Why Most Spirit-Filled Believers Stop Growing and How to Break Free.
Brethren, let me tell you about something I witnessed that shook me to my core.
A young Russian believer received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the power of God fell on him in such a mighty way that everywhere he went, miracles followed. People were healed. Demons were cast out and hardened sinners fell to their knees weeping. Some sisters in the church were amazed and wanted to know his secret.
What they discovered changed everything they thought they knew about walking in the spirit.
But before I tell you what that secret was. I need you to understand something that most believers today have completely missed.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12: 1 now concerning spiritual gifts Brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant.
Here’s the incredible story of what happens when God’s people refuse to settle for yesterday’s encounter with him.
There is a great weakness in the Church of Christ today, and it comes from an awful ignorance concerning the Spirit of God and the gifts he has come to bring.
God would have us powerful on all lines because of the revelation of the knowledge of his will concerning the power and manifestation of his Spirit.
He would have us ever hungry to receive more and more of his Spirit.
Let me be blunt with you, church. I have arranged many conventions over the years, and I have discovered something that will shock most believers.
I would rather have a man on my platform who has not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but who is hungry for all that God has for him, than a man who has received the baptism and is satisfied and has settled down and become stationary and stagnant.
Now, of course, I would prefer a man who is baptized with the Holy Ghost and is still hungry for more of God. But here’s what you need to hear.
A man who is not hungry to receive more of God is out of order in any convention. He is out of order in the kingdom of God. Think about this for a moment.
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of being filled with the Spirit. It is impossible for us to meet the conditions of the day, to walk in the light as he is in the light, to subdue kingdoms and work righteousness and bind the power of Satan unless we are filled with the Holy Ghost.
Now, I have been associated with a group of believers called the Plymouth Brethren for some years. These are wonderful people. They are very strong on the word of God; they are sound on water baptism. They do not neglect the breaking of bread service, and they have it every Lord’s Day morning, just as they had it in the early church.
These people seem to have everything except one thing. They have wood, but they need the fire. Without that fire, they would never be ablaze. Because they lack the fire of the Holy Spirit, there is no life in their meetings.
Listen to what happened. One young man who attended their meetings received the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gave utterance.
The brethren were very upset about this disturbance. They came to the father and said to him, “You must take your son aside and tell him to cease”. They did not want any disturbance.
The father told the son and said, “My boy”, I have been attending this church for twenty years and have never seen anything of this kind. We are established in the truth and do not want anything new. We won’t have it.
But here’s where it gets interesting. The son replied, if that is God’s plan, I will obey. But somehow or other, I don’t think it is.
As they were going home that day, something extraordinary happened. The horse stood still. The wheels were stuck in deep ruts, the father pulled at the reins, but the horse did not move he asked his son. What do you think is up?
You won’t believe what the son answered. He looked at his father and said. It has got established glory to God that horse became a prophetic picture. God save us from becoming stationary God save us from getting so established that we can’t move forward with him.
Now let me tell you what that young Russian secret was. Those sisters discovered that the secret of his power was continuous waiting upon God.
As the Holy Ghost filled him, it seemed as though every breath became a prayer. And so, all his ministry was on an increasing line. Do you hear that?
An increasing line. Not a flat line. Not yesterday’s experience. An increasing line.
I know a man who was full of the Holy Ghost and would preach only when he knew that he was mightily anointed by the power of God.
He was asked to preach at a Methodist church. He was staying at the minister’s house, and he said, you go on to church, and I will follow. The place was packed with people, and this man did not turn up.
The Methodist minister became anxious and sent his little girl to inquire why he did not come. But what the little girl heard will amaze you.
As she came to the bedroom door, she heard him crying out three times, I will not go.
She went back and reported that she heard the man say three times that he would not go.
The minister was deeply troubled about it. But almost immediately after this, the man came in. And as he preached that night, the power of God was tremendously manifested.
The Methodist minister asked him later, why did you tell my daughter that you were not coming?
Listen to his answer. He said, “I know when I am filled”. I am an ordinary man, and I told the Lord that I dared not go and would not go until he gave me a fresh filling of the Spirit.
The moment the glory filled me and overflowed, I came to the meeting.
Yes, beloved, there is a power. A blessing, an assurance, a rest in the presence of the Holy Ghost.
