Give Yourself to the Holy Spirit

I have been blessed and challenged through the reading of They Found the Secret by V. Raymond Edman.  Chapter 18 speaks of the yielded and consecrated life of Walter L.Wilson.  Like all people, Dr. Wilson was not always yielded to the Holy Spirit.  Edman relates how Dr. Wilson lived a Christian life for many years independent of the Holy Spirit's power.  His concern was that any focus on the Holy Spirit would reduce the glory of Jesus Christ.  Yet we read in scripture that the Holy Spirit will not glorify Himself but magnify Christ.  Jesus says in John 16:12-16:  "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³ However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵ All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. ¹⁶ "A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father."

On page 122-123, V. Edman speaks of a sermon God used to confront and change Dr. Wilson through the renewing of his mind.  "Then came January 14, 1914, Dr. James M. Gray, at that time a clergyman of the Reformed Episcopal church, and later the beloved and revered president of Moody Bible Institute, was speaking in Kansas City on Romans 12:1.  Dr Wilson recalls the impact of that message:  'Leaning over the pulpit, he said, 'Have you noticed that this verse does not tell us to whom we should give our bodies?  It is not the Lord Jesus Who asks for it.  He has His own body.  It is not the Father Who asks for it.  He remains upon His throne.  Another has come to earth without a body.  God could have made a body for Him as he did for Jesus, but He did not do so.  God gives you the privilege and the indescribable honour of presenting your bodies to the Holy Spirit, to be His dwelling place on earth.  If you have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb then yours is a holy body, washed whiter than snow, and will be accepted by the Spirit when you give it.  Will you do so now?''"

This was the prompting Dr. Wilson needed to give himself fully for use by the Holy Spirit.  On page 123 his prayer to the Holy Spirit is recorded from his own lips:  "My Lord, I have mistreated You all my Christian life.  I have treated You like a servant.  When I wanted You I called for You; when I was about to engage in some work I beckoned You to come and help me perform my task.  I have kept You in the place of a servant.  I have sought to use You only as a willing servant to help me in my self-appointed and chosen work.  I shall do so no more.  Just now I give You this body of mine; from my head to my feet, I give it to You.  I give You my hands, my limbs, my eyes and lips, my brain; all that I am within and without, I hand over to You for You to live in it the life that You please.  You may send this body to Africa, or lay it on a bed with cancer.  You may blind the eyes, or send me with Your message to Tibet.  You may take this body to the Eskimos, or send it to a hospital with pneumonia.  It is your body from this moment on.  Help yourself to it.  Thank You, my Lord, I believe You have accepted it, for in Romans twelve and one You said "acceptable unto God."  Thank You again, my Lord, for taking me.  We now belong to each other."

I believe God is pleased for every person to pray this prayer.  It does not matter if you do not yet know Jesus Christ, or have long laboured for Christ without such yielding to the Holy Spirit.  Those who come to God in humility He will in no wise cast out.  Won't you completely submit to the Holy Spirit today - and the next day, the day after that, and on and on into eternity?  This is the only way your life will glorify Jesus Christ to the full.