Scripture: "If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter."—JOHN xiv. 15, 16.
We have learned to know the disciples in their training for the baptism of the Spirit, and seen what was needed for their continuing "with one accord" in the prayer for the power of the Spirit. Christ was everything to them. Even before the cross, but much more after it, and with the resurrection, He was literally their life, their one thought, their only desire.
Such a devotion to Christ, was this something special, and not to be expected of all? Or was it indeed something that the Lord asked from all who desired to be filled with the Spirit? God expects it of all His children; the Lord has need of such now, as much as then, to receive His Spirit and His power, to minister them here on earth, and, as intercessors, to link the world to the throne of God.
Is Christ something, or nothing, or everything, to us? For the unconverted, Christ is nothing; for the half converted—the average Christian—Christ is something; for the true Christian, Christ is all. Each one who prays for the power of the Spirit must be ready to say: "I yield myself with my whole heart this day to the leading of the Spirt"; a full surrender is the question of life or death, an absolute necessity.
My dear brother, you have heard the word of our text: "If ye.love Me, keep My commandments." The surrender to live every day, all the day, abiding in Christ, and keeping His commandments, is to be the one mark of your discipleship. It is when the child of God learns that it is only as the heart longs in every¬thing to do God's will, that the Father's love and Spirit can rest upon it. This was the disposition in which the disciples continued with one accord in prayer. This will be the secret of power in our intercession as we plead for the Church and the world.