You can feel his presence and know that he is with you. You need not spend an hour without this inner knowledge of his holy presence.
With his power upon you, there can be no failure. You are above power all the time.
Acts 2:17, And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh.
This is the Gentile Day. When the Jews refused the blessings of God, he scattered them, and he has grafted the Gentiles into the olive tree where the Jews were broken off.
There never has been a time when God has been so favorable to a people who were not a people. He has brought in the Gentiles to carry out his purpose of preaching the gospel to all nations and to receive the power of the Holy Ghost to accomplish this task. Now here is something critical that most people miss.
1 Corinthians 12:3 Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.
There are many evil, deceiving spirits sent forth in these last days who endeavor to rob Jesus of his lordship and of his rightful place.
Many are opening the doors to these latest devils, such as New Theology and New Thought and Christian Science.
These evil cults deny the fundamental truths of God’s Word. They all deny eternal punishment, and all deny the deity of Jesus Christ.
Listen carefully. You will never see the baptism of the Holy Ghost come upon a man who accepts these errors.
The all-important thing is to make Jesus Lord. Men can grow lopsided by emphasizing the truth of divine healing. Man can get wrong by all the time preaching on water baptism.
But we never go wrong in exalting the Lord Jesus Christ, giving him the preeminent place, and magnifying him as both Lord and Christ. Yes, as very God of very God.
As we are filled with the Holy Ghost, our one desire is to magnify him. We need to be filled with the Spirit to get the full revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God’s command is for us to be filled with the Spirit. We are no good if we have only a full cup. We need to have an overflowing cup all the time.
It is a tragedy not to live in the fullness of overflowing. See that you never live below the overflowing tide.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:4, There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
Every manifestation of the Spirit is given that we might profit.
When the Holy Spirit is moving in an assembly and his gifts are in operation, everyone will receive profit.
But here’s where many believers make a terrible mistake. I have seen some who have been terribly switched. They believe in gifts, in prophecy, and they use these gifts apart from the power of the Holy Ghost.
We must look to the Holy Spirit to show us the use of the gifts, what they are for, and when to use them, so that we may never use them without the power of the Holy Ghost.
I do not know of anything which is so awful today as people using a gift without the power. Never do it. God save us from doing it.
Here’s something that will revolutionize your understanding. A man who is filled with the Holy Ghost while he may not be conscious of having any gift of the Spirit, can have the gifts made manifest through him.
I have gone to many places to help and have found that under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, many wonderful things have happened in the midst, when the glory of the Lord was upon the people.
Any man who is filled with God and filled with his Spirit might at any moment have any of the nine gifts made manifest through him without knowing that he has a gift.
Sometimes I have wondered whether it was better to be always full of the Holy Ghost, and to see signs and wonders and miracles without any consciousness of possessing a gift, or whether it was better to know one has a gift.
If you have received the gifts of the Spirit, and they have been blessed, you should never, under any circumstances, use them without the power of God upon you, pressing the gift through.
Some have used the prophetic gift without the holy touch, and they have come into the realm of the natural, and it has brought ruin, caused dissatisfaction, broken hearts, upset assemblies.
Do not seek the gifts unless you are purposed to abide in the Holy Spirit. They should be manifested only in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:13, For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. Or if we are of sound mind, it is for you.
You can be beside yourself. You can go a bit further than being drunk in the spirit. You can dance, if you do it at the right time.
So many things are commendable when all the people are in the Spirit. Many things are very foolish if the people round about you are not in the Spirit.
We must be careful not to have a good time at the expense of somebody else. When you have a good time, you must see that the spiritual conditions in the place lend themselves to help you, and that the people are falling in line with you. Then you will find it always a blessing.
While it is right to covet earnestly the best gifts, you must recognize that the all-important thing is to be filled with the power of the Holy Ghost himself.
You will never have trouble with people who are filled with the power of the Holy Ghost. But you will have a lot of trouble with people who have the gifts and have no power.
The Lord wants us to come behind in no gift, but at the same time he wants us to be so filled with the Holy Ghost that it will be the Holy Spirit manifesting himself through the gifts.
Where the glory of God alone is desired, you can look for every needed gift to be made manifest.
