Develop Your Full Potential in Christ:
The Plan of Grace By Paris Reidhead*
During the past days several have asked a little bit about the matter of tape ministry. Let me just say a word I haven’t up until now. But during the time that I was in New York for 10 years every service was taped or at least every service that the tape machine was working. And that consequently, when I left the tabernacle in 1966 the men at the church asked if I’d want the tapes and of course I was grateful for them. A pastor up in Lexington, Massachusetts learned of this and he said look I like to take them and to classify them and edit them, get them ready, so they might be used.
Well, he kept them for a year or two and then one of the workers at the International Students in Washington ask just a simple little question, “Where can I get a tape?” Well, I mentioned this young man this pastor in Massachusetts. She wrote to him asked for a tape and he said look let me send them all to you. So she got boxes of them, two or three hundred of them. Which Ruth Lowe has edited them. She has gone thru them. She has taken them and put them into categories and into series and made has them available. Well, she asked about a series I’ve been bring here in the evenings if that was available and I said if you want them you will just have to go to Summit Grove and record them. So that’s precisely what’s been done so any of you that would like to have the series of the morning or the evening or both can obtain them. (garble) Iriumjara... ok. Said, “You know we had you with us for a missionary conference.” I said, “Is that so?” He said, “Yeah it was great.” He said, “When we’d get tired of you we could just shut you up and didn’t offend you. And if we didn’t understand, we could make you repeat until at least we knew what you said whether we understood or not. And we didn’t have to feed you. We didn’t have to listen to your old jokes and we didn’t have to push you over the mountain trail to get you from one place to another. Come back that way and do it again sometime.” Well this is one of the opportunities of serving and I think the tape ministry where ever and however and whose tapes you might use is a wonderful way of extending the ministry and I’m very grateful that this is possible. And I’m sure you that you will find not only the tapes of these messages but many others. It is a new way, it’s called in this case the Spoken Word. We have the written Word but I think that increasingly with busy people who have time driving they’re going to find that just putting a little cassette recorder down and even if you’ve got others in the car, you can still get one of these little ear clips and listen while you drive while others are listening to something else. But I think it’s one of the new ways that God has enabling us to assimilate His truth. Now that’s just by way of calling your attention to it.
Now we’ve been considering in the epistle to the Ephesians what I call the Developing Your Full Potential in Christ. I see this epistle as I’ve said day by day, as a manual of instruction to enable us to become everything that the Lord Jesus wanted us to be and to do.
Now I haven’t time this morning to go back over the ground we’ve covered. I merely call to your attention that we have seen we are partakers of His grace, the grace that God purposed before the foundations of the world. That the Son provided and the Holy Spirit will perfect in us. This grace includes the plan God’s working. He wants to live in us His own life. And the place from which we ministry seated with Him in the heavenlies. That God has provided this grace for us when He knew the very worst about us. There is nothing that we will find out about ourselves that’ll surprise Him or make Him change His mind about loving us. And that encourages me greatly. Then we have seen that God made a plan for our lives distinct tailor made plan for you. He has a plan for your life and it begins today. You can call to Him today and say, Father I want Thy will to be done in my life on earth today even as it is perfectly done in heaven.
Now we want to see that this plan is so wonderful. It is so far above everything that we have dreamed about ourselves that the only way that it could possibly be brought into being and become affective was for the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself to live His life and accomplish His purpose through us. Now we need to understand that. You know that verse in that sort of summarizes it in John 15: “Abide in me, and I in you.” (John 15:4a) Look at it for a moment. “Abide in me,” crucified with Me, that you might
have victory over yourself, your habits, your attitudes, and your disposition. Victory over yourself through your union with Christ in His death your moment by moment looking to Him for release from the power of temptation.
Then abide in Him, buried with Him that you might have victory over the world. This world that seduces and allures. That would draw us, and did draw us, and does, but there is victory. “Abide in me,” said Christ. Buried with Me. Because you know how ever enthusiastic we may have been about the new models of the automobiles, after we’re died the salesman doesn’t go out to our head stone and tell us how high the tailfins are that year. It doesn’t make much difference we just aren’t interested. Buried with Him sort shall we say insolates us against that sort of thing.
