actual experience_ there has been
a second stage, and sometimes more than a second, too, because with so
many of us the connections have been broken, making a fresh act on our
part a necessity.

The Real Battlefield.

But now the main topic we are to talk about is making and breaking
connections. First, making connections with the source of power. How may
one who has been willing to go thus far in these talks go a step further
and have power in actual _conscious_ possession?

There are many passages in this old Book that answer that question. But
let me turn you to one which puts the answer in very simple shape.
John's gospel, seventh chapter, verses thirty-seven to thirty-nine.
Listen: "Now, on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood
and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He
that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water." Then John, writing some fifty years or so
afterwards, adds what he himself did not understand at the time: "But
this spake He of the Spirit who they that believed on Him were to
receive; for not yet was the Spirit given, because not yet was Jesus
glorified."

There are four words here which tell the four steps into a new life of
power. Sometimes these steps are taken so quickly that they seem in
actual experience like only one. But that does not matter to us just
now, for we are after the practical result. Four words--thirst,
glorified, drink, believe--tell the whole story. Thirst means desire,
intense desire. There is no word in our language so strong to express
desire as the word thirst. Physical thirst will completely control your
actions. If you are very thirsty, you can do nothing till that gnawing
desire is satisfied. You cannot read, nor study, nor talk, nor transact
business. You are in agony when intensely thirsty. To die of thirst is
extremely painful. Jesus uses that word thirst to express intensest
desire. Let me ask you--Are you thirsty for power? Is there a yearning
down in your heart for something you have not? That is the first step.
No good to offer food to a man without appetite. "Blessed are they that
hunger and thirst." Pitiable are they that need and do not know their
need. Physicians find their most difficult work in dealing with the man
who has no desire to live. He is at the lowest ebb. Are you thirsty?
There is a special promise for thirsty ones. "I will pour water on him