Month: August 2021

ABIDING IN CHRIST

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BELIEVING THE IMPOSSIBLE

“If Christ finds us willing to trust ourselves and our interests to His love, if in that trust we give up all care for our own will and honour, if we make it our glory to exercise and confess absolute dependence on Him in all things, if we are content to have no life but in Him, He will do for us what the Father did for Him” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p150).

My heart leaps with joy imagining the power of the SPIRIT in JESUS in me but my mind cannot comprehend and is thus frightened.  “The believing surrender to Christ, and the submission to His word to expect what appears most improbable, is the only way to the full blessedness of knowing Him” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p112).

FATHER, now that I know my part in gaining an abiding in CHRIST is small—consisting of surrender and waiting, next I need to find faith enough to believe what CHRIST does.  Change my unbelief into full trust.

 “Receive what you do not comprehend, submit to what you cannot understand, accept and expect what to reason appears a mystery, believe what looks impossible, walk in a way which you know not—such are the first lessons in the school of God” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p112).  “Our Lord said, in effect, to Paul—Your whole life is to be overmastered by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine” Oswald Chambers (ref#7, Jan 24th).

“Faith trusts the working of the Spirit unseen in the deep recesses of the inner life.  And so the word of Christ and the gift of the Spirit are to the believer sufficient guarantee that He will be taught of the Spirit to abide in Christ.  By faith he rejoices in what he does not see or feel: he knows, and is confident that the blessed Spirit within is doing His work silently but surely, guiding him into the life of full abiding and unbroken communion.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus; it is His work, not only to breathe, but ever to foster and strengthen, and so to perfect the new life within” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p113).

So, FATHER, to quell fright is to ask You for and to receive from You more faith.  Only You can heal my faithlessness (Hos 14:4; Jer 3:22).

ADIBING IN CHRIST

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CHRIST – MY STRENGTH

“It was thus with the disciples….when they were prepared, the baptism of power came.  It was power within and power around.  The power came to qualify for the work to which they had yielded themselves…The power came to set up the Kingdom within them….” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p180).

As it was with the disciples, so it is with us.  “…all our strength is in Christ, laid up and waiting for use….ready to flow in according to the measure in which it finds the channels open….” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p183).

“The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him….The one aim of the call of God is the satisfaction of God, not a call to do something for Him.  We are not sent to battle for God, but to be used by God in His battlings” Oswald Chambers (ref#7, Jan 18th).

It is prudent to check often whether we are working or allowing JESUS to work.  Andrew Murray warns: “You are so occupied and filled with other things, religious things, preaching and praying, studying and working, so occupied with your religion that you do not give God the time to make himself known” (ref#272, p47).

“What Christ died for is not that we might help him, but that we might see and savor him as infinitely valuable” John Piper (ref#92, p83).

“…when God and man are spoken of as working together, there is nothing of the idea of a partnership between two partners who each contribute their share to a work.  The relation is a very different one.  The true idea is that of cooperation founded on subordination.  As Jesus was entirely dependent on the Father for all His words and all His works, so the believer can do nothing of himself” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p117).

FATHER, how easy it is for me to skip the step of allowing CHRIST to make Himself known.  It is so much easier to do what I think the boss wants and hope that he likes it, as it is to take the time to directly ask. Keep me fearing You.

ABIDING IN CHRIST

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CHRIST – ALL SUFFICIENT POWER

“The Christian wants to conquer his weakness and to be freed from it: God wants us to rest and even rejoice in it….The Christian thinks his weakness his greatest hindrance in the life and service of God: God tells us that it is the secret of strength and success” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p179).

“I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13 ESV).  “…we acknowledge that apart from Christ we can do nothing” Adolph Saphir (ref#266, p176).

“While we trust in the power of the death of Jesus to cancel the guilt of sin, we do not exercise…faith in the…living Saviour to deliver us from the bondage and power of sin in our daily life….one with Him, we possess strength sufficient to overcome every temptation….Let us most fully believe that we have and are nothing, that with man it is impossible, that in ourselves we have no life which can bring forth fruit; but that Christ is all—that abiding in Him, and His word dwelling in us, we can bring forth fruit to the glory of the Father” Adolph Saphir (rerf#266, p176-177).  “Our holiness of life has its roots in the personal holiness of Jesus. ‘If the root be holy, so also are the branches’” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p171).

Oh FATHER, on the Cross JESUS identified with me.  And now in heaven He makes it possible for me to identify with Him.  What power and love!  I desire to keep myself in CHRIST by reading Your Word.  When You speak about Your SON, provide the HOLY SPIRIT to shoot me full of faith so I grasp with clarity what You promise.  This is my foremost need.  This I plead.