And
His may be yours for the tarrying and the taking.

Let me repeat then with all the emphasis possible that as certainly as
you need to trust Jesus Christ for your soul's salvation, you also need
to receive this power of the Holy Spirit to work that salvation out _in
your present life_.

A Double Center.

It has helped me greatly in understanding the Master's insistent
emphasis upon the promise of power to keep clearly in mind that the
christian system of truth revolves around a double center. It is
illustrated best not by a circle with its single center, but by an
ellipse with its twin centers. There are two central truths--not one,
but two. The first of the two is grained deep down in the common
Christian teaching and understanding. If I should ask any group of
Sabbath school children in this town, next Sabbath morning, the
question: What is the most important thing we christians believe? Amid
the great variety in the form of answer would come, in substance,
without doubt, this reply: "_The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from
all sin._" And they would be right. But there is a second truth--very
reverently and thoughtfully let me say--of _equal importance_ with that;
namely, this: _the Holy Spirit empowereth against all sin, and for life
and service_. These two truths are co-ordinate. They run in parallel
lines. They belong together. They are really two halves of the one great
truth. But this second half needs emphasis, because it has not always
been put into its proper place beside the other.

Jesus died on the cross to make freedom from sin _possible_. The Holy
Spirit dwells within me to make freedom from sin _actual_. The Holy
Spirit does _in_ me what Jesus did _for_ me. The Lord Jesus makes a
deposit in the bank on my account. The Spirit checks the money out and
puts it into my hands. Jesus does in me now by His Spirit what He did
for me centuries ago on the cross, in His person.

Now these two truths, or two parts of the same truth, go together in
God's plan, but, with some exceptions, have not gone together in men's
experience. That explains why so many christian lives are a failure and
a reproach. The Church of Christ has been gazing so intently upon the
hill of the cross with its blood-red message of sin and love, that it
has largely lost sight of the Ascension Mount with its legacy of power.
We have been so enwrapt with that marvelous scene on Calvary--and what
wonder!--that we have allowed ourselv