HIS EXPANDING LIFE

"If you are not growing more loving, more gentle, more tender and Christ-like, and more easy to be entreated, then you are not growing in the right direction."

"Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man."

Dr. Upham (there is no higher human authority on deeply spiritual things), writing of the expanding life of Jesus, said:

"The Savior was holy from the beginning. Every power of body or mind was fully sanctified. But, 'the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him.' 'Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor (or grace) with God and man.' What is the meaning of this increase of strength in spirit? How could He increase in the favor of His heavenly Father, if, with the increase of His expanding powers there was not also a corresponding growth in holy love? So of the angels in heaven, they are holy, but are always growing in holiness."

In their exercises they are like their heavenly Father but in relation to the degree, he writes, "What growth then must there be in angel minds which are neither hindered by inward or outward evils in their progress! What expansion! What increased intensity of desire! What higher and more triumphant energies of love!"

Likewise, writing of the growth of man after entire sanctification, he says in substance, it is not meant by this expression, entire sanctification, that it is so entire as to exclude an increase and greater expansions and degrees of Divine Love in time and eternity.

Thank God, Jesus grew, angels are always expanding, and the holy John Baptist, from his birth full of the Holy Ghost, is said to have increased and grown in holiness; and if necessity was on these spotless subjects to advance in the Divine Life, it is highly proper that the best of us should grow, and make proper effort so to do.

Have we not neglected to "Walk as He Walked" in His Expanding Life? Have we not traveled in too narrow confines and revolved around in too small a circle? Are we not like Jumbo, the elephant, who spent much of his life in a circular tread-mill, around and round and round? His owner, taking pity on him, decided to superannuate and give Jumbo his freedom; but force of habit was so strong on him when set free he commenced the old circular grind, and revolved around in the old circle. Are we not going around and clinging to the first principles of sanctification? Do not many of us fail to get beyond "saved and sanctified," and should we not know more than how to "keep sanctified," as important as that is? Should we not more than hold the ground? Should we not, like our Savior, advance?

It is said, if you put a small gold fish in a house aquarium, or glass globe, it will only grow to four or five inches in length, but if you place the same fish in the Thames river, its native environment, it will grow and develop into a fish weighing thirty pounds. So of our souls, if we keep them within too narrow confines in our conceptions of the possibilities of rational development, we will dwarf them. God help us to get in our proper environment, the inexhaustible ocean of God's love, where there is plenty of room to swim around without being cramped, and develop all our powers and enlarge through the power of the Holy Ghost, ever shedding abroad "newer and more triumphant energies of the love of God in our souls! Glory to God!"

There is an unwarranted squeamishness and fear of doing anything proper to increase the life of God in the soul among the professors of Full Salvation. Spiritual progress is thought to be automatic and, independent of any effort on our part, the life will expand. But God's command is imperative, "Grow (You grow) in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." We never knew an indolent, lazy ignoramus ever to fall heir to knowledge, worldly or spiritual. To grow requires co-operation. There are numerous professors of holiness who are fossilized and immovably fixed and anchored in their past attainments and experiences, doubtless because of this foolish idea that growth would overtake them, independent of any effort of their own, or by reason of the vitality of their experience. This idea is not according to the analogy of nature. True, the reception of the warm sunshine and rain is most essential and the subject is passive, but it is also true that the vigorous cultivating even after the weeds (typifying inbred sin) are removed, is a most important factor in the growth of the corn, etc., and this cultivating may in a measure typify the soul's co-operation in growth.

Take the example of Jesus. According to Dr. Asa Mahan, "He received the measureless effusions of the Spirit at the beginning, and during the progress of His mission, because they were a necessity to Him -- just as similar baptisms are a necessity to us in our life's mission. We have here, no doubt, one reason why our Savior spent so much time alone with God and in prayer to Him. Christ teaches us that God gives the Holy Spirit to those who seek, and ask, and knock at the door of mercy for this anointing. In this respect, also, God has made Christ our Exemplar, giving the Spirit to Him when lie consciously needed the special Divine influence and sought for it, just as He gives us the Spirit as we consciously need and seek His anointing."

In illustration of the foregoing the same writer said: "At the close of His temptation (and, consequently, after Jesus praying, received the Holy Ghost) in the wilderness, after Satan fled discomfited, from His presence, and angels had descended and ministered unto Him, the final and great Baptism seems to have been given, and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee."

In the Pentecostal Baptism and consequent fullness, all the demands of the Christian life are met; still it may be said of these included supplies as of special blessing promised Israel, and general blessings promised Christians: "I will yet for this be enquired of, by the house of Israel to do it for them."

In the same strain Mr. Wesley wrote: "God hardly gives His Spirit even to those whom He has established in grace, unless they pray for Him, not once, but on all occasions." This, then, is a most helpful direction for those who would, like Jesus, increase in Divine favor and love. "How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those WHO ASK HIM!"

If precedents be needed to further establish this position, they can be drawn in abundance from the lives of men like Finney, Cookman, Baker, Keene, the Disciples, Wesley, and Jesus, who are all on record as having many gracious uplifts and blessings and seasons of refreshing from the presence on high, and that while walking in the light of a full salvation from sin and acceptance with God. Hallelujah.

Should a perplexed one need further proof and illustration of how one can be full of the HOLY GHOST and still, in answer to prayer, receive fresh supplies of the Spirit (Philippians 1:19), let him remember God is said as our Heavenly Father to know what things we have need of, even before we ask Him, and yet He has commanded us to ask for these foreknown blessings. He knows, but conditions the receiving on our asking."