Waiting on God: Be Strong and of Good Courage

Waiting on God by Andrew Murray

Be strong, and let your heart take courage, All ye that wait for the Lord.” Psalms 31:24

The words are nearly the same as in our last meditation. But I gladly avail myself of them again to press home a much-needed lesson for all who desire to learn truly and fully what waiting on God is. The lesson is this: It is with the heart we must wait upon God. “Let your heart take courage.”

All our waiting depends upon the state of the heart. As a man’s heart is, so is he before God. We can advance no further or deeper into the holy place of God’s presence to wait on Him there, than our heart is prepared for it by the Holy Spirit. The message is, “Let your heart take courage, all ye that wait on the Lord.”

The truth appears so simple, that some may ask, Do not all admit this? Where is the need of insisting on it so specially? Because very many Christians have no sense of the great difference between the religion of the mind and the religion of the heart, and the former is far more diligently cultivated than the latter. They know not how infinitely greater the heart is than the mind. It is in this that one of the chief causes must be sought of the feebleness of our Christian life, and it is only as this is understood that waiting on God will bring its full blessing.

A text in Proverbs (3:5) may help to make my meaning plain. Speaking of a life in the fear and favour of God, it says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not upon thine own understanding”. In all religion we have to use these two powers. The mind as to gather knowledge from God’s word, and prepare the food by which the heart with the inner life is to be nourished. But here comes in a terrible danger, of our leaning to our own understanding, and trusting in our apprehension of divine things.

People imagine that if they are occupied with the truth, the spiritual life will as a matter of course be strengthened. And this is by no means the case. The understanding deals with conceptions and images of divine things, but it cannot reach the real life of the soul. Hence the command, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not upon thine own understanding.”

It is with the heart man believeth, and comes into touch with God. It is in the heart God has given His Spirit, to be there to us the presence and the power of God working in us. In all our religion it is the heart that must trust and love and worship and obey. My mind is utterly impotent in creating or maintaining the spiritual life within me: the heart must wait on God for Him to work it in me.

It is in this even as in the physical life. My reason may tell me what to eat and drink, and how the food nourishes me. But in the eating and feeding my reason I can do nothing: the body has its organs for that special purpose. Just so, reason may tell me what God’s word says, but it can do nothing to the feeding of the soul on the bread of life - this the heart alone can do by its faith and trust in God.

A man may be studying the nature and effects of food or sleep; when he wants to eat or sleep he sets aside his thoughts and study, and uses the power of eating or sleeping. And so the Christian needs ever, when he has studied or heard God’s word, to cease from his thoughts, to put no trust in them, and to waken up his heart to open itself before God, and seek the living fellowship with Him.

This is now the blessedness of waiting upon God, that I confess the impotence of all my thoughts and efforts, and set myself still to bow my heart before Him in holy silence, and to trust Him to renew and strengthen His own work in me. And this is just the lesson of our text, “Let your heart take courage, all ye that wait on the Lord”. Remember the difference between knowing with the mind and believing with the heart.

Beware of the temptation of leaning upon your understanding, with its clear strong thoughts. They only help you to know what the heart must get from God: in themselves they are only images and shadows. “Let your heart take courage, all ye that wait on the Lord.”

Present it before Him as that wonderful part of your spiritual nature in which God reveals Himself, and by which you can know Him. Cultivate the greatest confidence that, though you cannot see into your heart, God is working there by His Holy Spirit. Let the heart wait at times in perfect silence and quiet; in its hidden depths God will work.

Be sure of this, and just wait on Him. Give your whole heart, with its secret workings, into God’s hands continually. He wants the heart, and takes it, and as God dwells in it.

“Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all ye that wait on the Lord.”

“My soul, wait thou only upon God!”

Come to Him

Sometimes the last thing we will do is come to Him. Today in my devotions I read the following… enjoy.

“I am willing; be cleansed.” -Matthew 8:3 (Read Mark 1:28-45)

Today there are many needy, afflicted people, but I do not think most of them are half as bad as this first case that we read of in Matthew 8. This man was a leper. You may be suffering from tuberculosis, cancer, or other things, but God will show forth His perfect healing, if you have a living faith in Christ. He is a wonderful Jesus.

