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Jessie Penn-Lewis
Jessie Penn-Lewis (1861–1927). Born Jessie Elizabeth Jones on February 28, 1861, in Neath, South Wales, to Elias and Heziah Jones, Jessie Penn-Lewis was a Welsh evangelist, author, and key figure in the Keswick and Welsh Revival movements. Raised in a Calvinistic Methodist family—her grandfather a minister and her mother active in temperance—she was frail, possibly with tuberculosis, and homeschooled until 12 due to a “lively mind.” At 19, she married William Penn-Lewis, a civil servant, on September 15, 1880; they had no children. Converted on New Year’s Day 1882, she joined the YWCA, growing its Richmond branch from 6,900 to 13,000 attendees by 1896. Influenced by Evan Hopkins, Andrew Murray, and Jeanne Guyon, she embraced the Cross’s centrality after a 1892 epiphany on Romans 6, shifting from seeking Spirit baptism to union with Christ. A prolific speaker, she addressed thousands at Keswick Conventions, the 1903 Llandrindod Wells Convention she helped found, and globally in Russia, Scandinavia, India, Canada, and the U.S., including Moody Bible Institute and Nyack Missionary Institute. During the 1904–1905 Welsh Revival, she chronicled events for The Life of Faith and supported Evan Roberts, though his later collapse led to her controversial book with him, War on the Saints (1912), attributing some revival phenomena to Satan. She authored over 30 books, including The Word of the Cross (1903, translated into 100 languages), The Pathway to Life in God (1895), and The Magna Charta of Women (1919), defending women’s ministry. Founding The Overcomer journal in 1908, she died on August 15, 1927, in London, saying, “The Cross is the way to victory over all that is of the evil one.”
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Sermon Summary
Jessie Penn-Lewis emphasizes that God desires us to imitate Him as beloved children, living a life of love through the Holy Spirit's empowerment. She explains that true obedience and praise come not from obligation but from being filled with God's Spirit, which transforms our hearts and actions. The sermon highlights the importance of removing obstacles to God's spirit by going to the Cross and seeking a new life that produces good fruit. Penn-Lewis encourages believers to lead others into this new life, allowing God's unique expression to manifest in each individual rather than conforming to a single pattern.
Scriptures
God Requires Only Himself
"Be imitators of God, therefore as dearly beloved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God". - Ephesians 5:1-2 God can do such a work in us by His Spirit, that all that He commands us to do will come about naturally, and not because we feel we ought to do it. To make up our mind to praise God is good, but it is very much better to be so filled with the Holy Spirit that you cannot help praising! What God wants out of us He will first put in. The secret of power for living and service is to go to the Cross and get rid of the obstacles to the outflow of the spirit of God, and then ask God for the new life that will bring forth the new fruit. I often hear of things God's children say and do which most grieve Him - and it seems hopeless to speak to them about it. The best thing is to ask God to put a new life and new spirit into them so that they will not do these things. If you have a little child and are constantly saying, " You must not, you must not," you will soon crush the personality of that child. You need to show him how to have a new life within, so that he will want to do what is right. God does not expect to get out of us one thing but what He has put into us! Do let us toil, dear fellow-workers, to lead His children into a life, and then let that Life manifest itself through their personalities. God does not want us to be all of the same pattern. He will express Himself through each individual in a different way. Just as there are not two faces alike, so He has not made two of us alike in any way, and we must take care that we do not try to mould ourselves or others after the pattern of any other human being.
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Jessie Penn-Lewis (1861–1927). Born Jessie Elizabeth Jones on February 28, 1861, in Neath, South Wales, to Elias and Heziah Jones, Jessie Penn-Lewis was a Welsh evangelist, author, and key figure in the Keswick and Welsh Revival movements. Raised in a Calvinistic Methodist family—her grandfather a minister and her mother active in temperance—she was frail, possibly with tuberculosis, and homeschooled until 12 due to a “lively mind.” At 19, she married William Penn-Lewis, a civil servant, on September 15, 1880; they had no children. Converted on New Year’s Day 1882, she joined the YWCA, growing its Richmond branch from 6,900 to 13,000 attendees by 1896. Influenced by Evan Hopkins, Andrew Murray, and Jeanne Guyon, she embraced the Cross’s centrality after a 1892 epiphany on Romans 6, shifting from seeking Spirit baptism to union with Christ. A prolific speaker, she addressed thousands at Keswick Conventions, the 1903 Llandrindod Wells Convention she helped found, and globally in Russia, Scandinavia, India, Canada, and the U.S., including Moody Bible Institute and Nyack Missionary Institute. During the 1904–1905 Welsh Revival, she chronicled events for The Life of Faith and supported Evan Roberts, though his later collapse led to her controversial book with him, War on the Saints (1912), attributing some revival phenomena to Satan. She authored over 30 books, including The Word of the Cross (1903, translated into 100 languages), The Pathway to Life in God (1895), and The Magna Charta of Women (1919), defending women’s ministry. Founding The Overcomer journal in 1908, she died on August 15, 1927, in London, saying, “The Cross is the way to victory over all that is of the evil one.”