Isaiah For Christians Today

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 25 ~ ~ John 15:1 ~ ~ “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.”

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We are reading Andrew Murray’s classic book, “Abide in Christ.”

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“This is the Lord’s doing”

These words will lead the believer even further and higher, even to the depths of eternity. 

“Whom He did predestinate, them He also called.” Romans 8:30).  The calling in time is the manifestation of the purpose in eternity.  Before the world was, God has fixed the eye of His sovereign love on you in the election of grace and chosen you in Christ.  That you know yourself to be in Christ is the stepping-stone by which you rise to understand, in its full meaning, the word, “Of God I am in Christ Jesus.”  With the prophet, your language will be:

“The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying, Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn you.” (Jeremiah 31:3).

You will recognize your own salvation as part of that “mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself.”  (Ephesians 1:9) and join with the whole body of believers in Christ as they say, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will. (Ephesians 1:11).  Nothing will more exalt free grace and make man bow very low before it than this knowledge of the mystery “Of God……in Christ.”

It is easy to see what a mighty influence it must exert on the believer who seeks to abide in Christ.  What a sure standing ground it gives him, as he rests his right to Christ and all His fullness on nothing less than the Father’s own purpose and work!  We have thought of Christ as the Vine and the believer as the branch;  let us not forget that other precious word:

“My Father is the husbandman.”

The Savior said, “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted up” (Matthew 15:13), but every branch grafted in by Him into the True Vine will never be plucked out of His hand.  As it was the Father to whom Christ owed all He was and in whom he had all His strength and His life as the fine, so the believer owes his place and his security in Christ to the Father.

The same love and delight with which the Father watched over the beloved Son Himself, watch over every member of his body, everyone who is in Christ Jesus.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 24 ~ ~ 1 Corinthians 1:30 ~ ~ “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

Chapter 6 today, “God Himself Has United You to Him” in the classic 1800’s book, “Abide in Christ” by Andrew Murray

“You are in Christ Jesus.”   The believers in Corinth were still feeble and carnal, only babes in Christ.  Yet Paul wanted them, at the outset of his teaching, to know distinctly that they were in Christ Jesus.  The whole Christian life depends on the clear consciousness of our position in Christ.  Most essential to abiding in Christ is the daily renewal of our faith’s assurance, “I am in Christ Jesus.”  All fruitful preaching to believers must take this as its starting point:  “You are in Christ Jesus.”

But the apostle had an additional thought, of almost greater importance:  “Of God are you in Christ Jesus.”  He wanted us not only to remember our union to Christ, especially that it is not our own doing, but also the work of God Himself.  As the Holy Spirit teaches us to realize this, we will see what a source of assurance and strength it must become to us.  If it is through God alone that I am in Christ, then God Himself, the Infinite One, becomes my security for all I can need or wish in seeking to abide in Christ.

Let me try to understand what it means, this wonderful “Of God…in Christ.”  In becoming partakers of the union with Christ, there is a work God does and a work we have to do.  God does His work by moving us to do our work.  The work of God is hidden and silent; what we do is something distinct and tangible.  Conversion and faith, prayer and obedience, are conscious acts of which we can give a clear account; while the spiritual quickening (bringing to life) and strengthening that come from above are secret and beyond the reach of human sight.

 So it comes that when the believer tries to say, “I am in Christ Jesus,” he looks more to the work he did, than to that wondrous secret work of God by which he was united to Christ.   Nor can it well be otherwise at the commencement of the Christian course.  “I know that I have believed” is a valid testimony.  But it is of great consequence that the mind would be led to see that, at the back of our turning,  believing and accepting of Christ, there was God’s almighty power doing its work – inspiring our will, taking possession of us, and carrying out its own purpose of love in planting us into Christ Jesus.  As the believer enters into this, the divine side of the work of salvation, he will learn to praise and worship with new exultation – and to rejoice more than ever in the divinity of that salvation he has been made partaker of.  At each step he reviews, the song will come, “This is the Lord’s doing” – divine Omnipotence working out what eternal Love had devised.

  Through God I am in Christ Jesus.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 23 ~ ~ 1John 5:4 ~ ~ “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”

We’re  finishing chapter 5 in the classic book by Andrew Murray, “Abide in Christ.”

And if you ask what exactly it is that you now have to believe so that you may abide in Him, the answer is not difficult.  Believe first of all what He said:

“I am the vine” (John 15:5). 