This leper must have been told about Jesus. So much is missed because people are not constantly telling what Jesus will do in our day. Probably someone had come to that leper and said, ” Jesus can heal you.” So he was filled with expectation as he saw the Lord coming down the mountainside. Lepers were not allowed to come within reach of people; they were shut out as unclean. Ordinarily, it would have been very difficult for him to get near because of the crowd that surrounded Jesus. But as Jesus came down from the mountain, He met the leper; He came to the leper.

There was no help for him, humanly speaking, but nothing is too hard for Jesus. The man cried , ” Lord, if You are willing , You can make me clean” (MATT. 8:2). Was Jesus willing? You will find that He is always more willing to work than we are to give Him an opportunity to work. The trouble is that we do not come to Him; we do not ask Him for what He is more than willing to give.

If you are definite with Him, You will never go away disappointed. Divine life will flow into you, and instantaneously you will be delivered. Jesus is just the same today, and He says to you, ” I am willing; be cleansed.” He has an overflowing cup for you, a fullness of life. He will meet you in your absolute helplessness. All things are possible if you will only believe ( Mark 9:23). God has a real plan. It is very simple: come to Jesus. You will find Him just the same as He was in the days of old (Heb 13:8).

Christ Your Life

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

Recently in my morning devotions I came across something Andrew Murray wrote and I pass it on to you.

“Christ’s life was more than His teaching, more than His work, even more than His death.  It was His life in the sight of God and man that gave value to what He said and did and suffered.  It is this life that He gives to His people and enables them to live it out before men.

It was the life in the new brotherhood of the Holy Spirit that made both Jews and Greeks feel that there was some superhuman power about Christ’s disciples.  They gave living proof of the truth that God’s love had come down and taken possession of them.

Everything depends upon the life with God in Christ being right.  It is the simplicity and intensity of our life in Christ Jesus, and of His life in us, that sustains us in our daily walk.  It makes us conquerors over self and everything that could hinder the Christ life.  Through prayer, it gives us the victory over the powers of evil.

The life in Christ must be everything to us because Christ Himself lives in us.  When Jesus spoke the words ‘and be sure of this: I am with you always’ (Matthew 28:20, He meant nothing less than this: ‘All day and every day, I am with you.  I am the secret of your life, your joy and your strength.”

Conformed to His Image

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.Romans 8:28-29

Currently I am teaching/leading a class on “Spiritual Formation.”  Many of the quotes that I have been recently posting are coming out of the class notes that I have been preparing.  We are using the book by Dr. Ken Boa: Conformed to His Image: Biblical and Practical Approaches to Spiritual Formation.  I have enjoyed reading Dr. Boa over the years, and more recently (the last 3 years) listening to his podcasts.   I can’t recommend this book more highly.

The key to Spiritual Formation is time.  We must spend time in God’s presence.  We cannot buy into the false dichotomy of Quality Time vs Quantity Time, we need both.  This should not surprise us for this is true in all relationships.  So spend time in prayer… spend time in His Word… as one writer put it:

"Never compare this Book with other books. Comparisons are dangerous. Never think or never say that this Book contains the Word of God. It IS the Word of God. It is supernatural in origin, eternal in duration, inexpressible in value, infinite in scope, regenerative in power, infallible in authority, universal in interest, personal in application, inspired in totality. Read it through. Write it down. Pray it in. Work it out. And then pass it on."

Spend time with God.

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Psalm 46:10

Cool Quotes part 4

Cool Quotes in Following Jesus part 4

Our age has been sadly deficient in what may be

termed spiritual greatness.  At the root of this is the

modern disease of shallowness.  We are all too

impatient to meditate on the faith we profess…

It is not the busy skimming over religious books or

the careless hastening through religious duties which

makes for a strong Christian faith.  Rather, it is

unhurried meditation on gospel truths and the

exposing of our minds to these truths that

yield the fruit of sanctified character.

·        Maurice Roberts

In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds.  If he can keep us engaged in “muchness” and “manyness,” he will rest satisfied.”