Think about this picture. Watch that great locomotive boiler as it is filled with steam. You can see the engine letting off some of the steam as it remains stationary. It looks as though the whole thing might burst.
You can see saints like that. They start to scream, but that is not to edification. But when the locomotive moves on, it serves the purpose for which it was built and pulls along much traffic with it.
It is wonderful to be filled with the power of the Holy Ghost, and for Him to serve His own purposes through us. Through our lips, divine utterances flow, our hearts rejoice, and our tongue is glad.
It is an inward power within which is manifested in outward expression. Jesus Christ is glorified.
As your faith in Him is quickened, Jesus declares in John 7:38 He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
The Holy Spirit will pour through you like a great river of life, and thousands will be blessed because you are a yielded channel through whom the Spirit may flow.
The most important thing, the one thing that counts, is to see that we are filled with the Holy Spirit, filled to overflowing. Anything less than this is displeasing to God.
We are commanded by God to be filled with the Spirit, and in the measure, you fail of this, you are that far short of the plan of God.
The Lord would have us move on from faith to faith, from glory to glory, from fullness to overflowing. It is not good for us to be ever thinking in the past tense, but we should be moving on to the place where we dare believe God.
Acts 1:8 but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
I believe there is an avalanche of power from God to be apprehended if we will but catch the vision.
2 Corinthians 12:1, It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.
God has put us in a place where he expects us to have his latest revelation, the revelation of that marvelous fact. Christ in us, and what this really means.
We can apprehend Christ fully only as we are filled and overflowing with the Spirit of God.
Our only safeguard from dropping back into our natural mind, from which we can never get anything, is to be filled and yet filled again with the Spirit of God, and to be taken on to visions and revelations on a new line.
Do you want rest? It is in Jesus. Do you want to be saved from everything the devil is bringing up in these last times?
Receive and continue in the fullness of the Holy Ghost, and he will be ever revealing to you that all you need for all times is in Christ Jesus your Lord.
I desire to emphasize the importance of the Spirit’s ministration and of the manifestation of the Spirit, which is given to every man to profit.
As you yield to the Spirit of the Lord, he has power over your intellect, over your heart, and over your voice.
The Holy Spirit has power to unveil Christ and to project the vision of Christ upon the canvas of your mind, and then, he uses your tongue to glorify and magnify him in a way that you could never do, apart from the Spirit’s power.
Never say that when you are filled with the Holy Ghost you are obliged to do this or that.
When people say that they are obliged to do this or that I know it is not the Spirit of God but their own spirit moving them on to do that which is unseemly and unprofitable.
Let me share something personal with you. There was a time in my life when I got ahead of God. A godly man who lived opposite me, said my wife and I have been talking together about selling our house and we feel constrained to sell it to you. As we talked together, he persuaded me to buy his place, and before we said goodbye, I told him that I would take it.
We always make big mistakes when we are in a hurry. I told my wife what I had promised, and she said, how will you manage it? I told her that I had managed things so far, but I did not know how I was going to get through this.
I somehow knew that I was out of divine order. But when a fellow gets out of divine order, it seems that the last person he goes to, is God.
I was relying on an architect to help me, but that scheme fell through. I turned to my relations, and I certainly had a wet shirt, as one after another turned me down. I tried my friends and managed no better.
My wife said to me, you have never been to God yet. What could I do?
I have a certain place in our house where I go to pray. I have been there very often. As I went, I said, Lord, if you will get me out of this scrape, I will never trouble you on this line again.
As I waited on the Lord, he just gave me one word. It seemed a ridiculous thing, but it was the wisest counsel.
There is divine wisdom in every word he speaks. I came down to my wife, saying, what do you think?
The Lord has told me to go to Brother Webster. I said, it seems very ridiculous, for he is one of the poorest men I know. He was the poorest man I knew but he was also the richest man I knew. For he knew God. My wife said do what God says and it will be right. I went off at once to see him, and he said as he greeted me what brings you so early. I answered the word of God.
I said to him about three weeks ago I promised to buy a house and I am 100 pounds short. I have tried to get this money but somehow, I seem to have missed God.
But what he said next will shock you. How is it, he asked, that you have come to me only now?
