Do you have the Spirit of God in you? You have some religion, most of you. But what kind is it? Is it a home-made article? Did you make yourself what you are? If so, you are a lost man up to this moment. If you have gone no further than you have walked yourself, you are not on the road to heaven yet, you have got your face turned the wrong way. But if you have received something which neither flesh nor blood could reveal to you, if you have been led to do the very thing which you once hated and to love that which you once despised and to despise what your heart and your pride were once set on, then, if this is the Spirit’s work, rejoice, for where he has begun the good work he will carry it on.
And you may know whether it is the Spirit’s work by this. Have you been led to Christ, and away from self? Have you been led away from all feelings, from all doings, from all willings, from all prayings, as the ground of your trust and your hope, and have you been brought nakedly to rely upon the finished work of Christ? If so, this is more than human nature ever taught any man. This is a height to which human nature never climbed. The Spirit of God has done that, and he will never leave what he has once begun. . . .
But if you do not have the Spirit of Christ, you are not his. May the Spirit lead you to your room now to weep, now to repent, and now to look to Christ, and may you now have a divine life implanted which neither time nor eternity shall be able to destroy.”
C. H. Spurgeon, Revival Year Sermons (Edinburgh, 1996), page 65. Style updated.