Then the next thing is, “Abide in Him,” quickened with Him. That your life, the life brought you from the dead is the very resurrection life of Christ. Raised with Him. To return to your old community and your old associates, but not in your old strength, in His. Seated with Him. “Abide in me,” said Christ. Seated in the heavenlies in Me. That you might enjoy My victory and understand that I have entrusted to you the enforcement of that conquest that I made of the god of this world. So He said, “Abide in me and I will abide in you.” Now one is conditioned upon the other. Christ abiding in us is not synonymous with being forgiven. It is not synonymous with being pardoned and being saved. It is synonymous with or it depends upon our understanding of what it means to abide or live or dwell in Him.
Well, we’ve been seeing this from Ephesians. I just call it to your attention from John 15. No Scripture is private or single interpretation. The Scripture supports itself and bears itself out.
Now today I want you to look at that aspect of it, if you please. And I will abide in, or live or dwell in you. We see this in Ephesians chapter 3 and verses 14 to 21. Here the apostle is writing to the church at Ephesus and through them to us. And he is telling us that the desire of God is that Jesus Christ might dwell, live, reside, in our hearts through faith. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. It’s a prayer.
Years ago, tremendously helped by ministry of Brother George Mandell from Maranatha Tabernacle in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania and they asked me there for a conference some years ago. And I was delighted that they prayed in the worship service this prayer. The whole congregation had learned it and they pray it in unison: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” (Eph. 3:14-19)
Is it interesting that the only one of the letters of Paul, where the apostle put the benediction in the middle of the letter is in Ephesians. Every other one, he can wait. He can control himself until he finishes the letter, but he can’t here. Why? Why he has just told these dear people at Ephesus that they can be “filled unto all of the fullness of God.” And so his hands go up and remember he is dictated this letter in Mamertine Prison in Roman in that prison or the household jail of Nero of Caesar. And he has a chain around his wrist and a chain to a soldier on the right and another chain around his wrist to a soldier on the left. And he is there in that little place only about 18 feet square kind of an eight sided little room, I’ve been in repeatedly. And there he raises his hands and he shakes the chains rattle as he says, “Now unto to Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. Unto to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” Then he starts out with the rest of the letter. But he has the benediction right in the middle, because he couldn’t wait. It was so exciting! It was so thrilling! You know it was one thing for these gentiles to be built into the temple, the habitation of God middle wall of partition broken down, but to think that Christ will dwell in their hearts and that they would be fill with the fullness of God.
Boy, that is exciting. Well, is it exciting to you? Do the people that you live with see Christ living in you, in me? They should you know. We often hear people talk about the deeper life or the Christ’s life or the exchanged life or the sanctified life. And all of those are good words. I think I understand a little bit of what they mean depending upon who uses the word. The thing here is different. This is just the normal Christian life, which means if I’m not living here, I am subnormal. I am below standard. I’m
below par. I’m not what I ought to be. Okay, if that’s true, then the question is, are you? Are you today a normal Christian? Is this prayer answered in you? Is Jesus Christ living in you?
Years ago, I had a marvelous background in a sense and I thank God for it. I was saved at an old, old Methodist holiness camp meeting. I told you about it the other night. It was trilling, because it gave me a flavor, an openness. But you know it wasn’t long until I went to a Bible school that was thoroughly dispensational. Now the camp meeting people believed that you were saved when you were sanctified and that was great. God saved me there. I believed anything they taught me. Wouldn’t you? Well, when I got to Bible school, I learned a different language. And I was taught there that well that just wasn’t what happened. You were saved and sanctified at the same time. And you got everything God had to give you at that time that you were saved.
Well, there were a lot of problems involved in course. Some of the dear friends in the holiness side. They said that the Spirit of God was with you when you were saved and in you when you were sanctified. That didn’t make sense to me, because I read, “If any man not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” (Rom. 8:9) So that immediately made me question whether what I had been taught was true or not. And then I took the word saved and I found it was used many different ways. You could say, I have been saved, I was saved, I am being saved, and I shall be saved. And that’s what the Bible teaches. It’s true. Every one of those expressions it could be used. I have been saved from the pleasure of sin. I was saved from the penalty of sin. I am being saved from the power of sin. I shall be saved from the presents of sin. And that made since. Then I heard also, sanctified before the foundation of the world. We were sanctified. In the fullness of time we were sanctified and we shall be.
Well, I ended up...boy I ended up kind of confused, but I wasn’t confused enough to know that I was confused. I was just confused enough to be dogmatic. And to make absolutely sure they everybody knew how dogmatic I was, even though I didn’t how confused I was. But this was the teaching, when you were saved you got everything there was to get. And then they use to say and I use to say, you know you get all there is to get of God when you were saved, it’s just Him to get more of you.
