Ministration of the Holy Spirit

2Corinthians 3:2-6 You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: For as much as you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the Living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also has made us able ministers of the New Covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but of the Spirit that gives New Life. paraphrased

There is nothing so needed in the Church to-day. All its feebleness and formalities and worldliness, the lack of holiness, of personal devotion to Christ, of enthusiasm for His cause and kingdom, is owing to one thing---the Holy Spirit is not Known and Honored and Yielded to, as the one only, as the one all-sufficient source of a holy life. The New Covenant is not Known as a ministration of the Spirit in the heart of every believer. The one thing needful for the Church is---the Holy Spirit in His power dwelling and ruling in the lives of God's people. And as one of the chief means to this there are needed ministers of the Spirit, themselves living in the enjoyment and power of this great Gift, who persistently labor to bring their brethren into the possession of their birthright: the Holy Spirit in the heart,
maintaining, in Divine power, an unceasing communion with the Son and with the Father. The ministration of the Spirit makes the ministry of the Spirit possible and effectual. And the ministry of the Spirit again makes the ministration of the Spirit an actual experimental reality in the life of the Church.

The church needs conviction of its err and then come to repentance unto separation of the spirit of the world by way of death to its influence and power which now holds it under the penalty of death. The church needs as Lazarus to rip off the grave clothes to free itself from this bondage, then Trust the God who gives Newness of Life even to the dead,Who calls those things that be not as though they were.

We know how dependent the Church is on its ministry. The converse is no less true. The ministers are dependent on the Church. They are its children; they breathe its atmosphere; they share its health or sickliness; they are dependent upon its fellowship and intercession. Let none of us think that all that the New Covenant calls us to is to see that we personally accept and rejoice in its blessings. No, indeed; God wants everyone who enters into it to know that its privileges are for all His children, and to give Himself to make this known. And there is no more effectual way of doing this than taking thought for the ministry of the Church. Compare the ministry around you with its pattern in God's word (see specially 1
Corinthians 2; 2 Corinthians 3). Join with others who Know how the New Covenant is nothing, if it be not a ministration of the Holy Spirit, and cry to God for a spiritual ministry. Ask the leading of God the Holy Ghost to Teach you what can be done, what you can do, to have the ministry of your Church become a truly Spiritual one. Human condemnation will do as little good as human approbation. It is the supreme place of the Holy Spirit, as the representative and revealer of the Father and the Son, is made clear to us, that the one desire of our heart, and our continual prayer, will be, that God would so discover to all the ministers of His word their Heavenly calling, that they may, above everything, seek this one thing, ---to be sufficient ministers of the New Covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit.

God has made us ministers of the Spirit. There is something still, of no less importance. The Minister of the Spirit must especially see to it that he lead men to the Holy Spirit. Many will say, If he be led of the Spirit in teaching men, is not that enough? By no means. Men may become too dependent on himself; men may take his Scripture teaching at second-hand, and, while there is power and blessing in his ministry, have reason to wonder that the results are not more definitely spiritual and permanent. The reason is simple.

The New Covenant is: they shall no longer every man teach his brother, know the Lord, for all shall Know Me, from the least even to the greatest. The Father wants every child, from the least, to live in continual personal intercourse with Himself. This cannot be, except as he is taught and helped to Know and wait on the Holy Spirit. Bible study and prayer, faith and love and obedience, the whole daily walk must be taught as entirely dependent on the Teaching and Working of the indwelling Spirit.

Luke 1:67-75 Paraphrased: Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He has visited and redeemed his people, and has raised up an horn of Salvation for us in the house of His servant David; As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began: That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant; The oath which He swore to our father Abraham, that He would grant to us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life.

This prayer of Zacharias is so apropos to us to-day as we're now under the Better Covenant than that spoken of here at first but the second portion is spoken by way of revelation of that which was to come. Because it contains Better promises than the old as we're to have received true holiness and righteousness in our hearts by way of the working of the Holy Spirit to serve the Living God and all our fellow man.