I answered, because I went to the Lord about it only last night. Well, he said, it is a strange thing. Three weeks ago, I had 100 pounds. For years I have been putting money into a cooperative system, and three weeks ago I had to go and draw 100 pounds out. I hid it under the mattress. Come with me, and you shall have it. Take it. I hope it will bring as great a blessing to you as it has been a trouble for me.
I had had a word from God, and all my troubles were ended. This has been multiplied in a hundred ways since that time.
If I had been walking along filled with the Holy Ghost, I would not have bought that house and would not have had all that strain.
I believe the Lord wants to loose us from things of earth, but I am ever grateful for that word from God.
1 Corinthians 12:8, for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit.
I want you to keep in mind the importance of never expecting the gifts of the Spirit apart from the power of the Spirit.
In coveting the best gifts, covert to be so full of God and his glory that the gifts in manifestation will always glorify him.
We do not know all, and we cannot know all that can be brought forth in the manifestation of the word of wisdom.
One word of wisdom from God, one flash of light on the word of God, is sufficient to save us from a thousand pitfalls.
People have built without a word from God they have bought things without a word from God and they have been ensnared. They have lacked that word of wisdom which will bring them into God’s plan for their lives.
There have been times in my life when I have been in great crises and under great weight of intercession. I have gone to the meeting without the knowledge of what I would say, but somehow or other God would provide the coming forth under the power of the Spirit of some word of wisdom, just what some souls in that meeting needed.
As we look to God, his mind will be made known, and his revelation and his word of wisdom will be forthcoming.
God has sent forth this outpouring that we may all be brought into a revelation of our sonship. We are sons of God, men of power. We are to be like the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to have the powers of sonship, the power to lay hold of that which is weak and to quicken it.
The baptism of the Spirit is to make us sons of God with power. We shall be conscious of our human limits, but we shall not limit the Holy One who has come to dwell within.
We must believe that since the Holy Ghost has come upon us, we are indeed sons of God with power.
Never say that you can’t. All things are possible to them that believe. Launch out into the deep and believe that God has his all for you and that you can do all things through him who strengthens you.
Think about Peter and John. They knew that they had been in the upper room. They had felt the glory. They had been given divine utterances. They had seen conviction on the people. They knew that they had come into a wonderful thing. They knew that what they had would be ever increasing, and that it would be ever needful to cry, Enlarge the vessel that the Holy Ghost may have more room within.
They knew that all the old things were moved away, and they had entered into an increasing and ever-increasing knowledge of God, and that it was their master’s wish that they should be filled with the Spirit of God and with power every day and every hour.
The secret of power is the unveiling of Christ, the all-powerful one within. The revelation of God who comes to abide within us.
As they looked upon the crippled man at the Beautiful Gate they were filled with compassion, they were prompted by the Spirit to stop and speak with him. They said to the lame man look on us. It was God’s plan that the man should open his eyes with expectation.
Peter said in Acts 3: 6 silver and gold I do not have but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.
Peter did not know exactly what he had, but he gave it.
It is all in the name of Jesus. And then began the ministry of God. You begin in faith and you see what will happen.
It is hidden from us at the beginning, but as we have faith in God, he will come forth. The coming forth of the power is not of us, but of God. There is no limit to what he will do. It is all in a nutshell, as you believe God.
And the man who had been in that way for forty years stood up and began to leap, and entered into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God.
Brothers and sisters, here is what I need you to hear with everything in you. Most Christians today have settled for yesterday’s experience with God. They received the baptism of the Holy Spirit years ago and they talk about it like it was the highlight of their spiritual life. But they are living on memories instead of fresh encounters.
This is the tragedy of our day, you have believers who were once on fire for God, who once saw miracles, who once walked in power but now they are dry, they are like that stationary locomotive full of steam but going nowhere.
They have become established, set in their ways, comfortable with their current level of spirituality.
Listen to me carefully. God did not baptize you in the Holy Spirit so you could coast for the rest of your life.
He did not fill you with power so you could settle down and become satisfied.
Paul writes in Ephesians 5:18, Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.
That word filled is in the present continuous tense. It means keep on being filled. Keep on being filled. Keep on being filled.
Most Christians will never do this. Most Spirit-filled believers will never pay the price of continuous waiting on God.
They will not take the time to get alone with God and refuse to move until he fills them fresh.
They will not hunger and thirst after more of his presence. They will be satisfied with the fullness they received last year, last month, last week.
