FAITH FOR THE FULFILLMENT OF THE PROMISE

After all, the struggle is not to get God willing to give this baptism with the Holy Spirit. He is more willing to give the Holy Spirit than we are to give good gifts to our children (Luke 11:13). The struggle, if there be any, is all on the part of the seeker. But where there is an earnest heart desire that will definitely seek God for the baptism with the Spirit, and where one has fully abandoned himself to God so that he will obediently follow His will in all things, and where he has died out to the old carnal self, it is easy to have faith. Faith for the fulfillment of the promise of the baptism with the Holy Spirit is sure to follow such abandonment. When there is nothing unyielded, nothing one would rather do than the will of God, no place in one's life for "the flesh"; what is there left for one to do? Nothing, but to accept what God promises. Faith looks to the promise, "The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." That promise is as good as the presence of God. The seeker accepts the promise and believes the work to be done. He is not left in the dark. It is done! The abandoned heart is filled or baptized with the Spirit.

We do well to ask, What are the results of this baptism with the Spirit? There are results that will follow in the lives of those who are filled with the Spirit, just as certainly as there were changes in the lives of the disciples. Let us note a few of these results.