The safety and the fruitfulness of the branch depend upon the strength of the vine.  Do not think so much of yourself as a branch, nor of the abiding as your duty, until you have first had your soul filled with the faith of what Christ as the Vine is.,  He really will be to you all that a vine can be –holding you fast, nourishing you, and making Himself every moment responsible for your growth and your fruit.

Take time to know, set yourself heartily to believe:

“My Vine, on who I can depend for all I need, is Christ.” 

A large, strong vine bears the feeble branch and holds it more than the branch holds the vine.  Ask the Father by the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what a glorious, loving, mighty Christ this is, in whom you have your place and your life; it is the faith in what Christ is, more than anything else, that will keep you abiding in Him.  A soul filled with large thoughts of the Vine will be a strong branch and will abide confidently in Him.  Be much occupied with Jesus, and believe much in Him as the True Vine.

Then, when faith can well say, “He is my Vine,” let it further say “I am His branch; I am in Him.”  I speak to those who say they are Christ’s disciples, and on them, I cannot too earnestly press the importance of exercising their faith in saying “I am in Him.”  It makes the abiding so simple.  If I realize clearly as I meditate that now I am in Him, I see at once that there is nothing lacking except just my consent to be what He has made me, to remain where He has placed me.  I am in Christ; this simple thought, carefully, prayerfully, believingly uttered, removes all difficulty as if there were great attainment to be reached.  No, I am in Christ, my blessed Savior.  His love has prepared a home for me with Himself when He says, “Abide in my love.” And His power has undertaken to keep the door and to keep me in, if I will but consent.  I am in Christ.  I have now but to say “Savior, I bless You for this wondrous grace.  I consent;  I yield myself to your gracious keeping.  I do abide in You.”

It is the faith that continually closes its eyes to the weakness of the creature and finds its joy in the sufficiency of an Almighty Savior that makes the soul strong and glad.  It gives itself up to be led by the Holy Spirit into an ever deeper appreciation of that wonderful Savior who God has given us – the Infinite Immanuel — in accordance with the promise, “if that which you have heard from the beginning shall abide in you, you shall abide in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2:24).   It lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).  So it makes the soul strong with the strength of God to be and to do all that is needed for abiding in Christ.

Believe now.  Believe always.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 22 ~ ~ Romans 1:17 ~ ~ “The just shall live by faith.”

We’re continuing in Andrew Murray’s classic book, “Abide in Christ”.  Continuing in chapter 5, “As You Came to Him by Faith.”

Apply  your experience in coming to Jesus, to abiding in Him.  Now, as then, the temptations to keep you from believing are many.  When you think of your sins since you became a disciple, your heart is cast down with shame, and it looks as if it were too much to expect that Jesus should indeed receive you into perfect intimacy and the full enjoyment of His holy love.  When you think how utterly, in times past, you have failed in keeping the most sacred vows, the consciousness of present weakness makes you tremble at the very idea of answering the Savior’s command with the promise, “Lord, from henceforth, I will abide in You.”  And when you set before yourself the life of love and joy, of holiness and fruitfulness, which in the future are to flow from abiding in Him, it is as if it only serves to make you still more hopeless:  you, at least, can never attain to it.  You know yourself too well.  It is no use expecting it, only to be disappointed;  a life fully and wholly abiding in Jesus is not for you.

OH! That you would learn a lesson from the time of your first coming to the Savior!  Remember, dear soul, how you then were led, contrary to all that your experience and your feelings and even your sober judgment said, to take Jesus at His word and how you were NOT disappointed.  He did receive you and pardon you;

He did love you and save you – you know it.  And if He did this for you when you were an enemy and a stranger, do you not think, now that you are His own, He will not much more fulfill His promise?  OH, that you would come and begin simply to listen to His Word and to ask only  the one question:  Does He really mean that I should abide with Him:  the answer His Word gives is so simple and so sure:  by His almighty grace you now are IN HIM:  that same almighty grace will indeed enable you to abide in Him.  By faith you became partakers of the initial grace; by that same faith you can enjoy the continuous grace of abiding in Him.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 21~ ~ Colossians 2:6-7 ~ ~ “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him: rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding with thanksgiving.”

We’re beginning chapter 5, entitled, “As You Came to Him by Faith” in Andrew Murray’s classic book, “Abide in Christ.”

In these words, the apostle taught us the weighty lesson that it is not only by faith that we first come to Christ and are united to Him, but that it is by faith that we are to be rooted and established in our union with Christ.  Faith is as essential for the progress of the spiritual life as it was for the commencement.  Abiding in Jesus can only be by faith.

