Good morning!  


I hope you are having a great day.  I am enjoying the sunshine for a change.  I appreciate the rain (I haven’t had to water my tomato plants for two weeks), but it is really nice to see the sun.  The only problem is I have yard work that is getting way ahead of me.  My theory is it will get done eventually.  


This morning I thought I would follow up on Sunday’s message on Stephen being full of the Holy Spirit with a Bible promise and a story.  As a young man, Oswald Chambers, of My Utmost For His Highest fame, battled a persistent sense of barrenness in his Christian life.  He finally wrote:  I was desperate.  I knew no one who had what I wanted; in fact I did not know what I did want.  But I knew that if what I had was all the Christianity there was, the thing was a fraud.  Then Luke 11:13 got hold of me.


[In case you’re wondering, Luke 11:13 says, If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!]


To continue Oswald Chambers’ story, he attended a little meeting in Dunoon, where in the after meeting a lady asked them to pray and sang the song, “Touch me again, Lord”.  Oswald Chambers says, “I felt nothing, but I knew emphatically my time had come.  I rose to my feet.  Then and there I claimed the gift of the Holy Spirit in dogged committal on Luke 11:13.”

I had no vision of heaven or of angels; I had nothing.  I was as dry and empty as ever, no power or realization of God, no witness of the Holy Spirit.  Then I was asked to speak at a meeting and forty souls came out to the front!  I came to realize that God intended me, having asked, to simply take it by faith, and that power would be there.  I might see it only by the backward look, but I was to reckon on the fact that God would be with me.

From that point on, Oswald Chambers ministered with unusual power.  His words and writings touched people around the world, especially when he taught, as he frequently did, from his favorite verse, Luke 11:13.  And when Oswald died at an early age in Egypt during World War I, an old Australian soldier, whom he had led to Christ had a Bible carved in stone for his grave.  Its pages were turned to Luke 11:13.

I hope you are continuing to pray, as I am, for a fresh outpouring of God’s Spirit.  As we sang on Sunday, “Holy Spirit, Rain Down…”  Let’s claim the promise of Luke 11:13.  Oh, how we need His power!
Yours in Christ,


Pastor Barry