But God is calling you to something higher. He is calling you to live on an increasing line, from glory to glory, from fullness to overflowing.
He wants you to be so filled with the Holy Ghost that every breath becomes a prayer, that his power flows through you like a mighty river, that miracles follow you wherever you go.
Here is your challenge, church. Starting today, you must refuse to be satisfied with yesterday’s anointing.
You must refuse to live below the overflowing tide. You must refuse to become stationary and stagnant.
Practically, this means you need to get back to the place of continuous waiting on God.
Before you minister, before you pray for the sick, before you speak, you must wait on God until you know that you are freshly filled.
Do not dare to move in your own strength. Do not dare to use gifts without the power of the Holy Ghost pressing through them.
This means you need to break the chains of spiritual routine. Many of you go through the motions of church, of prayer, of Bible reading, but there is no life in it because you are not freshly filled.
You need to cry out to God, Lord, I will not go until you give me a fresh filling of your Spirit.
This means you need to be honest about your spiritual condition. If you are dry, admit it. If you have settled, confess it. If you have become established in dead religion, acknowledge it.
Then get desperate for God again. Get hungry again. Get thirsty again.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit was never meant to be a one-time experience that you talk about for the rest of your life.
It was meant to be the beginning of a life of continuous fullness, continuous power, continuous increase. God wants you to be filled and filled again and filled again.
Remember what Paul writes in Romans 10:9, If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 14:9, For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
You are a son of God with power. You have the Holy Ghost dwelling within you. You have access to the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.
But you will never walk in that power if you settle for yesterday’s experience. You must be continuously filled. You must live on an increasing line. You must refuse to become stationary.
Church, I am telling you today that there is an avalanche of power available to you if you pay the price.
There are visions and revelations waiting for you if you will get desperate enough to wait on God.
There are miracles and signs and wonders that will follow you if you will refuse to move without the fresh anointing of the Spirit.
But most Christians will never pay that price. They will settle for the familiar. They will become comfortable with their current level.
They will talk about what God did years ago instead of what he is doing today. Do not be like them. Refuse to settle. Refuse to become stationary. Refuse to live below the overflowing tide.
Get hungry for God again. Wait on him until he fills you fresh. Move only when his power is upon you. Live on an increasing line from glory to glory, from fullness to overflowing, from faith to faith. This is your calling. This is your destiny. This is what it means to be a true son of God with power. Will you answer the call?
Father, in the mighty name of Jesus, we come before you today, desperate for a fresh filling of your Spirit.
We confess that we have become too comfortable, too satisfied with yesterday’s experiences, we have settled when you called us to overflow.
Lord, break the chains of spiritual mediocrity off our lives right now. Fill us fresh with your Holy Ghost. Let your power flow through us like a mighty river.
We refuse to move without your anointing. We refuse to minister without your power. We refuse to live below the overflowing tide.
Make us sons of God with power. Take us from glory to glory, from fullness to overflowing. Let every breath become a prayer. Let your glory be seen upon us. We will not settle. We will not become stationary. We declare that we are moving on an increasing line with you. Pour out your Spirit upon us now. In Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.
I believe with all my heart that as you have learned the truth about continuous filling today, you have been awakened to the danger of spiritual stagnation.
The understanding you have gained is already creating a holy dissatisfaction with spiritual mediocrity in your life.
Refuse to settle for yesterday’s anointing, be filled afresh with the Spirit today.
Here’s what this means practically. Set aside time each day before you do anything spiritual to wait on God until you feel His fresh presence.
Don’t pray for others. Don’t minister. Don’t speak until you know you are freshly filled.
Make it a daily discipline to refuse to move without the anointing.
Here’s what happens when you refuse to settle and stay filled with the Spirit.
You can heal the sick, cast out devils and even raise someone from the dead.
When we are filled with the Spirit the gifts of the Spirit can begin to operate. The gift of faith, the working of miracles. A word of knowledge of what God is about to do before it happens?
How would your life change if you could move from your limited faith into the very faith of Jesus Christ Himself?
Learn how the word of knowledge and the gift of faith operate in impossible situations and find out how you can move beyond your own faith into the limitless faith of Jesus Christ that laughs at impossibilities.
By Smith Wigglesworth