Isaiah For Christians Today

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.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 15 ~ ~ 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 reading from Andrew Murray’s famous and beloved classic book from the late 1800’s ~ ~  “Abide in Christ.”

Too many Christians admit that it is a sacred duty and a blessed privilege to abide in Christ, but they shrink back continually before the question:  is a life of unbroken fellowship with the Savior possible?   Most of them think that only eminent Christians, to whom special opportunities of cultivating this grace have been granted, may attain to it; but for the large majority of disciples, whose lives are so fully occupied with the affairs of this life, it can scarcely be expected. The more they hear of this life, the deeper their sense of its glory and blessedness, and there is nothing they would not do to be made partakers of it, but they are too weak, too unfaithful; they never can do it.

Little do these people know that the abiding in Christ is meant only for the weak and is so beautifully suited to their feebleness.  It does not demand the doing of some great thing or that we first lead a holy and devoted life.  NO!  It is simply weakness entrusting itself to a Mighty One to be kept  –the unfaithful one casting self on One who is altogether trustworthy and true.

Abiding in Him is not a work that we have to do as the condition for enjoying His salvation, but a consenting to let Him do all for us, in us, and through us! 

It is a work He does for us:  the fruit and the power of His redeeming love.  Our part is simply to yield, trust, and wait for what He has engaged to perform.

It is this quiet expectation and confidence, resting on the Word of Christ that in Him there is an abiding place prepared that is so sadly lacking among Christians.  They scarcely take the time or the trouble to realize that when He said, “Abide in me”  (John 15:4), He offered Himself, the Keeper of Israel, who neither slumbers nor sleeps, with all His power and love, as the living home of the soul, where the mighty influences of His grace will be stronger to keep than all the Christians’ feebleness to lead astray.

The idea they have of grace is this:  that their conversion and pardon are God’s work but that now, in gratitude to God, it is their work to live as Christians and follow Jesus.  There is always the thought of a work that has to be done, and even though they pray for help, still they feel the work is theirs.  They fail continually and become hopeless, and the despondency only increases the helplessness. 

No, wandering one; as it was Jesus who drew you when He spoke, “Come” (Matthew 11:28), so it is Jesus who keeps you when He said, “Abide” (John 15:4).  The grace to come and the grace to abide alike are from Him alone!

That word “come,” heard, meditated on, accepted, was the cord of love that drew you near; that word “abide” is likewise the band with which He holds you fast and binds you to Himself.  Let the soul but take time to listen to the voice of Jesus.  “In Me,”  He said, “is your place – in My almighty arms.  It is I who love you so, who speaks “Abide in Me.”’  Surely you can trust Me.” 

The voice of Jesus entering and dwelling in the soul must call for the response:

“Yes, Savior.  In You, I CAN and I WILL abide.”

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 14 ~ ~ Matthew 11:29 ~ ~ “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

We are reading from Andrew Murray’s famous and beloved classic book from the late 1800’s ~ ~  “Abide in Christ.”

Come, my friend, and let us this very day commence to accept the Word of Jesus in all simplicity.  This is a distinct command: 

“Take My yoke….and learn of Me”;   “Abide in Me.”

A command has to be obeyed.  The obedient scholar asks no questions about possibilities or results;  he accepts every order in the confidence that his teacher had provided for all that is needed.  The power and the perseverance to abide in the rest and the blessing in abiding – it belongs to the Savior to see to this.

IT IS MINE TO OBEY; IT IS HIS TO PROVIDE.

Let us this day, in immediate obedience, accept the command and answer boldly, “Savior, I abide in You.  At Your bidding I take Your yoke.  I undertake the duty without delay;  I abide in You.”  Let each consciousness of failure only give new urgency to the command and teach us to listen more earnestly than ever until the Spirit again allows us to hear the voice of Jesus saying, with a love and authority that inspire both hope and obedience,

“CHILD, ABIDE IN ME.”

That Word, coming from Him, will be an end of all doubting – a divine promise of what will surely be granted.  With ever increasing simplicity, its meaning will be interpreted.  Abiding in Jesus is nothing but the giving up of oneself to be ruled, taught and led, and so resting in the arms of Everlasting Love.

Blessed rest, the fruit, the foretaste and the fellowship of God’s own rest, found by those who come to Jesus to abide in Him!  It is the peace of God, the great calm of the eternal world, that passes all understanding and that keeps the heart and mind (Philippians 4:7).  With this grace secured, we have strength for every duty, courage for every struggle, a blessing in every cross, and the joy of life eternal in death itself.