·        Richard Foster

Prayer, secret, fervent, believing prayer—lies at the root of all personal godliness

·        William Carey

The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer;  they do not go on praying;  they do not persevere.  If they desire anything for God’s glory, they should pray until they get it.  Oh, how good, and kind, and gracious, and condescending is the One with Whom we have to do!  He has given me, unworthy as I am, immeasurably above all I had asked or thought!

·        George Muller

We must face the fact that many today are notoriously careless in their living.  This attitude finds it way into the church.  We have liberty, we have money, we live in comparative luxury.  As a result, discipline practically has disappeared.  What would a violin solo sound like if the strings on the musician’s instrument were all hanging loose, not stretched tight, not “disciplined”?

·        AW Tozer

The practice of keeping a diary would promote vigilance.  The lives of many are spent at a sort of hazard… Now a diary would have a tendency to raise the standard to such persons by exciting vigilance.

·        Josiah Pratt

Self-indulgence is the enemy of gratitude, and self-discipline usually it's friend and generator. That is why gluttony is a deadly sin. The early desert fathers believed that a person's appetites are linked: full stomachs and jaded palates take the edge from our hunger and thirst for righteousness. They spoil the appetite for God.

·        Cornelius Platinga, Jr.

Cool Quotes part 3

Cool Quotes in Following Jesus part 3

Apply your heart to instruction (discipline) and your ears to words of knowledge.

·        Proverbs 23:12

The alternative to discipline is disaster.

·        Vance Havner

“My central aim is that we can become like Christ by doing one thing—by following Him in the overall style of life he chose for Himself.  If we have faith in Christ, we must believe that He knew how to live.  We can, through faith and grace, become like Christ by practicing the types of activities He engaged in, by arranging our whole lives around the activities He Himself practiced in order to remain constantly at home in the fellowship of His Father.”

·        Dallas Willard

Ours is an undisciplined age.  The old disciplines are breaking down… Above all, the discipline of divine grace is derided as legalism or is entirely unknown to a generation that is largely illiterate in the Scriptures.  We need the rugged strength of Christian character that can only come from discipline.

·        V. Raymond Edman

“I must take care above all that I cultivate communion with Christ, for though that can never be the basis of my peace—mark that—yet it will be the channel of it.”

·        Charles Spurgeon

The Spiritual Disciplines are the “Door to Liberation.”

·        Richard Foster

“Freedom and discipline have come to be regarded as mutually exclusive, when in fact freedom is not at all the opposite, but the final reward, of discipline.”

·        Elizabeth Elliot

Thanks be to thee, O Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits which thou hast won for us,
for all the pains and insults thou hast borne for us.
O most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother,
may I know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly
and follow thee more nearly day by day.

·        attributed to St Richard of Chichester (1253)

Cool Quotes in Following Jesus part 2

Cool quotes in Loving Jesus part 2

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. Psalm 42:1

“Satan’s cause is never more in danger than when a human being no longer desiring, but still intending to do God’s will,  looks around upon a world from which every trace of God seems to have vanished and asks why he has been forsaken, yet still obeys.”

C.S. Lewis “The Screwtape Letters”

"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

·        CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory

“The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with god, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last. . . . Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache”

·        CS Lewis,  The Weight of Glory

looking at the list, you can see that these motivators relate to different stages and aspects of the spiritual journey, and that some may seem to be more accessible than others. For instance, we may be able to identify more with number 3 than with number 7. But remember that they are all facets of the same gem, since they are integrated in the character and promises of the living God. In a sense, they are components of a single passion—a concern for one thing above all else, the one thing most needed (Luke 10:41-42). When we are not propelled and impelled by one ultimate attraction, we are pulled by multiple desires. The worries of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things (Mark 4:19) can choke the word in our lives and prevent us from bearing lasting fruit. When we turn from the lures of the world to the Person of Christ, we discover “the magnet that draws, the anchor that steadies, the fortress that defends, the light that illumines, the treasure that enriches, the law that commands and the power that enables”

Alexander Maclaren

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness,

and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.

I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace.

I am ashamed of my lack of desire.

O God, the Triune God,

I want to want Thee;

I long to be filled with longing;

thirst to be made more thirsty still.

Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed.

Begin in mercy a new work of love within me.

Say to my soul, `Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.'

Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland

where I have wandered so long. In Jesus' name, Amen.

(AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God)