This same feeling of near-inspiration is experienced also in the letters of Samuel Rutherford, in the Te Deum, in many of the hymns of Watts and Wesley, and occasionally in a work of some lesser known saint whose limited gifts may have been for one joyous moment made incandescent by the fire of the indwelling Spirit.
The blight of the Pharisee’s heart in olden times was doctrine without love. With the teachings of the Pharisees Christ had little quarrel, but with the pharisaic spirit He carried on unceasing warfare to the end. It was religion that put Christ on the cross, religion without the indwelling Spirit. It is no use to deny that Christ was crucified by persons who would today be called fundamentalists. This should prove most disquieting if not downright distressing to us who pride ourselves on our orthodoxy. An unblessed soul filled with the letter of truth may actually be worse off than a pagan kneeling before a fetish. We are safe only when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, only when our intellects are indwelt by the loving Fire that came at Pentecost. For the Holy Spirit is not a luxury, not something added now and again to produce a deluxe type of Christian once in a generation. No, He is for every child of God a vital necessity, and that He fill and indwell His people is more than a languid hope. It is rather an inescapable imperative.
Verse
“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” Luke 11:52
Thought
blight of the Pharisee’s heart in olden times was doctrine without love
Prayer
We need Your love, Holy Father, in our hearts; we need Your loving Fire in our minds.