There are earnest Christians who do not understand this, or, if they admit it in theory, they fail to realize its application in practice.  They are very zealous for a free Gospel, with our first acceptance of Christ, and justification by faith alone.  But after this, they think everything depends on our diligence and faithfulness.  While they firmly grasp the truth that the sinner “is justified by faith” (Romans 3:28), they have hardly found a place in their scheme for the larger truth:  “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17).

They have never understood what a perfect Savior Jesus is and how each day He will do for the sinner just as much as He did the first day when He came to Him!  They do not know that the life of grace is always and only a life of faith and that, in the relationship to Jesus, the one daily and unceasing duty of the disciple is to believe, because believing is the one channel through which divine grace and strength flow out into the heart of man.

The old nature of the believer remains evil and sinful to the last.  It is only as he daily comes, empty and helpless, to his Savior to receive His life and strength, that he can bring forth the fruits of righteousness to the glory of God.  Therefore it is:  “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him: rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding with thanksgiving.”  As you came to Jesus, so abide in Him…….by faith.

If you would know how faith is to be exercised in thus abiding in Jesus, to be rooted more deeply and firmly in Him, you have only to look back to the time when you first received Him.  You remember well what obstacles at that time appeared to be in the way of your believing.  There was first your vileness and guilt:  it appeared impossible that the promise of pardon and love could be for such a sinner.  Then, there was the sense of weakness and death: you did not feel the power for the surrender and the trust to which you were called.  Then, there was the future:  you dared not undertake to be a disciple of Jesus while you felt so sure that you could not remain standing, but would speedily again be unfaithful and fall.  These difficulties were like mountains in your way.  And how were they removed?  Simply by the Word of God.  That Word, as it were, compelled you to believe that, notwithstanding guilt in the past, weakness in the present and unfaithfulness in the future, the promise was sure that Jesus would accept and save you.  On that word, you ventured to come and were not deceived:  you found that Jesus did indeed accept and save.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 20 ~ ~ Psalm 139:6 ~ ~ “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.”

Continuing with “Abide in Christ” by Andrew Murray.

Wondrous parable of the Vine – unveiling the mysteries of the divine love, of the heavenly life, of the world of the Spirit – how little have I understood You!  Jesus, the living Vine in heaven, and I, the living branch on earth!   How little have I understood how great my need of – and also how perfect my claim to – all His fullness!   How little understood, how great His need of – and also how perfect His claim to – my emptiness!  Let me, in its beautiful light, study the wondrous union between Jesus and His people, until it becomes my guide to full communion with my beloved Lord.

Let me listen and believe until my whole being cries out, “Jesus is indeed to me the True Vine, bearing me, nourishing me, supplying me, using me, and filling me to the full to make me bring forth fruit abundantly.”

Then, I will not fear to say, “I am indeed a branch to Jesus, the True Vine, abiding in Him, resting on Him, waiting for Him, serving Him, and living only that through me He may show forth the riches of His grace and give His fruit to a perishing world.”

It is when we try thus to understand the meaning of the parable that the blessed command spoken in connection with it will come home to us in its true power.  The thought of what the vine is to the branch, and Jesus to the believer, will give new force to the words, “Abide in Me.”  It will be as if He says:

“Think, soul, how completely I belong to you.  I have joined Myself inseparably to you;  all the fullness and fatness of the Vine are yours indeed.  Now, once you are in Me, be assured that all I have is wholly yours.  It is My interest and My honor to have you be a fruitful branch;  only abide in Me.  You are weak, but I am strong;  you are poor, but I am rich.  Only abide in Me; yield yourself wholly to My teaching and rule;  simply trust My love, My grace, My promises.  Only believe;  I am wholly yours.  I am the Vine, you are the branch.  Abide in Me!”

What do you say, O my soul?  Will I hesitate longer or withhold consent?  Or will I not – instead of only thinking how hard it is to live like a branch of the True Vine, because I thought of it as something I have to accomplish – will I not now begin to look upon it as the most blessed and joyful thing under heaven?  Will I not believe that, now that I am in Him, He Himself will keep me and enable me to abide?  On my part, abiding is nothing but the acceptance of my position, the consent to be kept there, the surrender of faith to the strong Vine still to hold the feeble branch.  Yes, I will – I do – abide in You, blessed Lord Jesus.

Oh Savior, how unspeakable is Your love!   “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain to it.” (Ps 139:6). 

