A Daily Prayer: Even So Come, Lord Jesus: by AW Tozer

He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Revelation 22:20

The people of God ought to be the happiest people in all the wide world!

Fellow Christian, consider the source of our joy and delight: redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, our yesterdays behind us, our sin under the blood forever and a day, to be remembered against us no more forever!

God is our Father, Christ is our Brother, the Holy Ghost our Advocate and Comforter!

Our Brother has gone to the Father’s house to prepare a place for us, leaving with us the promise that He will come again!

Don’t send Moses, Lord, don’t send Moses! He broke the tables of stone.

Don’t send Elijah for me, Lord! I am afraid of Elijah—he called down fire from heaven.

Don’t send Paul, Lord! He is so learned that I feel like a little child when I read his epistles.

O Lord Jesus, come yourself! I am not afraid of Thee. You took the little children as lambs to your fold. You forgave the woman taken in adultery. You healed the timid woman who reached out in the crowd to touch You. We are not afraid of You!

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Come quickly!

and from Jesus Calling: by Sarah Young
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

As this year draws to a close, receive My Peace. This is still your deepest need, and I, your Prince of Peace, long to pour Myself into your neediness. My abundance and your emptiness are a perfect match. I designed you to have no sufficiency of your own. I created you as a jar of clay, set apart for sacred use. I want you to be filled with My very Being, permeated through and through with Peace.

Thank Me for My peaceful Presence, regardless of your feelings. Whisper My Name in loving tenderness. My Peace, which lives continually in your spirit, will gradually work its way through your entire being.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:7

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:26–27

Apprehend Christ: by TA Sparks

God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6

The principle of the New Covenant is a first-hand individual revelation of Christ as the knowledge of God in terms of glory in the heart of the believer. Every individual believer only comes into true Christianity by a revelation of Christ in his or her heart, so that the knowledge of Christ is all their own, and as real as when God commanded light to shine in darkness. But that is not all. That shining must be progressive. Christ is far too vast to be seen in more than minute degrees at any one time. The bulk of the New Testament is taken up with getting Christians to see what an immense realm it is into which they have come, and how they must go on... Christianity can only be kept living and fresh and full of impact as Christians are living in an ever-growing apprehension of Christ as the Holy Spirit reveals Him in the heart.

This apprehension may only come as necessity is laid upon us by reason of suffering and trial. Capacity will increase by the stretching of suffering (see Hebrews 12, and read "child-training" for "chastening"). There is no succession in Christianity other than that of the revelation of Christ to the heart by the Holy Spirit. It is not a system to be perpetuated, but a Life to be possessed. The value of the Scriptures is that they contain depths and fullnesses which have never yet been fathomed; and when we speak of "revelation" we do not mean anything extra to them, but of that which is in them, but only known by the inward "writing" and "shining" of the Holy Spirit.... A thing can be in the Bible, and we can have read it a thousand times, but until the Holy Spirit makes it Life to us it will be unfruitful. Hence, there is a place and need for an inward revelation of the Word of God, and this is the only true succession. Nothing can be preserved alive through generations save as every one entering its realm does so on the basis of such a personal, inward, living, and growing revelation of the truth, so that the origin and beginning is constantly repeated in experience.

Birth and Our New Birth: by Oswald Chambers

"Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us." —Matthew 1:23

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His Birth in History. “…that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. He did not emerge out of history; He came into history from the outside. Jesus Christ is not the best human being the human race can boast of— He is a Being for whom the human race can take no credit at all. He is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate— God coming into human flesh from outside it. His life is the highest and the holiest entering through the most humble of doors. Our Lord’s birth was an advent— the appearance of God in human form.

His Birth in Me. “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you…” (Galatians 4:19). Just as our Lord came into human history from outside it, He must also come into me from outside. Have I allowed my personal human life to become a “Bethlehem” for the Son of God? I cannot enter the realm of the kingdom of God unless I am born again from above by a birth totally unlike physical birth. “You must be born again” (John 3:7). This is not a command, but a fact based on the authority of God. The evidence of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that “Christ is formed” in me. And once “Christ is formed” in me, His nature immediately begins to work through me.

