t shall sound, and the dead shall be raised.--_Rowland
Hill._

POWER IN OPERATION.

THE power we have been considering is the Presence of the Holy Spirit.
He is omnipotent. Power in operation is the actions of the Spirit or
the fruit of the Spirit. This we shall now consider. Paul writes in
Gal. v, 16, etc.:

"This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the
Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary, the one to the
other; so that ye can not do the things that ye would. But if ye be
led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." * * * "But the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law. And they
that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and
lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let
us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one
another."

Now there is a life of perfect peace, perfect joy, and perfect love,
and that ought to be the aim of every child of God; that ought to be
their standard; and they should not rest until having attained to that
position. That is God's standard, where He wants all His children.
These nine graces mentioned in this chapter in Galatians can be
divided in this way: Love and peace and joy are all to God. God looks
for that fruit from each one of His children, and that is the kind of
fruit which is acceptable with Him. Without that we can not please
God. He wants, above everything else that we possess, love, peace and
joy. And then the next three--goodness, long-suffering and gentleness--are
towards man. That is our outward life to those that we are coming
in contact with continually--daily, hourly. The next three--faith,
temperance, meekness--are in relation to ourselves; and in that way we
can just take the three divisions, and it will be of some help to us.

The first thing that meets us as we enter the kingdom of God, you
might say are these first three graces,

LOVE, PEACE, AND JOY.

When a man who has been living in sin turns from his sins, and turns
to God with all his heart, he is met on the threshold of the divine
life by these sister graces. The love of God is shed abroad in his
heart by the Holy Ghost. The peace of God comes at the same time, and
also the joy of the Lord. We can all put the test to ourselves, if we
h