Oh my Savior!  If my heart would ever doubt or fear again, as if the blessing were too great to expect or too high to attain, let me hear Your voice to quicken my faith and obedience:

“ABIDE IN ME:  TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU, AND LEARN OF ME …YOU SHALL FIND REST UNTO YOUR SOULS.”

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 13 ~ ~ John 15:4 ~ ~ “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”

We are reading from Andrew Murray’s famous and beloved classic book from the late 1800’s ~ ~  “Abide in Christ.”

With such misunderstanding at the outset, (the misunderstanding of not knowing that  full trust and submission are necessary) it is no wonder that the disciple life was not one of joy or strength that had been hoped.  In some things, you were led into sin without knowing it because you had not learned how wholly Jesus wanted to rule you and how you could not keep right for a moment unless you had Him very near you.  In other things, you knew what sin was but did not have the power to conquer because you did not know or believe how entirely Jesus would take charge of you to keep and to help you.  Either way, it was not long before the bright joy of your first love was lost, and your path, instead of being like the path of the just, shining more and more unto the perfect day, became like Israel’s wandering in the desert – ever on the way, never very far, yet always coming short of the promised rest.  Weary soul, like the panting deer, driven back and forth, for so many years, come and learn this day the lesson that there is a spot where safety and victory, where peace and rest, are always sure, and that spot is always open to you:  It is:

THE HEART OF JESUS!

But, I hear someone say, it is this abiding in Jesus, always bearing His yoke, learning of Him, that is so difficult, and the very effort to attain to this often disturbs the rest even more than sin or the world.   What a mistake to speak like this!   Yet, how often the words are heard!  Does it weary the traveler to rest in the house or on the bed where he seeks repose from his fatigue?  Or is it a labor to a little child to rest in his mother’s arms?  Is it not the house that keeps the traveler within its shelter?  Do not the arms of the mother sustain and keep the little one?   So it is with Jesus.  The soul has but to yield itself to Him – to be still and rest in the confidence that His love has undertaken – that His faithfulness will perform – the work of keeping it safe in the shelter of His arms. 

OH, it is because the blessing is so great that our little hearts cannot rise to comprehend it.  It is as if we cannot believe that Christ, the Almighty One, will indeed teach and keep us all the day.  Yet, this is just what He has promised, for without this He cannot really give us rest.  It is as our hearts take in this truth that, when He said, “Abide in Me,”  “Learn of Me,” He really meant it, and that it is His own work to keep us abiding when we yield ourselves to Him, that we will venture to cast ourselves into the arms of His love and abandon ourselves to His blessed keeping. 

It is not the yoke, but resistance to the yoke, that causes the difficulty;  the wholehearted surrender to Jesus, as both our Master and our Keeper, finds and secures the rest.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 12 ~ ~ Matthew 11:29 ~  ~  “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”

We are reading from Andrew Murray’s famous and beloved classic book from the late 1800’s ~ ~  “Abide in Christ.”

Do not these words of the Savior reveal what you have perhaps often sought in vain to know, how it is that the rest you at times enjoy is so often lost?  It must have been this:   you had not understood how entire surrender to Jesus is the secret of perfect rest.   Giving up one’s whole life to Him, for Him alone to rule and order;  taking up His yoke and submitting to be led and taught, to learn from Him; abiding in Him, to be and do ONLY  what HE wills – these are the conditions of discipleship, without which there can be no thought of maintaining the rest that was bestowed on first coming to Christ.  The rest is in Christ and not something He gives apart from Himself, so it is only in having Him that the rest can really be kept and enjoyed.

It is because so many young believers fail to lay hold of this truth that the rest so speedily passes away.  Some really did not know; they were never taught how Jesus claims the undivided allegiance of the whole heart and life, how there is not a spot in our entire lives over which  He does not wish to reign, how in the very least things His disciples must ONLY seek to please Him.

They did not know how entire the consecration was that Jesus claimed.  With others, who had some idea of the holy life a Christian ought to lead, the mistake was a different one:  they could not believe such a life to be a possible attainment.  Taking, bearing, and never for a moment laying aside the yoke of Jesus appeared to them to require such a strain of effort and such an amount of goodness as to be altogether beyond their reach. The very idea of always, all the day, abiding in Jesus, was too high – something they might attain to after a life of holiness and growth, but certainly not what a feeble beginner was to start with.

They did not know how, when Jesus said, “My yoke is easy” (Matthew 11:30), He spoke the truth;  how the yoke gives rest, because the moment the soul yields itself to obey, the Lord Himself gives the strength and joy to do it. 

They did not notice now, when He said, “Learn of Me,” He added, “I am meek and lowly in heart,” to assure them that His gentleness would meet their need and bear them as a mother bears her feeble child.