God Evident in the Flesh. This is what is made so profoundly possible for you and for me through the redemption of man by Jesus Christ.

God Himself Awaits Our Response to His Presence: by AW Tozer

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8

A spiritual kingdom lies all about us, enclosing us, embracing us, altogether within reach of our inner selves, waiting for us to recognize it. God Himself is here waiting for our response to His Presence. This eternal world will come alive to us the moment we begin to reckon upon its reality.

As we begin to focus upon God the things of the spirit will take shape before our inner eyes. Obedience to the word of Christ will bring an inward revelation of the Godhead (John 14:21-23).

This is not by any trick of the imagination. May we not safely conclude that, as the realities of Mount Sinai were apprehended by the senses, so the realities of Mount Zion are to be grasped by the soul? The soul has eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear!

Such an inward revelation of the Godhead will give acute perception enabling us to see God even as is promised to the pure in heart. A new God-consciousness will seize upon us and we shall begin to taste and hear and inwardly feel the God who is our life and our all.

There will be seen the constant shining of the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. More and more, as our faculties grow sharper and more sure, God will become to us the great All, and His Presence the glory and wonder of our lives! This is what will make heaven more real to us than any earthly thing has ever been.

LEARNING OF CHRIST: by Andrew Murray

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Matthew 11:29

All Bible study is learning. All Bible study to be fruitful should be learning of Christ. The Bible is the school book, Christ is the Teacher. It is He who opens the understanding, and opens the heart, and opens the seals. (Luke 24:45, Acts 16:14, Rev 5:9.) Christ is the living eternal Word, of which the written words are the human expression. Christ's presence and teaching are the secret of all true Bible study. The written Word is powerless, except as it helps us to the Living Word.

No one has ever thought of accusing our Lord of not honoring the Old Testament. In His own life He proved that He loved it as coming out of the mouth of God. He ever pointed the Jews to it as the revelation of God and the witness to Himself. But with the disciples it is remarkable how frequently He spoke of His own teaching as what they most needed, and had to obey.

It was only after His resurrection, when the union with Himself had been effected, and they had already received the first breathings of the Spirit (John 20:22) that we find Him expounding the Scriptures. The Jews had their self-made interpretation of the Word: they made it the greatest barrier between themselves and Him of whom it spoke. It is often so with Christians too; our human apprehension of Scripture, fortified as it may be by the authority of the Church, or our own circle, becomes the greatest hindrance in the way of Christ's teachings. Christ the Living "Word, seeks first to find His place in our heart and life, to be our only Teacher: thus shall we learn of Him to honor and understand Scripture.

Learn of Me for I Am Meek and Lowly of Heart. Our Lord here opens up the inmost secret of His own inner life. That which He brought down to us from heaven : that which fits Him to be a Teacher and a Savior ; that which He has given to us, and which He wants us to learn of Him: you find it all in the words, " I am meek and lowly of heart.'' It is the one virtue that makes Him the Lamb of God, our suffering Redeemer, our heavenly Teacher and Leader. It is the one disposition which He asks of us in coming to learn from Him: out of this all else will come.

For our Bible study and all our Christian life you have here the one condition of truly learning of Christ. He, the Teacher, meek and lowly of heart, wants to make you what He is, because that is salvation. As a learner you must come and study and believe in Him the meek and lowly One, and seek to learn of Him how to he meek and lowly too. 

“Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord” by TA Sparks

 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, Ephesians 1:18
 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Hebrews 5:14

In our natural, physical man we have five senses. We have our sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Those are the five senses of our physical natural life. But there is also an inner man called the "hidden man of the heart," and that inward man has what corresponds to the outer man's five senses. There is a faculty of spiritual sight, of spiritual hearing, of spiritual smelling or sensing, of spiritual taste and spiritual touch, and these senses are very important to the life of the inward man – yes, more important even than the senses of the physical man.