Well, you see a person can’t come in parts. And if you get the Lord, you get all there is to the Lord. Well, if He can’t come in parts, He can’t go in parts either, can He? If He can’t come in parts, then He can’t get more of you either because you’ve got to make sauce for the goose sauce for the gander. It has to be a two way street. It can’t be all one way traffic. So there was a lot of confusion about this, but isn’t it marvelous God doesn’t get confused. And there was a hungry in my heart.
I remember, John Wingett a great Methodist missionary from Africa came to Taylor University. He would speak and the presences of God was on him and the glory of God was through his ministry. I went to his room one time and I said, “Please explain to me what you have?” And he started to explain and all my teaching rose up. I was polite enough not to do it, but when I left, I said, Boy is he confused. He doesn’t know a thing. I could set him straight if I was a little older. But the next day I went back and he spoke and I was straight and I had all the answers and he had the glory of God. I went back the next night and I said, Brother, I want you to pray for me, don’t try to explain it to me. Just pray that whatever it is that God has done for you, He’ll do for me.
Well, he prayed for me. And I am sure that I was so chalked full of my own egotism, my own dogmatism, my own, you know, my own arguments that even God in His grace couldn’t slip very much in. But I went to the mission field and there I discovered myself. I found out that I had taken with me a critical mind, a sarcastic tongue, a censorious spirit that I wasn’t as spiritual as I knew I ought to be. And the only way I could live with myself was to prove nobody else was either. So then the sarcasm and the criticism found its way out. And I can recall when I had said something unkind and cutting to a fellow missionary. Going to my room and getting down and groaning before God saying, “Oh God, if you’ll forgive this once, I’ll never do it again.” Pressed my finger nails into my hand, grit my teeth till I loosened them, you know. “Lord I promise you.” God forgave me. And I did it again. Because victory doesn’t come from how deep your finger nails are in the heel of your hand. It doesn’t come from how you grin your teeth. That’s not the source of victory. Victory is in Christ. Christ is our life and our victory. And I didn’t know how to appropriate it.
And I came back home and as a missionary asked to do Deputation work and I went to this little conference, Crystal Beach down near Clearwater, Florida. I didn’t know who it was or what it was, but I hear this preacher from Philadelphia. And he
started to speak and the first time I heard him I said, He knows the Word. The next time I saw him I said, He knows the Word very well. The third time I heard him I said, Why he knows me. And the fourth time I said He knows the Lord. And I was there listening to him. And I recall his telling one day, “Do you know why you have been living at a poor failing rate? Why are you in such a mess? Why your life is such an up and down experience? You’ve never looked at the cross from the inside. You’ve only seen the outside Christ dying for you. And you didn’t realize He not only died for you, but He died as you. Turn around dear heart, look at the cross from the inside.” And it was like running a shade up. When it was dark inside and the sun was bright outside and God allowed me to see the day that Christ died, I died. I don’t have to think dead, play dead or act dead or crucify myself or anything else. The day the Lord Jesus Christ died for me, I died with Him. I don’t have to feel it. I have to know it. Knowing this, not pretending. Knowing that that you are died in the eyes of God just as Christ died for you, you died with Him.
So I went home to my room and I took a piece of paper and I wrote down a little contract: “Father, from today on as long as I live I that I am by nature is going to stay here crucified with Christ. Buried with Him. Quickened with Him. Raised with Him. Seated with Him. I reckon myself to be dead.” The next day another missionary from another society came on the grounds. And he got me against a tree and he started to tell me what was wrong with our mission. And then he started to tell me what was wrong with me. Normally, I’d have been like this waiting to get my word in. All of a sudden, I realized that that criticism, censorious, sarcasm wasn’t working. It was like looking at a stage from an upper balcony looking through the wrong end of the a pair of opera glasses. There was an element of distance. And when there was a chance to get a word in I said, “Please brother, you will have to pardon me something marvelous has just happened.” Then when I walked away, I am sure he thought among all my other problems, I had just lost my mind. Cause I didn’t tell him what he was expecting or reason to expect from me. I went back to praise the Lord. May this was a delight to be able to tell people that God does give us victory.
