to spirituality is the lack of waiting upon
God. You cannot go through twenty-four hours with two or three breaths of
air, in the morning, as you sip your coffee. But you must live in the
atmosphere, and you must breathe it all day long. Christians do not wait
upon God enough. It needs hours and hours daily of spiritual communion
with the Holy Spirit to keep your vitality healthful and full. Every
moment should find you breathing out yourself into Christ, and breathing
afresh His life, and love and power.

God is waiting to send us the Holy Spirit. He is longing to bless us. His
one business is to quicken and sustain our spiritual life. He has nothing
else to do with His infinite and great resources. Let us receive Him. Let
us live in Him. Let us give to Him the joy of knowing that His infinite
grace has not been bestowed in vain, but that we appreciate and improve
the blessings which He oft has so freely bestowed.

Lord, help me this day to dwell in Thee as the flower in the sunshine, as
the fish in the sea, living in Thy love as the atmosphere and element of
my being.

SEPTEMBER 5.

"He breathed on them" (John xx. 22).

The beautiful figure suggested by this passage is full of simple
instruction. It is as easy to receive the Holy Ghost as it is to breathe.
It almost seems as if the Lord had given them the very impression of
breathing, and had said, "Now, this is the way to receive the Holy Ghost."

It is not necessary for you to go to a smallpox hospital to have your
lungs contaminated with impure air. It is enough for you to keep in your
lungs the air you inhaled a minute ago and it will kill you. All the pure
elements have been absorbed from it, and there is nothing left but carbon
and other deadly gases and fluids.

Therefore, if you are to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you must first
get emptied not only of your old sinful life, but of your old spiritual
life. You must get a new breath every moment, or you will die. God wants
you to empty out all your being into Him, and then you will take Him in,
without needing to try too hard. A vacuum always gets filled, an empty
pair of lungs unavoidably breathes in the pure air. If you are only in the
true attitude, there will be no trouble about receiving the Holy Ghost.

SEPTEMBER 6.

"Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord" (Phil. iii. 1).

There is no spiritual value in depression. One bright and thankful look at
the cross is worth a t