Let me say that it is not a question of us getting more of the Holy Spirit, but rather of the Holy Spirit getting more of us.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the need for individuals to allow the Holy Spirit to influence and guide their lives more fully, rather than seeking additional gifts or blessings.
In this quote, Oswald J. Smith expresses the idea that the effectiveness of the Holy Spirit in a person's life does not depend on the abundance of the Spirit itself but on the willingness of the individual to surrender and offer themselves to the Spiritβs influence. It suggests a deeper relationship between a believer and the Holy Spirit, where the focus shifts from asking for more spiritual gifts to allowing the Spirit to transform one's life and actions.
In practice
Using this quote in a sermon about spiritual growth and surrender.
God does not have to come and tell me what I must do for Him; He brings me into a relationship with Himself where I hear His call and understand what He wants me to do, and I do it out of sheer love to Him... When people say they have had a call to foreign service, or to any particular sphere of work, they mean that their relationship to God has enabled them to realize what they can do for God.
Why should anyone hear the Gospel twice, before everyone has heard it once?
Oh my friends, we are loaded with countless church activities, while the real work of the church, that of evangelizing and winning the lost is almost entirely neglected.
HEAVEN knows the difference between SUNDAY morning and WEDNESDAY afternoon. God longs to speak as CLEARLY in the workplace as He does in the sanctuary. He longs to be WORSHIPED when we sit at the dinner table and not just when we come to His communion table. You may go days without THINKING of Him, but there's never a moment when He's not thinking of YOU.
A beginner must look on himself as one setting out to make a garden for his Lord's pleasure, on most unfruitful soil which abounds in weeds. His Majesty roots up the weeds and will put in good plants instead. Let us reckon that this is already done when the soul decides to practice prayer and has begun to do so.
Prayer is a new, gracious, lasting will of the soul united and fast-bound to the will of God by the precious and mysterious working of the Holy Ghost.
The prayer life does not consist of perpetual repetition of petitions. The prayer life consists of life that is always upward and onward and Godward
We cannot live, we cannot look at the truth about ourselves without letting ourselves be looked at and generated by Christ in daily Eucharistic Adoration.
May we always say thank you to God, especially for his patience and mercy.
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