Filled With the Spirit . . . Then What?

Mabel Francis served fifty-six years as a missionary to Japan. In 1962 she was awarded the Emperor of Japan's "Fifth Order of the Sacred Treasure" for her ministry to the Japanese people--the only person in history to receive the award while still living. In addition to her autobiography, One Shall Chase a Thousand, she wrote the book Filled With the Spirit . . . Then What? This is from that book:

"We are right up against the awful conflict of the ages and no ordinary power will avail. However, we may be reinforced within by the Holy Spirit's indwelling our inner being and personality. This is possible because Christ, the living Christ, dwells with us and makes His permanent home in our hearts.

"This is the reason for my great joy. Oh, what a glorious privilege to be able to tell God's people of the wonderful years of blessing I have known since I found the secret of letting God take over. This is a moment-by-moment experience of reckoning and faith.

"Even when we are weak and fail so often, He has promised that when He is allowed to come in and take over, it is the fulfillment of our being made one with Him!

"I have often thought that it is very much like the 'gold-filled' process that we hear about in the jewelry trade.

"I have a gold-filled watch--but it is not solid gold! The men in that craft heat up their little furnaces. They melt a certain amount of gold and they also melt a supply of iron--and then they fuse the two elements together.

"My watch is not just gold-plated, it is gold-filled. The gold is fused with the iron and it will never wear off. You see, it is just as nice as if it were all gold. The two metals are fused together and they become one in substance.

"Can you see, as I do, that this is a picture of our going on with God in the trials and conflicts and discouragements of life until we get melted down and reckon ourselves to have died with Christ--and so we get fused in with the Person and the nature of our Lord Jesus Christ?

"This becomes the secret of His victorious indwelling--you don't know which is which. By faith and by desire and by commitment, we are just one with Him.

"But this is what we have to remember--we must be willing to be melted down before we can be fused with Him in His humility and His death and resurrection.

"This is the spiritual lesson about which we cannot argue. If we want to have this glorious life of victory, the pathway is down, further down, all the way down.

"But, as we go down with Him into His death, so it will be with our identification with Him in His resurrection and glory. Colossians 1:27 is actually God's plan for our lives:

To whom God would make know what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (emphasis added)

"This is our inheritance from God, and I am so anxious for everyone to know this life of victory because it is for us, beloved!

"Perhaps it may be with you like it was with me; I found that Jesus Himself wanted to be my 'completeness'--and I had been wanting to be complete in myself!

". . . Jesus said that if a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it brings forth much fruit. We are more likely to think that we can work for Jesus and bring forth fruit by 'doing.'

"But Jesus said: 'If it dies'!

"I read years ago that an Egyptian mummy entombed for 3,000 years or more was found to have a few grains of wheat in his hand when the wrappings were taken off. Scientists wondered if this wheat would sprout and grow, so the kernels were taken to Canada's great wheat-growing country. They were planted in the proper season and several of the kernels did sprout and grow and reproduce. During the next season these were used as seed again and they reproduced more wheat.

"For 3,000 years those grains of wheat were completely dormant; because they were not put into the ground to die, they fed no one. But when they were planted and died, they brought forth fruit and now they are feeding multitudes.

"Oh, how much easier it would have been if I had known the secret of death to my old self-life and blessed secret of spiritual fruit-bearing when I first went to Japan.

"I was anxious about many things and, ultimately, the Lord revealed to me that anxiety was sin and hindered His working.

"He said to me: 'You ask for something and then you proceed to tie My hands by your anxiety.' It is His work--and it is my business to believe Him. No strain or stress is necessary. He is over all. It is no longer I, but Christ who dwells within!

". . . One day as I was praying, God showed me as in a vision a leaf fall to the ground and decay right before my eyes and become fertilizer for the tree. God said, 'From now on I want you to become "fertilizer" for this church.' Now nobody ever goes around praising fertilizer. No one ever says, 'What wonderful fertilizer!'

"[Later] God came to me so wonderfully with the promise in Zephaniah 3:17: 'The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save.'

"I had previously thought this verse meant that He was in the midst of the church. But He said, 'No, I'm in the midst of you; I have come as your indwelling God, and my resurrection life is flowing through every nerve of your body, every organ. Just trust Me.' I kept repeating His promise over and over--and believing it.