We know how we feel the tragedy of people who have lost any of those outward senses. It is a great loss; it is an imperfect life, a life of limitation. But it is equally true of the inward man. To be without spiritual sight is a tragic loss and a terrible limitation; or without spiritual hearing, that capacity for answering to the Spirit – "he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith": if there is no capacity for hearing, that is a desperate situation. What loss there is if there is no sensing – sensing as in the matter of smell, so that you at once scent things. I know how wrongly that has been used, in an everlasting attempt to scent heresy and fault and wrong, but there is a right faculty of spiritual scent which is very important. I believe it was to that that reference was made concerning our Lord – "His scent shall be in the fear of the Lord" (Isa. 11:3, A.R.M.) – quick of scent, right on the mark in scenting what the Lord wanted. And how true it was of His heavenly life: what it saved Him to scent the enemy and what the enemy was up to, to scent what the Father wanted and when He did not want things. It is important to be quick of scent. And so with our taste and with our touch – our contact, and what we register by contact. This is a very real inward man, and these are the senses which form the basis of spiritual capacity: these are the things to be exercised, to be "put through it" for increase and development.

Jesus Calling: by Sarah Young

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. —Philippians 4:19

My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. —Colossians 2:2–3

Your needs and My riches are a perfect fit. I never meant for you to be self-sufficient. Instead, I designed you to need Me not only for daily bread but also for fulfillment of deep yearnings. I carefully crafted your longings and feelings of incompleteness, to point you to Me. Therefore, do not try to bury or deny these feelings. Beware also of trying to pacify these longings with lesser gods: people, possessions, power.

Come to Me in all your neediness, with defenses down and with desire to be blessed. As you spend time in My Presence, your deepest longings are fulfilled. Rejoice in your neediness, which enables you to find intimate completion in Me.

REPENTANCE: by Oswald Chambers

Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation… —2 Corinthians 7:10

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Conviction of sin is best described in the words:

My sins, my sins, my Savior,
How sad on Thee they fall.

Conviction of sin is one of the most uncommon things that ever happens to a person. It is the beginning of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict people of sin (see John 16:8). And when the Holy Spirit stirs a person’s conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not that person’s relationship with others that bothers him but his relationship with God— “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight…” (Psalm 51:4). The wonders of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven person who is truly holy. He proves he is forgiven by being the opposite of what he was previously, by the grace of God. Repentance always brings a person to the point of saying, “I have sinned.” The surest sign that God is at work in his life is when he says that and means it. Anything less is simply sorrow for having made foolish mistakes— a reflex action caused by self-disgust.

The entrance into the kingdom of God is through the sharp, sudden pains of repentance colliding with man’s respectable “goodness.” Then the Holy Spirit, who produces these struggles, begins the formation of the Son of God in the person’s life (see Galatians 4:19). This new life will reveal itself in conscious repentance followed by unconscious holiness, never the other way around. The foundation of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a person cannot repent when he chooses— repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for “the gift of tears.” If you ever cease to understand the value of repentance, you allow yourself to remain in sin. Examine yourself to see if you have forgotten how to be truly repentant.

Spiritual Twins: HOLINESS and HAPPINESS: by AW Tozer

 But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 1 Peter 4:13

I want to bring you my postulate that most present-day Christians live sub-Christian lives. As a result, Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone!

Most Christians are not joyful persons because they are not holy persons, and they are not holy persons because they are not filled with the Holy Spirit, and they are not filled with the Holy Spirit because they are not separated persons.

The Spirit cannot fill whom He cannot separate, and whom He cannot fill, He cannot make holy, and whom He cannot make holy, He cannot make happy!

My postulate further insists that the average modern Christian is not Christlike. The proof of this is apparent in the disposition that we find among the children of God. They have moral weaknesses and suffer frequent defeats. They have a dulled understanding and often live far below the standard of the Scriptures and thus outside the will of God.