I can only yield myself to Your love with the prayer that, day by day, You would unfold to me something of its precious mysteries and so encourage and strengthen Your loving disciple to do what my heart longs to do indeed – ever, only, wholly, to abide in You!

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 19 ~ ~ John 14:12~ ~ “He that believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the Father”

We’re continuing in chapter 4 of Andrew Murray’s classic writing, “Abide in Christ”

There is more;  as neither vine nor branch is anything without the other, so its neither anything EXCEPT FOR the other.

All the vine possesses belongs to the branches.  The vine does not gather from the soil its fatness and its sweetness for itself –all it has is at the disposal of the branches.  As it is the parent, so it is the servant of the branches.  

Jesus, to whom we owe our lives, completely gives Himself for us and to us.  “The glory which You gave Me, I have given them.” (John 17:22).

All His fullness and all His riches are for you, believer, for the vine does not live for itself, keeps nothing for itself, but exists only for the branches.  All that Jesus is in heaven, He is for us.  He has no interest there separate from ours; He stands as our representatives before the Father.

And all the branch possesses belongs to the vine.  The branch does not exist for itself, but to bear fruit that can proclaim the excellence of the vine.  It has no reason for existence except to be of service to the vine.

This is a glorious image of the calling of the believer and the entireness of his consecration to the service of his Lord.  As Jesus gives Himself so wholly over to him, he feels himself urged to be wholly his Lord’s.  Every power of his being, every moment of his life, and every thought and feeling belong to Jesus, that from Him and for Him he may bring forth fruit.  As he realizes what the vine is to the branch, and what the branch is meant to be to the vine, he feels that he has but one thing to think of and to live for, and that is the will, the glory, the work, and the kingdom of his blessed Lord – the bringing forth of fruit to the glory of His name.

The parable teaches us the object of the union.  The branches are for fruit and fruit alone. 

“Every branch …that bears not fruit He takes away” (John 15:2)

The branch needs leaves for the maintenance of its own life and the perfection of its fruit; it bears the fruit itself to give away to those around.

  As the believer enters into his calling as a branch, he sees that HE HAS TO FORGET HIMSELF and to live entirely for his fellowmen.  To love them, to seek for them, and to save them, Jesus came.

For this, every branch on the Vine has to live as much as the Vine itself.  It is for fruit, much fruit, that the Father has made us one with Jesus.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 18 ~ ~ John 15:5 ~ ~ “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

We are beginning Chapter 4 in Andrew Murray’s classic book, “Abide in Christ”

It was in connection with the parable of the Vine that our Lord first used the expression, “Abide in Me.” (John 15:4).  That parable, so simple, and yet so rich in its teaching, gives us the best and most complete illustration of the meaning of our Lord’s command and the union to which He invites us.

The parable teaches us the nature of that union.  The connection between the vine and the branch is a living one.  No eternal, temporary union will suffice; no work of man can create it.  The branch, whether an original or an engrafted one, is such only by the Creator’s own work, in virtue of which the life, the sap, the fatness, and the fruitfulness of the vine communicate themselves to the branch. 

It is the same way with the believer too.  His union with his Lord is no work of human wisdom or human will, but an act of God, by which the closest and most complete life union is created between the Son of God and the sinner. 

“God has sent forth the Spirit of His son into your hearts.” (Galatians 4:6).  The same Spirit that dwelled and still dwells in the Son becomes the life of the believer; in the unity of that one Spirit and the fellowship of the same life that is in Christ, he is one with Him.  As between the vine and branch, it is a life union that makes them one.

The parable teaches us the completeness of the union.  So close is the union between the vine and the branch that each is nothing without the other;  EACH IS WHOLLY AND ONLY FOR THE OTHER.

Without the vine, the branch can do nothing.  To the vine it owes its right of place in the vineyard, its life and its fruitfulness. 

 So the Lord said, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).  The believer can each day be pleasing to God only in that which he does through the power of Christ dwelling in him.  The daily inflowing of the life sap of the Holy Spirit is his only power to bring forth fruit.  He lives alone in Him and is dependent on Him alone for each moment.

BUT….Without the branch, the vine can also do nothing!   A vine without branches can bear no fruit.  No less indispensable than the vine to the branch is the branch to the vine.  Such is the wonderful condescension of the grace of Jesus that, just as His people are dependent on Him, He has made Himself dependent on them.  Without His disciples, He cannot dispense His blessing to the world;  He cannot offer sinners the grapes of the heavenly Canaan.  Marvel not!  It is His own appointment; and this is the high honor to which He has called His redeemed ones:   as indispensable as He is to them in heaven, that from Him their fruit may be found, so indispensable are they to Him on earth, that through them His fruit may be found!

