Jesus said, “Remain joined to me, and I will remain joined to you.” (John 15:4 NIrV) “Abiding in Christ means a constant receiving of His Spirit, a life of unreserved surrender to His service.”1
This two-part divine solution for our central problem is at the same time the way to a happy Christian life. Why? Jesus commented on these words: “These things I have spoken to you, that My Joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:11) Through these two steps (continually receiving the Holy Spirit and complete surrender to His service) Christ lives in us and this is the way to perfect happiness. Colossians 1:27 speaks about the riches of the glory: Christ in you. Isn’t it remarkable that Jesus embedded this parable of the vine in between the promise for the Holy Spirit in John 14 and the work of the Holy Spirit in John 16?
The crucial point is that we (as a rule) daily surrender ourselves to God including everything we are and have and that we also daily ask and receive by faith the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Why Is It Necessary to Surrender Ourselves to Jesus Daily?
Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
Jesus said that discipleship is a daily matter. To deny oneself means giving Jesus the control over my life. Carrying a cross doesn’t mean that we will have difficulties every day. Here it means: to daily deny our egos and to submit gladly and willingly to Jesus — just as Paul said about himself, “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31 NASB). When someone carried a cross in Jesus’ day, then he had been sentenced to death and was going to the place of execution. So it also has to do with accepting difficulties, which arise from following Jesus.
We received our physical life at birth. In order to maintain our life, strength and health we normally eat every day. We received our spiritual life when we were born again. In order to keep our spiritual life strong and healthy it is also necessary to take care of the inner person daily. If this doesn’t take place in our physical life as well as in our spiritual life, then we will become weak, sick or even die. We can neither eat meals ahead as reserve meals nor can we stockpile the Holy Spirit.
In the book The Acts of the Apostles there is valuable advice on this, “As in the natural, so in the spiritual world. The natural life is preserved moment by moment by divine power; yet it is not sustained by a direct miracle, but through the use of blessings placed within our reach. So the spiritual life is sustained by the use of those means that Providence has supplied.”2
Morris Venden said, “If you haven’t discovered the necessity of daily conversion, it can be a major breakthrough in your life. Thoughts From The Mount of Blessing, page 101, makes this promise: ‘If you will seek the Lord and be converted every day…all your murmurings will be stilled, all your difficulties will be moved, all the perplexing problems that now confront you will be solved.’”3
Remaining with Jesus through a daily renewal of our surrender is just as important as it was when we first came to Him.
Morris Venden says further, “The abiding daily relationship with God leads to abiding surrender, moment-by-moment dependence on Him.”4
We may be certain that when we consciously surrender ourselves to Jesus every morning, then we are doing what He wishes us to do, because He said, “Come to me…” (Matthew 11:28) and “…the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37).
The great influence that God can exert through us when we completely surrender ourselves to Him is described by John Wesley as follows: “God can do more with one man, who has committed himself 100 % to God, than He can with a whole army of men, who have only committed themselves 99 % to God.”5
“All who consecrate soul, body, and spirit to God will be constantly receiving a new endowment of physical and mental power… The Holy Spirit puts forth its highest energies to work in heart and mind. The grace of God enlarges and multiplies their faculties, and every perfection of the divine nature comes to their assistance in the work of saving souls…And in their human weakness they are enabled to do the deeds of Omnipotence.”6
Why Should a Person Daily Ask for a New Baptism of the Holy Spirit?
The request to be filled with the Holy Spirit is a request to Jesus to, ‘Stay by me.’ Because He lives in me through the Holy Spirit. But why daily?
“To the consecrated worker there is wonderful consolation in the knowledge that even Christ during His life on earth sought His Father daily for fresh supplies of needed grace…His own example is an assurance that earnest, persevering supplication to God in faith — faith that leads to entire dependence upon God, and unreserved consecration to His work — will avail to bring men the Holy Spirit’s aid in the battle against sin.”7
If this was a daily necessity for Jesus, then how much more important it is for us. In 2 Corinthians 4:16 there is an important statement, “… yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.”
Our inward man needs daily care. In what way does this daily renewal take place? According to Ephesians 3:16,17,19 it happens through the Holy Spirit, “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love…that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Call to Action with Results
Another important text is found in Ephesians 5:18, “…be filled with the Spirit.“ Take note that this is more than just advice. It is a divine command. Our God expects us to want to live with the Holy Spirit. The Greek experts say that this text says more precisely — and I am quoting Johannes Mager who says, “Let yourselves be consistently and continually filled anew with the Spirit.”8
Therefore:
- As a rule it is necessary to pray daily for a renewal of the Holy Spirit.
- As a result Christ lives in us.
- He gives us power according to the riches of His glory for our inner man. The power of God is a supernatural power, but we cannot feel it. The Creator can work with extremely minimal forces (e.g. the electrical currents in our bodies. We can not feel it, but if they are not there, we are dead)
- Thus God’s love is put into our hearts.
- And it is the way to a life “with all the fullness of God” (see John 10:10; Colossians 2:10).
The above is an excerpt from Steps to Personal Revival.
Unless noted otherwise, scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
- Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1983), 676.
- Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1892), 70.
- Morris Venden, 95 Theses on Righteousness by Faith (Pacific Press, 1987), 96.
- Morris Venden, 95 Theses on Righteousness by Faith (Pacific Press, 1987), 233.
- Dr. S. Joseph Kidder, Anleitung zum geistlichen Leben (Andrews University), PPP slide 14
- Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1983), 827.
- Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1911), 56.
- Editor Werner E. Lange, UnsergrößtesBedürfnis (Lüneburg, 2011), S. 42