To be honest, let us admit that the application of the gospel is being pulled down to the standard of the most carnal, the cheapest saintling hanging on by the teeth anywhere in the kingdom of God!

A Thankful Heart Cannot Also Be Cynical: by AW Tozer

always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20

Let me recommend the cultivation of the habit of thankfulness as an effective cure for the cynical, sour habits of faultfinding among Christian believers.

Thanksgiving has great curative power. The heart that is constantly overflowing with gratitude will be safe from those attacks of resentfulness and gloom that bother so many religious persons. A thankful heart cannot be cynical!

Please be aware that I am not recommending any of the “applied psychology” nostrums so popular in liberal circles. We who have been introduced to God through the miracle of the new birth realize that there is good scriptural authority for the cultivation of gratitude as a cure for spiritual sourness. Further, experience teaches us that it works!

We should never take any blessing for granted, but accept everything as a gift from the Father of Lights. We should write on a tablet, one by one, the things for which we are grateful to God and to our fellow men.

Personally, I have gotten great help from the practice of talking over with God the many kindnesses I have received. I like to begin with thanking Him for His thoughts of me back to creation; for giving His Son to die for me when I was still a sinner; for giving the Bible and His blessed Spirit who inwardly gives us understanding of it. I thank Him for my parents, teachers, statesmen, patriots.

I am grateful to God for all of these and more—and I shall not let God forget that I am!

and from Sarah Young’s “Jesus Calling:”

“Thankfulness takes the sting out of adversity. That is why I have instructed you to give thanks for everything.  There is an element of mystery in this transaction: You give Me thanks (regardless of your feelings), and I give you Joy (regardless of your circumstances). …Thankfulness opens your heart to My Presence and your mind to My thoughts. You may still be in the same place, with the same set of circumstances, but it is as if a light has been switched on, enabling you to see from My perspective. It is this Light of My Presence that removes the sting from adversity.”

Identified with Christ: by Watchman Nee

I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. John 17:14

From the standpoint of God's choice of us we are "out of" the world; but from the standpoint of our new life we are not of the world at all, but from above. On the one hand we are a chosen people, called and delivered out of the world system. On the other we are a regenerate people, utterly unrelated to that system because by the Spirit we are born from above. So John sees the holy city coming down "out of heaven from God" (Rev. 21:10). As the people of God, heaven is not only our destiny but our origin.

This is an amazing thing, that in you and me there is an element that is essentially otherworldly. So otherworldly is it indeed that no matter how this world may progress, it can never advance one step in likeness to that. The life we have as God's gift came from heaven and never was in the world at all. It has no correspondence with the world but is in perfect correspondence with heaven; and though we must mingle with the world daily, it will never let us settle down and feel at home there.

Let us consider for a moment this divine gift, this life of Christ indwelling the heart of regenerate man. The apostle Paul has a great deal to say about this. In an illuminating passage in 1 Corinthians he makes a striking twofold statement: (a) that God himself has placed us in Christ, and (b) that Christ has been "made unto us wisdom from God: righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1:30). Here are examples of the whole range of human need that God has met in his Son. We have shown elsewhere how God does not distribute to us these qualities of righteousness, holiness and so on in installments "to be taken as required." What he does is to give us Christ as the inclusive answer to all our needs. He makes his Son to be my righteousness and my holiness, and everything else I lack, on the ground that he has already placed me in Christ crucified and risen.

Discovering Divine Design: by Oswald Chambers

As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me… —Genesis 24:27

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We should be so one with God that we don’t need to ask continually for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God. A child’s life is normally obedient, until he chooses disobedience. But as soon as he chooses to disobey, an inherent inner conflict is produced. On the spiritual level, inner conflict is the warning of the Spirit of God. When He warns us in this way, we must stop at once and be renewed in the spirit of our mind to discern God’s will (see Romans 12:2). If we are born again by the Spirit of God, our devotion to Him is hindered, or even stopped, by continually asking Him to guide us here and there. “…the Lord led me…” and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design. If we are born of God we will see His guiding hand and give Him the credit.

