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Octavius Winslow, 1856 (edited for
today's reader by Larry E. Wilson, 2010)
Bible Verse
"Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body" (1 Cor. 6:19–20).
Devotional
As a temple of the Holy Spirit, yield yourself to his divine and gracious power. Bend your ear to his softest whisper. Bend your will to his gentlest sway. Bend your heart to his holy and benign influence.
If you do not hearken to his voice, or yield to his promptings, then you end up as a great loser. How often has the Holy Spirit incited to communion with God, but because the time or the place was not convenient, you stifled his persuasive voice, resisted his proffered aid, and, thus slighted and grieved, he has retired? But then when you have risen to pray, God has covered himself as with a cloud that your prayer could not pass through!
Oh, seek to have your ear attuned to his softest accents; seek to have your heart constrained to an instant compliance with his mildest dictates. The greatest blessing you possess is the possession of the Spirit.
And oh, to be Christ's—to be his gift, his purchase, his called saint, his lowly disciple—what an inestimable privilege! But how may you be quite sure that this privilege is yours? If you have the Spirit of Christ, then you are indeed a Christian. It is the superscription of the King; it is the mark of the Shepherd; it is the Lord's impress of himself upon your heart.
How sanctifying this privilege is! "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal. 5:24). "Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. 2:19).
And if you are Christ's now, then you shall be Christ's to all eternity. It is a union that can never be dissolved. Every believer in Jesus is "sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee [or down payment] of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:13–14). And as you have the earnest of the inheritance, so surely you shall as possess the inheritance itself.
The Spirit of Christ is an active, benevolent Spirit. The Holy Spirit bore our Savior, when he was in the flesh, from country to country, from city to city, from house to house, preaching his own gospel to the lost. "He went about doing good" (Acts 10:38).
If you have the Spirit of Christ, then you will be prompted to a like Christian love and activity on behalf of those who do not possess the gospel, or who, possessing it, slight and reject the mercy. The Spirit of Christ is essentially a missionary Spirit. He commenced his labor of love at Jerusalem, and from that center, he worked his way with augmenting sympathy and widening sphere until he embraced the whole world as the field of his labor.
Ah! The fact that you manifest so little of this Spirit, ought to lead you to deep searchings of heart. It ought to stir you up to earnest prayer: "Lord, make me more earnest for the salvation of souls, for the advancement of your kingdom. Grant me this evidence of being yours—the possession of your Spirit constraining me to a more simple and unreserved consecration of my talents, my substance, my rank, my influence, my time, myself, to the establishment of your truth, the advancement of your cause, and thus to the wider spreading of your glory in the earth."
Make me a captive, Lord,
and then I shall be free;.
force me to render up my sword,
and I shall conqueror be;
I sink in life's alarms
when by myself I stand;
imprison me within your arms,
and strong shall be my hand.
My heart is weak and poor
until it Master find;
it has no spring of action sure—
it varies with the wind;
it cannot freely move
till you have wrought its chain;
enslave it with your matchless love,
and deathless it shall reign.
My power is faint and low
till I have learned to serve;
it lacks the needed fire to glow,
it lacks the breeze to nerve;
it cannot drive the world
until itself is driven;
its flag can only be unfurled
when you shall breathe from heaven.
My will is not my own
till you have made it thine;
if it would reach a monarch's throne,
it must its crown resign.
It only stands unbent
amid the clashing strife,
when on your bosom it has leaned,
and found in you its life.
(George Matheson, 1890; mod., 2009)
Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.
Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2011.
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