ntenance. Frances Ridley
Havergal had an aeolian harp sent to her which she tried to play with
her fingers, and failed. At last a friend suggested that she place it
in the window, and the music as the wind touched the strings was
entrancing. We must be where he can use us.
Second: _Purification_. Sanctification is necessary because God uses
only that which is clean, never an unclean life.
Third: _Possession_. It is really Christ filling us, and he will fill
us if we give him the opportunity. The extent of this work is made
plain in Paul's prayer:
(1) The spirit is touched, and the spirit is that part of our nature
which is capable of fellowship with God.
(2) The soul is filled, and the soul is the seat of all our
intellectual faculties.
(3) The body is possessed, and since the body is just the servant of
the higher powers of man, we can easily understand how necessary the
work is. It is needful,
(_a_) For our peace, for the God of peace is to sanctify us.
(_b_) For our prayers. For Paul is talking about prayer when he
praises.
(_c_) For our praise, for we are told that we must rejoice evermore.
IV
_Prayer for Power_. Ephesians 1:15-20, "Wherefore I also, after I
heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give
unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what
is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his
power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty
power; which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead,
and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places."
The Church at Ephesus was in every way remarkable, but to this people
Paul wrote his most spiritual epistle, which in itself is a compliment
to them, for as in another instance it was not necessary for him to
write unto them as if they were carnal. With this people for the space
of two or three years he labored, as we find recorded in Acts the
nineteenth chapter and the tenth verse, "And this continued by the
space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word
of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks." Acts 20:31, "Therefore
watch, a
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