The Holy Spirit, the Church, and the Nations

It is of the greatest importance that we, as the Lord's people, should be deeply concerned about two things. There should be in our hearts, in the first place, a very real concern for the fullest Christian life that it is possible to know. Such a concern is a necessary link between us and that which is the Lord's will for us: for you notice that when the incoming of the Holy Spirit is spoken of in the Word, the expression 'filled' is often used. The Lord's thought is 'fulness': it is not just that we should 'receive' the Spirit (cf. Acts 8:15,17), but that we should be filled with the Spirit; not just that we should be 'filled' (cf. 1 Cor. 4:8), but that we should be filled with the Spirit. If, therefore, we are to come into God's thought for us, we need to be deeply exercised about this matter of knowing a life of as great a fulness as the Lord intends it to be. And, in the second place, we should have a deep concern for the most effective possible witness in the world by the Church - that the Church's testimony in the nations should be as effective as the Lord would have it.