Month: April 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 29 ~ ~ 2 Corinthians 4:6 ~ ~ “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

We continue today in chapter 7 of “Abide in Christ”, the classic book by Andrew Murray.  The chapter is entitled, “As Your Wisdom.”

Therefore, believer, abide in Jesus as your wisdom, and expect from Him most confidently whatever wisdom you may need for a life to the glory of the Father.    It is He alone who can guide you.  Do not think about it as a mystery or difficulty you must solve.  Whatever questions come up as to the possibility of abiding perfectly and uninterruptedly in Him, and of really obtaining all the blessing that comes from it, always remember:

He knows, all is perfectly clear to Him, and He is my wisdom.  Just as much as you need to know and are capable of apprehending will be communicated, if you only trust Him.  Never think of the riches of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Jesus as treasures without a key, or of your way as a path without a light.  Jesus, your wisdom, is guiding you in the right way, even when you do not see it.

In all your dealings with the blessed Word, remember the same truth:  abide in Jesus, your wisdom.  Study much to know the written Word, but study more to know the living Word, (Jesus) in whom you are of God.  Jesus, the wisdom of God, is only known by a life of implicit confidence and obedience.  The words He speaks are spirit and life to those who live in Him.  Therefore, each time you read or hear or meditate on the Word be careful to take up your true position.  Realize first your oneness with Him who is the wisdom of God.  Know yourself to be under His direct an special training;  go to the Word abiding in Him, the very fountain of divine light.  In His light you will see light.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 28 ~ ~ 1 Corinthians 1:23-24 ~ ~ “but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,  but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Continuing in chapter 7 in “Abide in Christ” by Andrew Murray, speaking of Christ as our wisdom:

You would gladly “count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus (your) Lord.” (Philippians 3:8).

Abide in Jesus, and be found in Him.  You will know Him in “the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.” (Philippians 3:10).  Following Him, you will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.  It is only when God shines into the heart, and Christ Jesus dwells there, that the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Christ can be seen.  (See 2 Corinthians 4:6).

Or would you understand His blessed work as He worked it on earth or works it from heaven  by His Spirit?  Would you know how Christ can become our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption?  It is just as bringing, revealing, and communicating these that He is “made unto us wisdom from God.”

 There are a thousand questions that at times come up; the attempt to answer them becomes a weariness and a burden.   It is because you have forgotten you are in Christ, whom God has made to be YOUR WISDOM!

Let it be your first care to abide in Him in undivided fervent devotion of heart.  When the heart and the life are right, rooted in Christ, knowledge will come in such measure as Christ’s own wisdom sees fit.  Without such abiding in Christ, the knowledge does not really profit but is often most hurtful.  The soul satisfies itself with thoughts that are but the forms and images of truth without receiving the truth itself in its power. 

God’s way is ever first to give us, even though it is but as a seed, the thing itself, the life and the power and then the knowledge.

 Man seeks the knowledge first, and often, never gets beyond it.

God gives us Christ and, in Him, the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  Oh, let us be content to possess Christ, to dwell in Him, to make Him our life, and only in deeper searching into Him, to search and find the knowledge we desire.  Such knowledge is life indeed.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 27~ ~ 1Corinthians 1:30 ~ ~  “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption”

We’re beginning Chapter 7 of the classic and beloved book, “Abide in Christ” by Andrew Murray, written in the late 1800’s.

Jesus Christ is not only Priest to purchase and King to secure, but also Prophet to reveal to us the salvation that God has prepared for those who love Him.  Just as at Creation the light was first called into existence, that in it all God’s other works might have their life and beauty, so in our text (today’s verse) wisdom is mentioned first as the treasury in which the three precious gifts that follow are to be found.  The life is the light of man; it is in revealing to us and making us behold the glory of God in His own face that Christ makes us partakers of eternal life.  It was by the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that sin came; it is through the knowledge that Christ gives that salvation comes.  He is made unto us wisdom. In Him, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.