I was up in a meeting at a little church in Louisville, Kentucky. Talking about union with Christ, identification with Christ. And a dear little lady came to me and she said, “You know, this is wonderful, but oh brother, I am praying that God is going to fill you with the Holy Spirit.” Boy, talk about knowing how to hurt a guy. You’re putting a pin into his little balloon. She sure did to me. Well, I said, “Thank you sister for praying for me.” Like D. L. Moody1 and those two women in Chicago. Every time they would have an alter call and people would come forward and he saw them, he would say, “Pray for the sinners.” “No, Mr. Moody, we are praying for you.” It got so he would walk around the building, rather than see them. Because they would say, “Mr. Moody, we are praying for you that you’ll be baptized by the Holy Spirit. That you will be filled with the Spirit.” That’s the way it was with this sister. Every time she came to church she’d say, “Thank you brother, but I am praying that you’re filled with the Holy Spirit.” Well this cut right a crossed. I knew didn’t I that when I was born again, I didn’t know identification, now I had it.
Then I began to study the Word and do you know what I discovered? I discovered that the Word teaches to my satisfaction that there are two very clear distinct crisis in the Christian life as far as I am concerned. One is proceeded by a process that issues into a crisis and then that’s followed by a process that issues into a crisis which is followed by a process.
Now, let’s talk about the first crisis is being born of the Spirit. Now there is a process. We’re awakened by the Spirit. We’re brought to conviction. Brought to repentance. Faith that reaches out to receive Christ. What’s happening? The Holy Spirit is presenting Christ to us. Christ the Savior. We’re sinners. And He is presenting Christ to us as Lord and Savior. Tells us what sin is. What repentance is. What salvation is. And then we are born of the Spirit. Then God witnesses to us that we are born again.
We move on in the Christian life and some failure over takes us. We stumble and fall. We deal with it on the bases of brokenness. Confessing it, forsaking it knowing the cleansing of the blood, but yearning and long for victory. Then hopefully someone is going to tell us that victory comes through our union with Christ in His death, in His buried, in His resurrection. And then we are going to say, well isn’t that glorious now I have victory. And here I was teaching victory. And God even aggravated a little further, because He gave me an anointing missionary ministry. And so I was ministering and God was honoring and giving us young people for mission service and money for missions. But my heart was so desperately hungry for the fullness of Christ. And I began to read the Word. In the Scripture I found that they had repented of their sins and they believed and they
1 Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899) An American evangelist and publisher who founded Moody Church
were baptized. And then the apostle prayed for them and that they would be filled with the Spirit. Paul met Christ on the road to Damascus and then a certain disciple Ananias prayed for him that he might be filled with the Spirit. So there was a second crisis. Born of the Spirit for the first one and filled with the Spirit the second one. When that point of simply abandoning to Him all that we were and all that we had.
Now someone might ask me, “Can’t that happen all at once?” Sure, I suppose it can. There is some evidence that may have done that for Cornelius. You know very few people can look two places at once. And I’m not going to argue. God filled you with Himself when you were converted, when you were born again. Praise the Lord! Only one thing, don’t presume, don’t presume you’re converted. Opportunity to have the witness of the Spirit. And don’t presume you are filled with the Spirit. Don’t presume. No. No. No. Everything in the Christian life is to be known. Reality. You can know just as you can know that you aren’t converted and aren’t saved, you can know that you are. And just that you know that you have been born of the spirit, you can know that you are filled with the Spirit.
I remember Dr. Tozer2 spoke at the tabernacle so many years for us at our missionary conference. Almost every year I asked him to talk to us about how to be filled with the Spirit. He said this, “Everyone filled with the Spirit, knows it. Everybody filled with the Spirit knows when. And everyone filled with the Spirit was filled suddenly.” And if you like that you would buy his little book out there at the book store I’m sure on How to be Filled with the Holy Spirit. You’ll see precisely what he gave to us year after year.
Now that is what the apostle is praying for this church in Ephesus. That they will be strengthen with might by His Spirit deep in the inner man. Obviously they are converted, they’ve been born again. They are saints faithful in Christ. And he is crying out to God for them that they will be prepared to meet the conditions, so that Christ can take up His lasting dwelling place. It is an interesting construction in the Greek. “That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit deep in the inner man; in order that our Christ may be able.” That is the literal exact translation of the words that are there. In order that our Christ may be able to take up His lasting dwelling place in your heart through faith. Now obviously He was there, but what He yearn for was that the entire personality might be filled with Him.
