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He was born in the middle of the 19th Century, into a poor but hard-working family in the village of Menston in Yorkshire.He grew up in Christian things in the Church of England, and often with his grandmother in the Methodist Chapel.He was called Smith-Wigglesworth. Not exactly the most famous name in history.
It was his wife Polly who taught him to read. He became a plumber by trade, but his real contribution, writ large in God's Books, was with the Brethren - the Salvation Army, and out to thousands of people to whom he ministered in the name of Christ. He was an early Pentecostalist. Although he was converted to Christ as a child, he was 48 when, on 28th October 1907, a vicar's wife, called Mrs. Boddy, prayed for him. He said later ...'She laid her hands on me and the fire fell'. At that very point she had to go to answer a loud and persistent knocking on the front door. Thus he was left alone with God, who showed him an empty cross, and that the risen Christ had made him clean and pure. When he tried to speak he found himself praying in a language he had never learned.
He was so full of fire that when he preached next to his own people, a dozen folk, including his own son, stood and announced that they wanted what Smith-Wigglesworth had received, and they all finished up flat out on the floor praying or laughing in the Spirit.
All this was at the beginning of the 20th Century: as it had been here and there in the 17th and 18th Centuries, and back through Christian history. In short, when men and women are open to God, strange things may happen.I didn't say they must.
So today, don't open yourself to seek strange phenomena and exciting spirit experiences - don't ask for fire to fall on you: don't listen to 'voices'. Be open to God, the living God, and about whatever he wants to give you.
In Acts, Chapter 19, a dozen men who, until then, had never trusted in Jesus, heard and believed and:
"On hearing this, they were baptised into the name of Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied."
A Prayer for Today
Lord, I am wide open to the Holy Spirit. Fill me with whatever you want me to have.
Now read Joel 2: 25-32
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