Through God you are in Him and have only to abide in Him to be made a partaker of these treasures of wisdom.  In Him you are, and in Him the wisdom is.  Dwelling in Him, you dwell in the very fountain of all light.  Abiding in Him, you have Christ, the wisdom of God, leading your whole spiritual life, and being ready to communicate, in the form of knowledge, just as much as is necessary for you to know.  Christ is “made unto us wisdom” and you are in Christ.

It is this connection between what Christ has been made to us by God and how we have it only by also being in Him, that we must learn to understand better.  We will thus see that the blessings prepared for us in Christ cannot be obtained as special gifts in answer to prayer apart from the abiding in Him.  The answer to each prayer must come in closer union and deeper abiding in Him; in Him, the unspeakable gift, all other gifts are treasured up, the gifts of wisdom and knowledge, too.

How often have you longed for wisdom and spiritual understanding so that you might know God better, whom to know is life eternal?  Abide in Jesus: your life in Him will lead you to the fellowship with God in which the only true knowledge of God is to be had.  His love, His power, His infinite glory will, as you abide in Jesus, be revealed as it has not entered into the heart of man to conceive.  You may not be able to grasp it with the understanding or to express it in words, but the knowledge that is deeper than thoughts or words will be given – the knowing of God that comes from being known by Him.  “We preach Christ crucified …unto them which are called…Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24).

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 26 ~ ~ Ephesians 2:10 ~ ~ “ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

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

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What confident trust this faith inspires, not only as to being kept in safety to the end, but also as to being able to fulfill the object for which I have been united to Christ.  The branch is as much in the charge and keeping of the husbandman as the vine; his honor as much concerned in the well-being and growth of the branch as of the vine.  The God who chose Christ to be the Vine fitted Him thoroughly for the work He had to perform as the Vine.  The God who has chosen me and planted me in Christ has thereby engaged to secure, if I will but let Him by yielding myself to Him, that I in every way be worthy of Jesus Christ!

Oh!  That I might only fully realize this!  What confidence and urgency it would give to my prayer to the God and Father of Jesus Christ!  How it would quicken (enliven) the sense of dependence and make me see that praying without ceasing is indeed the one need of my life – an unceasing waiting, moment by moment, on the God who has united me to Christ, to perfect His own divine work, to work in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

And what a motive this would be for the highest activity in the maintenance of the fruitful branch of life!  Motives are mighty powers;  it is of infinite importance to have them high and clear.  Here, surely, is the highest: 

“ You are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works” ( Ephesians 2:10), grafted by Him into Christ, unto the bringing forth of much fruit. 

Whatever God creates is exquisitely suited to its end.   He created the sun to give light:  how perfectly it does its work!  He created the eye to see:  how beautifully it fulfills its objective!  He created the new man unto good works:  how admirably it is fitted for its purpose!!!

Of God I am in Christ, created anew, made a branch of the vine, fitted for fruit bearing.  Would to God that believers would cease looking most at their old natures and complaining of their weaknesses as if God called them to what they were not fitted for!  If only they would believingly and joyfully accept the wondrous revelation of how God, in uniting them to Christ, has made Himself chargeable for their spiritual growth and fruitfulness!

How all sickly hesitancy and sloth would disappear, and under the influence of this mighty motive – the faith in the faithfulness of Him of whom they are in Christ – their whole nature would rise to accept and fulfill their glorious destiny!

O my soul, yield yourself to the mighty influence of the Word:

“Of God are you in Christ Jesus”!!!.  It is the same God through whom Christ is made all that He is for us, through who we also are in Christ, and will most surely be made what we must be to Him.  Take time to meditate and to worship until the light that comes from the throne of God has shone into you and you have seen your union to Christ as indeed the work of His almighty Father. 

Take time, day after day, and in your entire life, with all it has of claims and duties, of needs and wishes, let God be everything.  See Jesus as He speaks to you, “Abide in Me.”(John 15:4), pointing upward and saying, “My Father is the husbandman.”  Of Him you are in Me, through Him you abide in Me, and to Him and to His glory will be the fruit you bear.”

And let your answer be, “Amen, Lord!  So be it.”  From eternity, Christ and I were ordained for each other;  inseparably we belong to each other.  It is God’s will;  I will abide in Christ.  It is through God alone that I am in Christ Jesus.

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!