F.B. Meyer3 gave it. Have you ever bought that little book, Moody Colportage Library Number 37? It’s called The Christ Life for Self Life. And F.B. Meyer tells in that book he says, “Everything done by Christ in the three years of His public ministry was done by the third Person of the Trinity the Holy Spirit, not the second.” You see if Christ had performed His ministry in His own intrinsic essential deity as Son, He’d never be like us. But He lied part His right to act as Son. He accepted the limitations of His humanity. He presented His body to the Father and everything done by our Lord Jesus was done by the Father through the Holy Spirit, so that He could be just like you. So what are we? He was born of the Spirit? Sure, conceived by the Holy Spirit in dwelt by the fullness of the Godhead bodily, but the Spirit of God came upon Him. Then He said the Spirit of the Lord. He didn’t say the Spirit of the Lord is in Me. It’d been in Him, the Spirit of the Lord is ‘epy’ upon Me. He has anointed Me. He has sent Me. And forty-seven times in the book of John, He says I don’t speak of myself I speak as I receive commandment of my Father. I don’t do the works. “The Father that dwellth in Me He doth the works.” (John 14:10b) Oh Why? So He could be like us. We too are born of the Spirit, but we’re not ready for our ministry until we are filled with the Spirit. That’s what Paul is praying for. He isn’t using the word Spirit here. He is talking about Christ dwelling in their hearts through faith.
You know you go into a church and you talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They shut you off and perhaps close you out. You go in and talk about Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith and being filled with the fullness of God. I’ll go to a Presbyterian or a Baptist church and I talk from Ephesians 3 and they say, “Praise the Lord brother! That’s what we want to hear.” But if somebody came and started talking about being filled with the Spirit, they would close them right down. But why? What’s the difference? He is saying that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith that we might be filled with the fullness of God. That’s what he is talking about. Meeting the condition. Relinquishing the right to our right.
2 Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897-1963) Pastor and Author, Christian and Missionary Alliance Magazine Editor 3 Frederick Brotherton Meyer (1847-1929) A Baptist Pastor
F.B. Meyer uses the illustration of keys. And he says the Lord appeared to him and said I want the keys to your life. He gave all but one or two little ones. And the Lord said, well, I can’t have those then I can’t meet your need. He took the keys put them into the hands of the Lord and then he said it was like a pitcher being poured. He just knew that his great deep yearning, longing that had driven him so long had been satisfied in Christ.
Alright, that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. That Christ may take up His lasting dwelling place, that’s what Paul is praying for these believers. Now of himself he said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20) He could have say, “I am crucified with Christ.” I am buried with Him. I am quicken with Him. I am raised with Him. I am seated with Him. “Nevertheless I live,” I presented my body to Him and Lord Jesus Christ is taking up His lasting dwelling place in my heart through faith and I am walking in the fullness of God. He just chose to express it, the Spirit of God had him gave it another way. That Christ shall dwell in our hearts through faith here. That “I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
Now it is the same thing. Two crisis then born of the Spirit, filled with the Spirit. And I am asking you, are you living this normal Christian life? Are you? Well, if you aren’t, you should be. Your family deserves it. I told you the other day about Reginald Wallace of England, who said on occasion, “The happiest day of his Christian life was the day he discovered he couldn’t live it.” And I remind you again, have you discovered that? And I suggest again that if you haven’t your family sure has. They know you can’t live the Christian life. They know I can’t live the Christian life.
I remember one time Dr. Tozer wrote an editorial and a lot of his dear friends, some of them said he shouldn’t publish it. And then he published it and a lot of them wrote to him and said he shouldn’t have written it and shouldn’t have published it. He wrote a retraction the next time in the Witness magazine. He told how sorry he was that he had injured the dear brother of whom he had spoken whose translation had offended Dr. Tozer. He said, but you know something what you saw in that editorial was pure Tozer. That’s all it is. That’s what I am and if there is anything other than that then it has to be of the Lord. Well, you know in a sense that’s a great man that can turn his failure to even make it further the Gospel.
You can’t live the Christian life and your family knows it. Your friends know it. Your congregation knows it. And the Lord certainly knows it. I can’t live the Christian life. It is His life. I’m not Christ. I’m just me. And if I’m going to live the Christian life and all the pressures that are there, it can’t be me. I don’t have that kind of ability or intelligence or energy. Oh here what’s His plan? That the Lord Jesus can take up His lasting dwelling place in our hearts through faith that we might be filled unto the fullness of God.
