Consciousness of the Word 10/18 Friday Faith

I tell you, beloved, that the external evidences of God and the power of His Spirit, no matter how wonderful, are a small matter compared with the consciousness of the Word of God in the human heart; in your heart and mine.


-- John G. Lake

Baptism of the Holy Spirit 10/18 Thursday Thoughts

The baptism of the Holy Spirit was the common experience of New Testament times. The New Testament was written by men who had the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was written to churches that possessed the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Indeed, in my study of the New Testament the disciples seemed to consider it essential that each individual should himself possess the baptism of the Spirit. When Paul came down to Ephesus the first question he asked them was, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" (Acts 19:2)


-- John G. Lake

The World Has Never . . . 10/17 Wednesday Wisdom

Indeed, beloved, I have felt, and I feel today, that the world has never had a proper comprehension of the Lord Jesus Christ. We all realize the common conception of the Christ as it has been presented to us by the Church at large. And I want to say with all frankness that while in a large measure that conception of the Church largely is true, yet it is ten thousand miles below the real standard or God's conception of presentation of the Christ as I see it in the Word of God, as the Spirit of God had has made my own consciousness aware of.


-- John G. Lake

A Good Foundation 10/16 Tuesday Truth

For the Church of God and Christian faith to become strong and to be built up in God, it is necessary to get a good foundation. It is a greater problem with most builders to get the old rubbish out of the way than to do the building. If we will look at our own lives, we will observe this: that the things that have been rooted and grounded in our hearts -- some tradition of the Fathers, some of it misconception of the meaning of the Word of God; much of our teaching is fragmented -- these form the greatest obstacles to the engrafting of the living Word of God. Every one of us who have progressed in God have found that the difficulty was not in believing the Word of God, but the difficulty was to get away from things that were settled in our own being as facts, though untrue. How hardly have we struggled over the matter of, "If it be Thy will," concerning sickness. From our babyhood and all down through the generations, we have been taught that if you are sick, the proper thing to do is to pray, "If it be Thy will," forgetting all the time that the Lord has forever demonstrated and declared His eternal will concerning the subject of sickness by healing all that come to Him.




-- John G. Lake

The Latter Day Church 10/15 Monday Meditation

It was that consciousness of God's presence and God's power in the disciples and the Church of the first centuries that wrote across the pages of history the wonderful, wonderful record of Christianity of the first four hundred years. There were thirty million Christian martyrs, those who were slaughtered in the Christian wars, etc. Thirty million gave up their lives for the Christ. There was a spirit that made it so intense, so powerful, that had such a power of induction that the world got out. Bless God.




But there came a day when the Church traded the communion of the Holy Ghost for the smile of the world, and then the long, long night of the middle centuries followed.



But bless God, I tell you we are living in a day and hour when the Spirit of God has come into the world afresh, when the consciousness of mankind is opening up to God in a manner that they have never opened before. There is an awakening in the world from ocean to ocean, from pole to pole, as there never was before. And I believe, bless God, that God Almighty's outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh is at hand. And though we are receiving the droppings and our hearts are being warmed under the impulse of the Spirit, the day is not far distant when the flame of God will catch the soul of mankind. And the Church of the latter day will close this era with a place of divine glory excelling that of the early Church.



This is according to the prophecy of the Word. "If the former rain was abundant, shall not the latter rain be more abundant." (Deuteronomy 11:14, paraphrased)



-- John G. Lake

Receive Power 10/12 Friday Faith

"Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." (Acts 1:8) We are entitled to it, bless God. We are glad to see some of it and wish, bless God, that we might see a great deal more. And beloved, I have a splendid conviction in my heart that we will.


--John G. Lake

Exalted Place 10/11 Thursday Thoughts

Indeed, I have this in my heart, that the low state of Christian experience that is common among men is mostly accounted for by this one fact: that Christians have failed to grasp the exalted place into which Jesus Christ puts us when we have been made sons of God.


-- John G. Lake