We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the growth of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God’s appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.

Beware of being obsessed with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to God. If you are a saint and say, “I will never do this or that,” in all probability this will be exactly what God will require of you. There was never a more inconsistent being on this earth than our Lord, but He was never inconsistent with His Father. The important consistency in a saint is not to a principle but to the divine life. It is the divine life that continually makes more and more discoveries about the divine mind. It is easier to be an excessive fanatic than it is to be consistently faithful, because God causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are faithful to Him.

Why Satan Hates the Child of God: by AW Tozer

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

As we move farther on and mount higher up in the Christian life we may expect to encounter greater difficulties in the way and meet increased hostility from the enemy of our souls. Though this is seldom presented to Christians as a fact of life it is a very solid fact indeed as every experienced Christian knows, and one we shall learn how to handle or stumble over to our own undoing. Satan hates the true Christian for several reasons.

One is that God loves him, and whatever is loved by God is sure to be hated by the devil.

Another is that the Christian, being a child of God, bears a family resemblance to the Father and to the household of faith. Satan's ancient jealousy has not abated nor his hatred for God diminished in the slightest. Whatever reminds him of God is without other reason the object of his malignant hate.

A third reason is that a true Christian is a former slave who has escaped from the galley, and Satan cannot forgive him for this affront.

A fourth reason is that a praying Christian is a constant threat to the stability of Satan's government. The Christian is a holy rebel loose in the world with access to the throne of God. Satan never knows from what direction the danger will come.

Who knows when another Elijah will arise, or another Daniel? or a Luther or a Booth? Who knows when an Edwards or a Finney may go in and liberate a whole town or countryside by the preaching of the Word and prayer? Such a danger is too great to tolerate, so Satan gets to the new convert as early as possible to prevent his becoming too formidable a foe.

Irreconcilable Hostility: by A.W. Tozer

 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12

It is strange how a fact may remain fixed, while our interpretation of the fact changes with the generations and the years. One such fact is the world in which we live. It is here and has been here through the centuries. It is a stable fact, quite unchanged by the passage of time, but how different is modern man's view of it from the view our fathers held! Here we see plainly how great is the power of interpretation. The world is for all of us not only what it is – it is what we believe it to be. And a tremendous load of woe or weal rides on the soundness of our interpretation.

Going back no further than the times of the founding and early development of our country, we are able to see the wide gulf between our modern attitudes and those of our fathers.

In the early days, when Christianity exercised a dominant influence over American thinking, men conceived the world to be a battleground. Our fathers believed in sin and the devil and hell as constituting one force, and they believed in God and righteousness and heaven as the other. By their very nature, these forces were opposed to each other forever in deep, grave, irreconcilable hostility. Man, our fathers held, had to choose sides – he could not be neutral. For him it must be life or death, heaven or hell, and if he choose to come out on God's side, he could expect open war with God's enemies. The fight would be real and deadly and would last as long as life continued here below. Men looked forward to heaven as a return from the wars, a laying down of the sword to enjoy in peace the home prepared for them.

Sermons and songs in those days often had a martial quality about them, or perhaps a trace of homesickness. The Christian soldier thought of home and rest and reunion, and his voice grew plaintive as he sang of battle ended and victory won. But whether he was charging into enemy guns or dreaming of war's end and the Father's welcome home, he never forgot what kind of world he lived in – it was a battleground, and many were wounded and slain.

That view is unquestionably scriptural. Allowing for the figures and metaphors with which the Scriptures abound, it is still a solid Bible doctrine that tremendous spiritual forces are present in the world. Man, because of his spiritual nature, is caught in the middle. The evil powers are bent upon destroying him, while Christ is present to save him through the power of the gospel. To obtain deliverance he must come out on God's side in faith and obedience. That in brief is what our fathers thought, and that, we believe, is what the Bible teaches.

