Delightsome Agbabo

August 1 MOUNTAINS AND VALLEYS Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ . . . . — 2 CORINTHIANS 2:14 I hear people talk about being in the valley, and then on the mountain, and then back in the valley again. To tell the truth about it, I don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ve been saved since 1933, and I’ve never been anywhere but on the mountaintop! You don’t have to get down in the valley. People talk about their “valley experiences.” I’ve never had any valley experiences. Oh, yes, there have been tests and trials — but I was on top of the mountain, shouting my way through it all, living above it. Praise God! You see, those who say they’re in the valleys are looking at life from the natural standpoint — from the physical. They are trying to get a spiritual answer from the physical — and you just can’t do that. Years ago, when I came among Pentecostal people after having been a Baptist, I’d hear them talk about “going through the valley.” And when I di...

July 31 SPIRIT WALK There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. — ROMANS 8:1 Conscience is the voice of the human spirit. Reason is the voice of the soul, or the mind. Feeling is the voice of the body. The Holy Spirit does not bear witness with our reasoning. The Holy Spirit does not bear witness with our feelings. The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirits. I’m very careful about using the word “feeling.” When we sense the Presence of God in a service, people often say, “I felt it.” But we really don’t feel it physically so much as we sense it spiritually. So I am careful to differentiate between the two, because people slip into the feeling realm so easily. Then, when they feel good, they say, “Glory to God! Hallelujah! I’m saved! I’m filled with the Spirit! Everything is fine!” But when they feel bad, they get a long face and they say, “I’ve lost it all. I don’t feel like I did, so I must be backsl...

July 30 THE DOMINANT ONE . . . Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. — GALATIANS 5:16 I learned early in my Christian life to let my spirit, my inward man, dominate my outward man. So even as a teenage boy standing alone without the fellowship of other teenagers who believed like I did, I didn’t have the problems some do. If there was anyone in my Sunday school class who was saved besides me, I didn’t know it. They would cuss, drink, attend worldly dances, and they were all mixed up with one another in sexual activities. They’d say to me, “Why don’t you do those things?” First, my conscience wouldn’t allow me to do those things. Also, I’d reply to them, “I’m a new creature.” And they would ask, “What’s a new creature?” (That pretty well proved they weren’t new creatures!) You don’t need to be preached to about do’s and don’ts; just let your spirit dominate you. God will enlighten you through your spirit. Let the new man on the inside be the dominant one. Do...

July 29 TENDER Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron. — 1 TIMOTHY 4:2 Keep a tender conscience — don’t violate it — because it is your conscience, the voice of your spirit, that relates to your mind what the spirit of God is saying to you down inside. If you don’t keep a tender conscience, spiritual things will not be clear to you. During the mid-’30s, I pastored a country church and usually spent Sunday nights in the home of a dear old gentleman who was about eighty-nine years old. He and I didn’t get up as early as the rest of his family on this farm, so we had breakfast together about 8 o’clock. He’d have one of those old-fashioned coffee pots sitting on the woodstove with the coffee just boiling in it. I’ve seen him pour that boiling coffee into a mug, hold it up to his mouth, and drink the whole cup of boiling coffee in one gulp. The first time I saw him do it, I felt like I was burning all the way down! How could he do that? I certainly couldn...

July 28 INSIDE HELP And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men. — ACTS 24:16 Soon after I was saved and healed, I returned to high school. Now, I don’t know how it happened exactly — none of my family cursed — but we had a neighbor who could “cuss” up a storm, and I guess I picked it up from him. So at school one day, I said to one of the boys, “Hell, no . . .” The minute I said it — and I didn’t know a thing about the Spirit-filled life — in my heart I said, “Oh, dear God, forgive me!” What condemned me? The Holy Spirit? No. It was my own spirit. This new creature, this new creation, this new man, doesn’t talk that way. Now, the flesh may want to continue doing some things it used to do, or talking like it used to talk, but you have to “crucify” the flesh. And a good way to crucify the flesh is to bring any problems right out into the open immediately. That’s what I did when I realized I had cussed. I didn’t wait until I was...

July 27 WHEN YOU MISS IT For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. — 1 JOHN 3:20,21 If you’re a Christian, does the Holy Spirit condemn you if you do wrong? No. It is your spirit that condemns you. This is something we need to learn. We haven’t learned it yet, because we’ve been taught wrong. The Holy Spirit will not condemn you. Why? Because God won’t condemn you. Study what Paul wrote in Romans 8. He asked, “Who is it that condemns? Does God condemn? No, it is God who justifies.” Jesus said that the only sin the Holy Spirit will convict the world of is the sin of rejecting Jesus (John 16:7-9). I’ve found that even when I’ve missed it, the Holy Spirit in me is the One who shows me the way out. He comforts me. He helps me. He doesn’t condemn me. So it is your conscience, the voice of your spirit, that condemns you when you miss it. It is your spirit that knows the very mo...

July 26 OBEYING CONSCIENCE And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. — ACTS 23:1 It is interesting to go through the Epistles that Paul wrote to the Church and see what he said about his conscience. He always obeyed his conscience. Once I heard some preachers questioning one of the top evangelists in the world. They asked him, “We know God called and anointed you to stand in this ministry — but is there something that you do from the natural standpoint that contributes to the success of your ministry more than any other thing?” I listened intently to hear what he had to say. I knew he was a man of prayer, and prayer is important, but he didn’t mention prayer. He answered, “Of course, God called me to be an evangelist. But you are asking what has contributed to my success from my standpoint. And the one thing I do that has contributed to my success more than anything else is: I always instantly obey ...