Believers, meditate on this until your soul bows to worship in the presence of the mystery of the perfect union between Christ and the believer.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 17 ~ ~ Philippians 3:12b ~ ~ “I am apprehended of Christ.”

Continuing from yesterday’s study in Andrew Murray’s classic book, “Abide in Christ.”

And then let the second thought enter your heart:  unto this “I am apprehended of Christ.”  His almighty power has laid hold on  me and offers now to lift me up to where He would have me.

  Fix your eyes on Christ.   Gaze on the love that beams in those eyes and that asks whether you cannot trust Him, who sought and found and brought you near, now to keep you.

Gaze on the arm of power, and say whether you have reason to be assured that He is indeed able to keep you abiding in Him.

My dear fellow believer, go, take time alone with Jesus, and say this to Him.  I dare not speak to you without abiding in Him for the mere sake of calling forth a pleasing religious sentiment.  God’s truth must at once be acted on.  Oh, yield yourself this very day to the blessed Savior in the surrender of the one thing He asks of you: give up yourself to abide in Him.

  He Himself will work it in you.  You can trust Him to keep you trusting and living (abiding) in Him.

And if doubts ever rise again, or the bitter experience of failure tempt you to despair, just remember where Paul found His strength: 

“I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”  In that assurance you have a fountain of strength.  From that you can look up to that for which He has set His heart, and set yours there too.

From that you gather confidence that the good work He has begun He will also finish.  In that confidence you will gather courage, day by day, afresh to say, “I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended of Christ Jesus.’ It is because Jesus has taken hold of me, and because Jesus keeps me, that I dare to say:  Savior, I abide in You.”

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 16 ~ ~ Philippians 3:12 ~ ~ “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”

We are studying Andrew Murray’s beloved classic, “Abide in Christ.”

“Abide in Me.”  These words are no law of Moses, demanding from the sinful what they cannot perform.  They are the command of love, which is a promise in a different shape.  Think of this until all feeling of burden, fear and despair pass away, and the first thought that comes when you hear of abiding in Jesus is one of bright and joyous hope:  it is for me; I know I will achieve it.  You are not under the law, with its inexorable “do”, but under grace, with its blessed “BELIEVE” what Christ will do for you.

If the question is asked, “But surely there is something for us to do?” the answer is  “Our doing and working are but the fruit of Christ’s work in us.”  It is when the soul becomes utterly passive, looking and resting on what Christ is to do, that its energies are stirred to their highest activity, and we work most effectively because we know that He works in us.  It is as we see in those words “in me” the mighty energies of love reaching out after us to have us and to hold us that all the strength of our will is called to abide in Him.

The connection between Christ’s work and our work is beautifully expressed in the words of Paul  in Philippians 3:12:

“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”

It was because he knew that the mighty and faithful One had grasped him with the glorious purpose of making him one with Himself that he did his utmost to grasp the glorious prize.  The faith, the experience, the full assurance, “Christ has apprehended me,” gave him the courage and strength to press on and apprehend that for which he was apprehended.   Each new insight of the great end for which Christ had apprehended and was holding him stirred him afresh to aim at nothing less.

Paul’s expression, and its application to the Christian life, can be best understood if we think of a father helping his child to mount the side of some steep precipice.  The father stands above and has taken the son by the hand to help him on.  He points him to the spot on which he will help him to plant his feet, as he leaps upward.  The leap would be too high and dangerous for the child alone; but the father’s hand is his trust, and he leaps to attain the point for which his father has taken hold of him.  It is the father’s strength that secures him and lifts him up and so urges him to use his utmost strength.

Such is the relation between Christ and you, O weak and trembling believer!  First, fix your eyes on that for which He has apprehended you.  It is nothing less than a life of abiding, unbroken fellowship with Himself to which He is seeking to lift you up.  All that you have already received –pardon and peace, the Spirit and His grace – are but preliminary to this.  And all that you see promised to you in the future –holiness and fruitfulness and glory everlasting – are but its natural outcome.  Union with Himself, and so with the Father, is His highest object.  Fix your eyes on this, and gaze until it stands out before you clear and unmistakable:  Christ’s aim is to have me abiding in Him.