Our prideful self-sufficiency chafes against any sense of weakness or helplessness. We strive and strain to accomplish things on our own. But if we will learn to pray and wait on the Lord for His direction, the Spirit will give us His power.

Host: Kathy, we want to continue our discussions in a book by Andrew Murray called Absolute Surrender, and today I want to focus on the chapter entitled “Separated unto the Holy Ghost.” In this chapter he quotes from Acts 13:1-4 where Barnabas and Saul are being prepared for the ministry that they've been given. And he quotes this part of the verse, “And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So, they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia.” (Acts 13:3-4a KJV)) And he comments on this passage saying that in this story we find some precious thoughts to guide us as to what God would have of us and what God would do for us. Why don't you read the great lesson that he pulls from that passage in Acts.

Kathy: Yeah, it's a blessing. “The Holy Ghost is the director of the work of God upon the earth. And what we should do if we are to work rightly for God, and if God is to bless our work, is to see that we stand in a right relation to the Holy Ghost, that we give him every day, the place of honor that belongs to Him, and then in all our work and (what is more) in all our private inner life, the Holy Ghost shall always have the first place.”

Host: Now let's take what he wrote there and just kind of pull this apart, starting with his first statement there, that “the Holy Ghost is the director of the work of God upon the Earth.” When we look at what our life is about here on the earth as Christians, we can get very busy and we can be all about doing a lot of things. But if we're looking to the Holy Ghost to empower us, what is it really that He's empowering us to do here on the earth?

Kathy: His work. He's empowering us to follow His program. He's got a mission. He's got goals. He's got a plan.

Host: I want to zoom out real quick, because when we look at the life of the average Christian and when we look at the men and the women that are coming to us whose lives are falling apart, one of the common threads that we see is that many people who are professing to be Christians aren't seeking God's will at all for their life. They may be going to church on Sunday. They may even be reading their Bible. But when it comes to living out their life, they're pretty much doing what they want to do.

Kathy: Yeah, that's very true. And examples abound of people that are just doing their own thing and adding God into it.

Host: Yeah. And I think a lot of that is because Christians haven't been taught that they ought to be seeking God for how they're living their lives.

Kathy: Yeah. That is definitely a huge problem. But we have an inward teacher, and He will lead us. But I think the problem with some people is that they struggle with thoughts like, “Why isn't God speaking to me? Why isn't he leading me?” And the problem is because they don't know how to wait.

Host: He mentions next Kathy that once we've nailed down the reality that the Holy Ghost is the director of the work of God upon the earth, we ought to be seeking the Lord for what His will is for our life on the earth. He mentioned what we should do if we are to work rightly for God and if God is to bless our work. Talk a little bit about what he's saying there.

Kathy: Well, what I think is that we are very prone to be doers. Americans are producers. And we can work “for God,” but not be working the works that He has laid out for us. We can go completely off the rails with what we're doing. So again it’s so important for everybody to know, no matter who you are or what your position is in life, that God has a will for your life. What is God’s will in your life? What does He want you to do? And is that important to you? Is that in the forefront of your mind? Are you seeking it out and in your seeking are you able to wait?

       That is so important for me to keep in the forefront of my mind because how impatient are we? I'm saying that because I've been that way. I get these ideas and I think, “OK, so that's it, I’ll do that.” And so many times I have just taken off assuming that it was something that the Lord wanted me to do, and it never was. So, there was no blessing on it. I would trip and fall and stumble and just run into walls. So He’s been able to lead me more directly over the past few years because I am learning how to wait, how to pray and how to care more about what He wants than what I think He wants. One of the things that Andrew Murray says in here that I really love is, “Our great Commander organizes every campaign, and His generals and officers do not always know the great plans. They often receive sealed orders, and they have to wait on Him for what He gives them as orders.”

Host: That’s neat the way he says that.

Kathy: Yeah, I love that. And I know from my own experience that it's very frustrating to wait.

Host: Yeah. That really leads me to the next thing I want to ask you about that Andrew Murray talked about which is that in order to do these things you have to be in a right relation with the Holy Ghost. He said that we have to give him every day the place of honor that belongs to Him. He has to have preeminence in our inner world, not just when it comes to the religious things of our life. I mean religious things in the good sense, the right sense of religion. But He has to have the preeminence in our inner life always. And when you think about it, when we allow that to happen, it changes everything.

Kathy: Yeah, it changes the way you do ministry. My whole Christian life I've known about the Holy Spirit. Almost as soon as I was saved, I was filled with the Holy Spirit and I know what it's like to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. To have my life radically transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, I've known that, walked in that and my ministry life was that. But somewhere along the way, you grow up. And I mean that in a negative way. You grow up out of need, and the busyness, the needs around you and just the pressures of life kind of take you away from where you need to be, which is at the foot of the cross pleading with the Lord for help. You kind of start depending on yourself. And I know that I'm back at the place where I know I need help.

       And I want to say this to listening ears, you will never get to a place where you don't need God. You will always need Him desperately, whether or not you're in the reality of your desperate condition for Him. And I don't mean just, “Oh, I hate myself” and all of that self-loathing. I'm just talking about being where you understand that you can do nothing apart from Him, and that through Him you can do everything. And being in that place is a powerhouse for your spiritual life. I mean, look at the things that the disciples were able to do once they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Before the Spirit came, they kept failing and failing right up to Calvary. But after the cross, when they went into the upper room and they prayed and waited, the Lord sent the promised Holy Spirit and then they had what they needed to do ministry, and it doesn’t seem like any of them went crazy. They all stayed.

Host: Well, they went crazy, but in the right way.

Kathy: In the right way. That's right. They were filled with power. People were being healed. Demons were cast out. It was an amazing thing, but that came through the power of the Holy Spirit and from them waiting for Him to come. And Jesus did what He said he would do through their lives. And Why wouldn’t He do that through our lives?

Host: Yeah. And if we really want Him to use us, if we really want to walk in His will and be a blessing, then we have to yield in every aspect of our life. Just as he titled the little booklet here, we need to have, “Absolute Surrender.”

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All quotations taken from Absolute Surrender By Andrew Murray, Public Domain