There was a dear woman who was the house matron at Wheaton College. I was speaking down at Ben Lipton Bible conference, no, I was speak at Camp Lo-Ma-Co at Hendersonville, N.C. for the Alliance. And they came out and this dear lady said, “Can I talk with you?” So we were sitting on the porch of the hotel in Hendersonville. She told of this experience and with this I close. She said normally...she had been invited to go back to her friends in Augusta, Georgia for Christmas this year. This would have been back in 1958 or 59. She said she just couldn’t. There was some missionary’s children there at school and she felt she had to stay. And she wanted to seek the Lord, because her heart was so hungry for God. And she just knew there was something the Lord wanted. So she read. She read various books. She read the Scriptures and she’d pray. One afternoon she had been up much of the night before with a homesick missionary’s child. And she took a nap in the afternoon. She said she had a dream and in this dream was her stand in her room there in her little apartment in the dorm. And a large bowl, like a fish bowl and she had a Christmas tree there with ornaments. These were ornaments, but they didn’t have any hooks just color balls that filled this bowl. And it seem to her that she heard the Lord say, you want to fill me well will this bowl is like your heart. If you’ll take the objects out of it and I’ll fill it. She said in her dream she got up and she looked at them. And each one of these colored balls had a name. One was a person in her life. Another was a possession that was being disputed. And each had a name. She looked at them and the answer, the word had been, if you’ll take them out. So she took out the easy ones out first. And then she got down to just two left and she said, Lord I can’t, I can’t. And then she prayed and she said, Lord give me grace to lift my hands. Give me grace to put it down. Give me grace to lift it. Give me grace to let go of it. And then she said, for each step she prayed and it was like strength being released deep within her. And then she did with the last praying for grace, inward grace to release the things, which she didn’t realize how precious they were to her. And she was now giving up the right to her rights.
She laid them by and then she said it was like a pitcher that came out and filled. And when she awakened she knew precisely what she should do. She said, brother Reidhead, I knelt there by my bed alone with Him and I dealt with those things that I had seen. And then I just lifted my heart with childlike faith and thanked Him that He had shown me those things standing in the way of the satisfying of my heart with His goodness and His fullness. And she said, I knew before I went to the evening meal that night that He had taken up His lasting dwelling place that I had been filled with the Spirit of God.
What did Dr. Tozer say? Everyone filled with the Spirit, knows it. Everyone filled with the Spirit, knows when. And everyone filled with the Spirit, was filled suddenly. I believe that. And so this morning, I am asking you, what is He saying to the church at Ephesus and to us? Christ wants to dwell in our hearts through faith. Oh, this dispensationalist has come a long way, come a long, long way. How glad I am that this is the truth of Christ unanswerable, unanswerable.
If someone says, “How can it be?” Well, look the Holy Spirit was in Christ when He came on Christ, though He could have brought life to you, but not to have brought fullness. As He is so are we in the world born of the Spirit to be filled with the Spirit.
Let’s bow together in prayer. We’re not going to give a long invitation today because we don’t think we should. But if your heart is here and you are hungry then we invite you to come. It is much better to seek Him than something else, if the Spirit of God is stirring you. How glad we are that what we are talking is reality.
Now, Father of Jesus, before us is a company of earnest men and women that have come out in the middle of the day simply and only because they want Thy Word. And they want to heard from Thee. There are some Lord that have needs and some that have deep hungers. Some have yearning and longing and we’re praying today Father to those to whom Thou has spoken today. Those whose hearts Thou has stirred will do the wise and appropriate thing. And search for Thee, for You have said you shall seek for Me and Ye shall find Me when you shall seek for Me with all your heart. How grateful we are Father that You have condescended to dwell in us, to live in us, to walk in us and that we can be filled with Thy fullness and Thou will “do exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think,” through us. And this we pray will be our normal Christian life not subnormal, not expectational, just the way we live and walk in time so that we can glorify Christ. So to that end seal the Word to our hearts for Jesus sake, Amen.
* Reference such as: Delivered at Summit Grove, New Freedom, PA on Wednesday, August 7, 1974 by Paris W. Reidhead, Pastor. ©PRBTMI 1974
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Paris Reidhead (1919 - 1992)
Was a Christian missionary, teacher, writer, and advocate of economic development in impoverished nations. A spiritual crisis during this period—as he described two decades later in what is probably his best-known recorded teaching, "Ten Shekels and a Shirt"--left Reidhead with the conviction that much of evangelicalism had adopted utilitarian and humanistic philosophies contradictory to Biblical teaching. The end of all being, he came to believe, was not the happiness of man, but the glorification of God. This theme would recur throughout his later teaching.Since Mr. Reidhead's death in 1992, Bible Teaching Ministries, Inc. continues under the leadership of his wife, Marjorie, and daughter, Virginia Teitt, a dedicated Board, and the many people who have donated time and talent after being changed by God’s Word through this message. The message of the Gospel is reaching an ever-widening audience all over the world.