To write a sonnet to compare with those Shakespeare produced, you would have to have the spirit of Shakespeare... If you want to compose music like Johann Sebastian Bach, you would have to have the spirit of Bach. If you wanted to be a statesman like Gladstone, you would have to possess the spirit of Gladstone. Now, if we are going to reproduce Christ on earth and be Christ-like and show forth Christ, what are we going to need most? We must have the Spirit of Christ! The church is called to live above her own ability. She is called to live on a plane so high that no human being can live like that in his own ability and power. The humblest Christian is called to live a miracle, a life that is a moral and spiritual life with such intensity and such purity that no human being can do it—only Jesus Christ can do it. He wants the Spirit of Christ to come to His people.
I think you will agree with me when I say that many people are confused about the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit, for instance, is not enthusiasm. Some people get enthusiasm, and they imagine it is the Holy Spirit. Some who can get all worked up over a song imagine that this is the Spirit, but this does not necessarily follow. Some of these same people go out and live just like the sinful world—but the Holy Spirit never enters a man and then lets him live just like the world that hates God. That is the reason most people don't want to be filled with the Holy Spirit—they want to live the way they want to live and to merely have the Holy Spirit as a bit of something extra. I tell you that the Holy Spirit will not be just an addition. The Holy Spirit must be Lord, or He will not come at all.
God gives Christians the Holy Spirit with this intention, that every day all their life should be lived in the power of the Spirit. A man cannot live one hour a godly life unless by the power of the Holy Ghost. He may live a proper, consistent life, as people call it, an irreproachable life, a life of virtue and diligent service; but to live a life acceptable to God, in the enjoyment of God's salvation and God's love, to live and walk in the power of the new life—he cannot do it unless he be guided by the Holy Spirit every day and every hour.