5. In order to receive the Holy Spirit there should be definite asking for the Holy Spirit. Our Lord Jesus says in Luke 11: 13, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” Just ask God to give you the Holy Spirit and expect Him to do it, because He says He will.
6. Last of all, in order to receive the Holy Spirit, there must be faith, simply taking God at His Word. No matter how positive any promise of God’s Word may be, we enjoy it personally only when we believe. Our Lord Jesus says, “All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11: 24, R. V.). When you pray for the Holy Spirit you have prayed for something according to God’s will and therefore you may know that your prayer is heard and that you have what you asked of Him (1 John 5: 14, 15). You may feel no different, but do not look at your feelings but at God’s promise. Believe the prayer is heard, believe that God has given you the Holy Spirit and you will afterwards have in actual experience what you have received in simple faith on the bare promise of God’s Word.
It is well to go often alone and kneel down and look up to the Holy Spirit and put into His hands anew the entire control of your life. Ask Him to take the control of your thoughts, the control of your imagination, the control of your affections, the control of your desires, the control of your ambitions, the control of your choices, the control of your purposes, the control of your words, the control of your actions, the control of everything, and just expect Him to do it. The whole secret of victory in the Christian life is letting the Holy Spirit who dwells within you, have undisputed right of way in the entire conduct of your life.
V
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
If we are to run with patience the race that is set before us, we must always keep looking unto Jesus (Heb. 12: 1-3). One of the simplest and yet one of the mightiest secrets of abiding joy and victory is to never lose sight of Jesus.
1. First of all we must keep looking at Jesus as the ground of our acceptance before God. Over and over again Satan will make an attempt to discourage us by bringing up our sins and failures and thus try to convince us that we are not children of God, or not saved. If he succeeds in getting us to keep looking at and brooding over our sins, he will soon get us discouraged, and discouragement means failure. But if we will keep looking at what God looks at, the death of Jesus Christ in our place that completely atones for every sin that we ever committed, we will never be discouraged because of the greatness of our sins. We shall see that while our sins are great, very great, that they have all been atoned for. Every time Satan brings up one of our sins, we shall see that Jesus Christ has redeemed us from its curse by being made a curse in our place (Gal. 3: 13). We shall see that while in ourselves we are full of unrighteousness, nevertheless in Christ we are made the righteousness of God, because Christ was made to be sin in our place (2 Cor. 5: 21). We will see that every sin that Satan taunts us about has been borne and settled forever (1 Pet. 2: 24; Is. 53: 6). We shall always be able to sing,
“Jesus paid my debt,
All the debt I owe;