OH, they did not know that when He said, “Abide in Me” (John 15:4), He only asked the surrender to Himself;  His almighty love would hold them fast and keep and bless them.

So, as some had erred from the lack of full consecration, so these failed because they DIDN’T FULLY TRUST.  These two, consecration and faith, are the essential elements of the Christian life – the giving up all to Jesus, — the receiving all from Jesus.  They are implied in each other;   they are united in the one word: “SURRENDER.” 

A FULL SURRENDER IS TO OBEY AS WELL AS TO TRUST, AND TO TRUST AS WELL AS TO OBEY!

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 11 ~ ~ Matthew 11:28 ~ ~ “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

We are reading from Andrew Murray’s famous and beloved classic book from the late 1800’s ~ ~  “Abide in Christ.”

Rest for the soul:  such was the first promise with which the Savior sought to win the heavy-laden sinner.  Though it appears simple, the promise is indeed as large and comprehensive as can be found.  Rest for the soul – does it not imply deliverance from every fear, the supply of every need, the fulfillment of every desire?   And now nothing less than this is the prize with which the Savior woos back the wandering one – who is mourning that the rest has not been as abiding or as full as he had hoped – to come back and abide in Him.  Nothing but this was the reason that the rest has either not been found or, if found, has been disturbed or lost again:  you did not abide with, you did not abide in, Him.

Have you ever noticed how, in the original invitation of the Savior to come to Him, the promise of rest was repeated twice, with such a variation in the conditions as might have suggested that abiding rest could only be found in abiding nearness.  First, the Savior said, “COME TO ME….AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST”;   the very moment you come and believe, I will give you rest – the rest of pardon and acceptance – the rest in My love. 

But we know that all that God bestows needs time to become fully our own; it must be held fast and appropriated and assimilated into our inmost being; without this, not even Christ’s giving can make it our very own in full experience and enjoyment.  And so the Savior repeats His promise, in words that clearly speak not so much of the initial rest with which He welcomes the weary one who comes, but of the deeper and personally appropriated rest of the soul that abides with Him.  He now not only said, “come to me,” but also, “TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU, AND LEARN OF ME”: become My scholars, yield yourselves to My training, submit in all things to My will, let your whole life be one with Mine – in other words, “ABIDE IN ME.” 

Then He adds, not only, “I WILL GIVE,” but also,  “YOU SHALL FIND — REST TO YOUR SOULS.”  The rest He gave at coming will become something you have really found and made your very own – the deeper, abiding rest that comes from longer acquaintance and closer fellowship, from entire surrender and deeper sympathy.   This is the path to abiding rest.

GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 10 ~ ~ 1 Kings 19:11-12 ~ ~ “Then He said, ‘Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.’ And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake;  and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.”

We’re in the classic 1800’s Christian book, “Abide in Christ” by Andrew Murray.  One of the best beloved Christian books of all times.

In connection with  this message, I know that it suggests many difficult questions to the young believer.  There is especially the question, with its various aspects, as to the possibility, in the midst of wearying work and continual distraction, of keeping up, or rather being kept in, the abiding communion.  I do not undertake to remove all difficulties;  Jesus Christ Himself alone must do this by His Holy Spirit.  But what I would gladly, by the grace of God, be permitted to do is to repeat day by day the Master’s blessed command,  “Abide in Me.”  Until it enters the heart and finds a place there, no more to be forgotten or neglected.  I desire that, in the light of Holy Scripture, we would meditate on its meaning until  the understanding – that gate to the heart – opens to apprehend something of what it offers and expects.  So we will discover the means of its attainment and learn to know what keeps us from it and what can help us to it; so we will feel its claims and be compelled to acknowledge that there can be no true allegiance to our King without simply and heartily accepting this one of his commands as well.  So we will gaze on its blessedness until desire is inflamed and the will, with all its energies, is roused to claim and possess the unspeakable blessing.

Come, let us day by day set ourselves at His feet and meditate on this Word of His, with an eye fixed on Him alone.  Let us set ourselves in quiet trust before Him, waiting to hear His holy voice – the still, small voice that is mightier than the storm that rends the rocks – breathing its quickening spirit within us, as He speaks, “Abide in Me.”  The soul that truly hears Jesus Himself speak the Word receives with the Word the power to accept and to hold the blessing He offers.

And may it please You, blessed Savior, indeed, to speak to us; let each of us hear Your blessed voice.  May the feeling of our deep need and the faith of Your wondrous love, combined with the sight of the wonderfully blessed life You are waiting to bestow upon us, constrain us to listen and to obey, as often as You speak, “Abide in Me.” 

Day by day, let the answer from our heart be:

“Savior, I do abide in You.”