If we are going to rise up, we have to repent and make a thorough confession. Some may say that they were saved years ago and have already been forgiven of all their sins. I agree with this. However, you cannot say that because you washed your hands two weeks ago that you do not need to wash your hands anymore. Neither can you say that you took a shower two months ago so there is no need for you to take another shower. This is wrong. Even after half a day, you need to wash again. In like manner, you need to make a thorough confession of all your shortcomings, weaknesses, wrongdoings, and sinfulness to have a conscience without offense toward God and men (Acts 24:16). Man may not know what you have been doing, but God surely knows. According to Matthew 12:36-37, every man shall have to render an account in the day of judgment of every idle word which they speak. It is possible to deceive man, but you cannot deceive God. If we mean business with Him we need to repent and make a thorough confession.
It would be wonderful if all of us could spend one or two hours with the Lord personally to make a thorough confession. I once spent more than two hours in fellowship with the Lord to make a thorough confession and that was after I had been saved for at least ten years. It is always better to make such a confession by yourself. Do not make confession corporately. Corporate confession is not so good. You can never make a thorough confession corporately because you are afraid of other people hearing you. We all need a private time to confess everything to God. We do not need to be afraid of Him knowing our sins since He knows them all already. Since He knows the record of all our sinful doings, it is best for us to ask Him to rid us of that record by confessing. All of us need this.
In order to go by rising up we need to make a thorough confession, a fine, detailed confession. We need to confess all the small things. Even if you were unhappy with a brother, you have to confess that unhappiness. If you were unhappy with your wife, you need the confession of that unhappiness. You have to confess all your sins. Do not go to the Lord in a rough way. It is not sufficient to tell the Lord, “Lord, You know I am sinful. I don’t have the time to confess everything, but thank You that You shed Your blood and Your blood washes me.” In order to have a fine forgiveness, you must make a fine confession, confessing to the Lord in a detailed way. Everyone who has done this and who does this can testify that after a thorough confession they are filled with the Spirit within and clothed with the Spirit without. They have the inward, essential filling of the Spirit and the outward, economical filling of the Spirit.
The Bible tells us clearly that the essential Spirit has been breathed into the believers of Christ and that the economical Spirit has been poured out upon His Body. Since we are members of His Body, surely the pouring out of the Spirit is our inheritance, our lot, our portion. Some Christians separate the Spirit from the Father and the Son. Actually, God the Father is embodied in the Son and the Son is realized as the Spirit. The Son is the embodiment of the Triune God and the Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God. Now we have this consummated Triune God within us and upon us. We need to believe this and take it.
We do not need to beg Him to give us the Holy Spirit since the Holy Spirit has been given already. What we need to do is make a thorough repentance with a thorough confession before Him. Then experientially we will be filled within and without with the Spirit as the ultimate consummation of the Triune God. Then we will rise up and become so buoyant.
We all need to go by rising up and by being filled with the consummated Spirit essentially and economically. We are filled by repenting and obeying. All of us need to have a solid time with the Lord to make a thorough confession. A husband and a wife can even make an agreement with one another that they are going to have such a time and would not like to be disturbed. When you are having such a time it is best to take the phone off the hook. Find some place in your house or somewhere else where you can be alone to make a thorough confession. We need to mean business with the Lord. We need to go by rising up and we need to make a thorough confession that we would be filled with the divine air that we would be brought into the divine air. Thus, we are filled within with the essential Spirit and filled without with the economical Spirit. We will be buoyant.
If this confessing and repenting become our practice, we will always come to the meetings buoyant. There is a hymn which says, “There’s a Man in the glory...How buoyant is He!” (Hymns, #505). If you make such a thorough confession to the Lord, you will be buoyant for at least three days. If you find yourself becoming not so buoyant, then make a thorough confession again. We need to confess thoroughly all the time. Before coming to minister the Word, I always exercise to get myself thoroughly cleansed in the Lord’s precious blood. This is why I am buoyant in the ministry. When we become buoyant, we go.
Verses three and four of Hymns, #890 say:
Hallelujah! Christ is Victor,
Therefore do and dare;
Go wherever Jesus sends you
In prevailing prayer.
Hallelujah! Christ is Victor,
No defeat nor fear
Evermore must dim thy vision!
Christ the way will clear.
We should not let anything dim our vision or make our vision weak. Too often we let something dim our vision and make our vision so vague. This is our sinfulness. If we would confess our sins thoroughly, this thorough confession would clear the sky. Then our vision could never be dim. Go wherever He would send you. Do not let anything dim your vision. Go by rising up and being filled with the consummated Spirit essentially and economically.