Be filled with the Spirit. always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. -EPHESIANS 5:18, 20

Some years ago, a couple traveled from their home in Chicago to Arrowhead Springs to talk to me about an idea they had. We heard your lecture on how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Our lives have been dramatically changed as a result, they said enthusiastically. We have come to encourage you to go on national television to tell Christians everywhere how they can know the Holy Spirit and experience His revolutionary impact in and through their lives.

I am humbly grateful to God for the privilege of teaching these great truths concerning the Holy Spirit to tens of millions of people through-out the world, often with the same dramatic results this couple enjoyed. To be effective lighthouses for Jesus Christ, we must be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Without that filling, we will fail miserably in our spiritual lives and accomplish little to reach other people for Christ. The disciples were good examples of this truth. They were with Jesus for more than three years. They heard Him teach and saw Him perform miracles such as no man had done before. But though they were exposed to the most godly life ever lived on earth, during Jesus time of crisis, Judas betrayed Him, Peter denied Him, and all the others deserted Him.

Jesus knew His disciples were fruitless, quarreling, ambitious, self-centered men in need of the empowering Holy Spirit. So on the eve of His crucifixion, He told them, It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper [Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you (John 16:7, NKJV). Jesus did. The rest is history.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: It is only through the empowering of the Holy Spirit that we can be effective witnesses for our Lord Jesus Christ.