The power to walk in the Spirit is given by the Spirit; but either all have not this power, or all do not use it. I think rather it is that all have it not, for if they had it, a power so mighty and so beneficent, they surely could not help using it. All have it not; but I do not say that they all might not have it; on the contrary, all might have it, but in point of fact they have it not. They have it not because they seek it not: for an idle wish is one thing; a steady persevering pursuit is another. They seek not the Spirit by the appointed means, the means of prayer and attending to God's holy word, and thinking of life and death and judgment. Do those seek the spirit of God who never pray to God? Clearly they do not. For they who never pray to God never think of Him; they who never think of Him, by the very force of the terms it follows that they cannot seek his help. And yet they say, "Oh, I wish to be good, but I cannot!" But this, in the language of the Scripture, is a lie. If they did wish to be good they would seek the help that could make them so. There is no boy so young as not to know that, when temptation is on him to evil, prayer to God will strengthen him for good. As sure as we live, if he wished really to overcome the temptation, he would seek the strength. Consider what prayer is, and see how it cannot but strengthen us. He who stands in a sheltered place, where the wind cannot reach him, and with no branches over his head to cause a damp shade, and then holds up his face or his hands to the sun, in his strength, can he help feeling the sun's warmth? Now, thus it is in prayer: we turn to God, we bring our souls, with all their thoughts and feelings, fully before Him; and by the very act of so doing, we shelter ourselves from every chill of worldly care, we clear away every intercepting screen of worldly thought and pleasure. It is an awful thing so to submit ourselves wholly to the influence of God. But do it; and as surely as the sun will warm us if we stand in the sun, so will the Giver of light and life to the soul pour his Spirit of life into us; even as we pray, we become changed into his image. This is not spoken extravagantly. I ask of any one who has ever prayed in earnest, whether for that time, and while he was so praying, he did not feel, as it were, another man; a man able to do the things which he would; a man redeemed and free. But most true is it that this feeling passes away but too soon, when the prayer is done. Still for the time, there is the effect; we know what it is to put ourselves, in a manner, beneath the rays of God's grace; but we do not abide there long, and then we feel the damp and the cold of earth again.