The Power That Gives Release

E. Stanley Jones was a missionary, a theologian, and a prolific writer. In his devotional book Victorious Living he emphasizes how Christ is our life through the indwelling Holy Spirit:

"The only way to get rid of self-consciousness is through God-consciousness. We become so conscious of another Self within us that we lose sight of our self. 'Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty'--liberty from cramping bondages and inhibitions and paralyzing sins.

"But this age has lost grip upon the Holy Spirit. We have taught this age to follow Jesus as an example, and it has produced a pale, colorless Christianity. For the gospel does not ask you to follow Jesus as an example--it offers you the resources of the Holy Spirit in the inner life and then you follow Jesus because of an impulsion. This kind of Christianity becomes colorful and red-blooded. It has resources, therefore power.

"A modern translation of the Gospels spells the 'holy spirit' thus, without capitals. That is symbolic of what has happened to this age. It has turned the Holy Spirit into a 'holy spirit,' a vague, impersonal influence, to our impoverishment. That is not the Holy Spirit of the Acts of the Apostles. There the Holy Spirit was no mere vague, impersonal influence--He was God meeting them inwardly, reenforcing, cleansing, fusing the soul forces into a loving unity, and setting them ablaze with God. Weymouth was right when he translated the passage in reference to Stephen thus, 'They were quite unable, however, to resist the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.' Note the capital 'S.' You couldn't tell where Stephen's spirit ended and the Spirit began, for the Spirit lived in his spirit, was the Wisdom of his wisdom. When the disciples got hold of that secret at Pentecost, they were immediately and decisively freed from cramping inhibitions and spiritual bondages and became flaming evangels of the Good News. We need to rediscover the actual resources of the Holy Spirit. Or else bondage."