grace Gems! Used by permission.