Oh Spirit of the Living God

Michael E. Wood
April 21, 2011

Luke 11:13
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

Thanks be to God who faithfully proclaims to us the truths of which we have need of by His Spirit through the men of His choosing not only in the days of which we live, but has likewise left to us a heritage by those of which He hath showered His favor upon in days gone by and hath received up into glory. The following is an excerpt from a message preached by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, entitled, Our Urgent Need of the Holy Spirit.

“Daily, then, let us pray for the power of the Spirit as the Illuminator. Come, O blessed Light of God! You, alone, can break our personal darkness and only when You have enlightened us can we lead others in Your light! An ignorant Christian is disqualified for great usefulness, but he who is taught of God will teach transgressors God’s ways and sinners shall be converted unto Christ! Both to burn within and shine without you must have the illuminating Spirit!

III. One work of the Spirit of God is to create in Believers the spirit of ADOPTION.

“Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, whereby you cry, Abba, Father!” “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father!” We are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and so receive the nature of children—and that nature, which is given by Him, He continually prompts, excites, develops and matures—so that we receive day by day more and more of the childlike spirit. Now, Beloved, this may not seem to you to be of very great importance at first sight, but it is, for the Church is never happy except all her members walk as dear children towards God. Sometimes the spirit of slaves creeps over us—we begin to talk of the service of God as though it were heavy and burdensome—and are discontent if we do not receive present wages and visible success, just as servants do when they are not happy. But the spirit of adoption works for love, without any hope of reward, and it is satisfied with the sweet fact of being in the Father’s house and doing the Father’s will. This spirit gives peace, rest, joy, boldness and holy familiarity with God.

A man who never received the spirit of a child towards God does not know the bliss of the Christian life! He misses its flower, its savor, its excellence and I should not wonder if the service of Christ should be a weariness to him because he has never, yet, got to the sweet things and does not enjoy the green pastures where the Good Shepherd makes His sheep to feed and to lie down. But when the Spirit of God makes us feel that we are sons and daughters, and we live in the House of God to go no more out forever, then the service of God is sweet and easy and we accept the delay of apparent success as a part of the trial we are called to bear.

Now, mark you, this will have a great effect upon the outside world! A body of professors performing religion as a task, groaning along the ways of godliness with faces full of misery, like slaves who dread the lash, can have but small effect upon the sinners around them. They say, “Those people serve, no doubt, a hard master, and they are denying themselves this and that. Why should we be like they?” But bring me a Church made up of children of God—a company of men and women whose faces shine with their heavenly Father’s smile! Who are accustomed to take their cares and cast them on their Father as children should! Who know they are accepted and loved, and are perfectly content with the great Father’s will! Put them down in the midst of a company of ungodly ones and I will guarantee you they will begin to envy them their peace and joy. Thus happy saints become most efficient operators upon the minds of the unsaved! O blessed Spirit of God! Let us all, now, feel that we are the children of the great Father and let our childlike love be warm this morning! And so shall we be fit to go forth and proclaim the Lord’s love to the prodigals who are in the far-off land among the swine.”

Oh Spirit of the Living God
Please fall afresh on me
And teach me more of Christ my King
As wait I do for Thee.
For in the wrestling’s of my soul
No greater pleasure is
Than to know that He is mine
And I am truly His!


Forgive me for the many ways
That often I grieve You
And ignore Your promptings
By the Word You speak, that’s true.
And when I make the choices
Which are good not for my health,
Oh quickly bring me back to know
In Christ lies all true wealth.


And when I think on things
Which prove to be most ineffective,
Oh bring me back to Christ alone
Who Is our great Objective.
Oh break afresh the fallow ground
To see our lack of love,
Yet be encouraged by
Your tenderness Almighty Dove.


Refresh us by the Word of Grace
You gave in infancy
To know and love our Savior
As our hearts cry out and plea,
Dependant not on anything
That we have thought or done,
But only in the merit of
Our God and Father’s Son.