". . . [Still] Satan tormented me greatly in those days, saying, 'Yes, you thought that if you stayed in Japan after the Board withdrew its support and trusted God and were a glory to Him, everything would be all right. You will go home a nervous wreck and it will be the end of you.'

"His satanic screams were so loud that I would leave the house and walk up the mountain. From the top of the mountain I would cry out to the limit of my voice, 'I will not doubt. All you devils in hell, listen! I will not doubt! My God will make Himself known to the Japanese people through me!'

"One morning when I was walking on the mountain, God spoke to me with such clarity that even now it seems I can see the spot where I was when He said, I will dwell in you and walk in you. 'I--the living God--I will live with you and walk with you. It is not going to be you anymore; it will be I' (2 Corinthians 6:16, paraphrased). How my heart rejoiced at these precious words!

"When I arose the next morning, I decided to fast and pray. During this time of waiting on the Lord, He gave me these wonderful words: 'For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" (Romans 6:5).

"In the depths of my soul I knew that [my old] self had gone to the cross. I had been planted in the likeness of His death and was living in His resurrection power. Jesus Himself in His resurrection glory stepped with new fullness into the throne of my heart. How I rejoiced over this victory in Christ! I had the assurance of these words: 'I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one' (John 17:23).

"After this experience I returned to my work. Everything was different! Indeed, everything has been different ever since. Galatians 2:20 became reality. 'I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me' (emphasis added).

"It was a new revelation to me that as I actually entered into Christ's death, I also entered into His resurrection. Dr. A. B. Simpson wrote a hymn that we often sing:

Yes, I'm living in the glory
As He promised in His Word;
I am dwelling in the heavenlies,
Living in the glory of the Lord.

"One Sunday morning as I stepped into the church, God gave me another illuminating revelation, this time from Romans 7:4: 'Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.'

"All though the service God was saying, 'Through the offering of My body you are made dead to the old self that you might be joined to another.' I saw that through this new relationship, I had come to inherit all. His death was mine; His burial was mine; His resurrection was mine; His ascension was mine. He transferred all of this to me. I was to live in heavenly places in Christ.

"I had always thought that when I died or when Jesus returns I (as part of His Church) would become His bride. He revealed to me that I am now His bride. I am already joined to Him. 'I am the vine,' said Jesus, 'ye are the branches' (John 15:5). Nothing or no one can separate me from this precious union.

"This is how an old hymn expresses it:

His forever, only His;
Who the Lord and me shall part?
Ah, with what rest of bliss,
Christ can fill the trusting heart!
Heaven and earth may fade and flee,
Firstborn light in gloom decline;
But while God and I shall be,
I am His, and He is mine!

". . . It seems natural to expect a wonderful, miraculous and instantaneous deliverance. 'Step by step you will be delivered,' were God's words to me. Isaiah 1:25 became very real: 'And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away thy tin.' In the final analysis, deliverance was instantaneously effective when He entered all the doors I opened to Him to take over my entire life!

"For so long I did not know that the life of victory I now live was possible. In fact, had someone told me, I could not have understood the blessed reality of 'forever one with Him.' I believe the greatest day of my life, except for salvation, was when I knew that the resurrected Christ had really taken over without a rival--that He was Lord of all in my whole being.

"Oh, the rest of soul! All is His and He is mine forever and forever. No words can express the joy and peace of the heart in which Christ dwells as Lord.

"John 15 teaches about the abiding life. As the branch we draw sustenance and strength from the vine--the Lord Jesus. Fruitfulness arises spontaneously from this abiding in the vine.

"Have you experienced this reality? God will satisfy every desire that He puts in your heart. Your longings for Him will be fully satisfied. The words of Tersteegen's hymn offers praise to Him who is worthy:

But I tell you I have seen Him,
God's beloved Son,
From His lips have learned the mystery
He and I are one.
There, as knit into the body
Every joint and limb,
We, His ransomed, His beloved,
We are one with Him.

"Hebrews 4:9-10 is a meaningful passage: 'There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his' (emphasis added)."