How different today. The fact remains the same, but the interpretation has changed completely. Men think of the world not as a battleground, but as a playground. We are not here to fight; we are here to frolic. We are not in a foreign land; we are at home. We are not getting ready to live, but we are already living, and the best we can do is rid ourselves of our inhibitions and our frustrations and live this life to the full. his, we believe, is a fair summary of the religious philosophy of modern man, openly professed by millions and tacitly held by many more millions who live out that philosophy without having given it verbal expression.

This changed attitude toward the world has had and is having its effect upon Christians, even gospel Christians who profess the faith of the Bible. By a curious juggling of the figures, they manage to add up the column wrong and yet claim to have the right answer. It sounds fantastic, but it is true.

The idea that this world is a playground instead of a battleground has now been accepted in practice by the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians. They might hedge around the question if they were asked bluntly to declare their position, but their conduct gives them away. They are facing both ways.

We Are Declared Not Guilty by the Highest Court: by AW Tozer

 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. Ephesians 6:11

The Christian believer cannot be happy and victorious in the true liberty of the children of God if he is still quaking about his past sins.

God knows that sin is a terrible thing—yes, and the devil knows it, too! So the devil follows us around and as long as we will permit it, he will taunt us about our past sins.

As for myself, I have learned to talk back to him on this score.

I say, “Yes, Devil, sin is terrible—but I remind you that I got it from you! And I remind you, Devil, that everything good—forgiveness and cleansing and blessing—everything that is good I have freely received from Jesus Christ!”

Everything that is bad and that is against me I got from the devil—so why should he have the effrontery and the brass to argue with me about it? Yet he will do it because he is the devil, and he is committed to keeping God’s children shut up in a little cage, their spiritual wings clipped.

Brethren, we have been declared “Not guilty!” by the highest court in all the universe. It is good to know that on the basis of grace as taught in the Word of God, when God forgives a man, He trusts him as though he had never sinned.

The Bible does not teach that if a man falls down, he can never rise again. The fact that he falls is not the most important thing—but rather that he is forgiven and allows God to lift him up! That is the basis of our Christian assurance and God wants us to be happy in it.

God Wastes Nothing + Uses Everything: by Watchman Nee

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? James 2:5

The goal and reward of temporal poverty is eternal enrichment. God never intended that tribulation and poverty should have no fruit. His purpose is that all pressure should lead to enlargement and that all poverty should lead to wealth. His destiny for his people is not continuous poverty. Straightness and poverty are not an end; they are the means to an end.
There is much that we do not understand in John's revelation of the New Jerusalem, but we do see there a city of infinite wealth. There is, however, not a nugget of gold in that city which has not been tried in a furnace of affliction, not a precious stone which has not passed through the fires, and not a pearl that has not been born of suffering. To be "rich in faith" is surely justified, therefore.

Like Christ: In The Likeness of His Resurrection: by Andrew Murray

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. Romans 6:4-5

On the likeness of His death there follows necessarily the likeness of His resurrection. To speak alone of the likeness of His death, of bearing the cross, and of self-denial, gives a one-sided view of following Christ. It is only the power of His resurrection that gives us strength to go on from that likeness of His death as what we receive at once by faith, to that conformity to His death which comes as the growth of the inner life. Being dead with Christ refers more to the death of the old life to sin and the world which we abandon; risen with Christ refers to the new life through which the Holy Spirit expels the old. To the Christian who earnestly desires to walk as Christ did, the knowledge of this likeness of His resurrection is indispensable. Let us see if we do not here get the answer to the question as to where we shall find strength to live in the world as Christ did.

We have already seen how our Lord’s life before His death was a life of weakness. Sin had great power over Him It had also power over His disciples, so that He could not give them the Holy Spirit, or do for them what He wished. But with the resurrection all was changed. Raised by the Almighty power of God, His resurrection life was full of the power of eternity. He had not only conquered death and sin for Himself but for His disciples, so that He could from the first day make them partakers of His Spirit, of His joy, and of His heavenly power.

When the Lord Jesus now makes us partakers of His life, then it is not the life that He had before His death, but the resurrection life that He won through death. A life in which sin is already made an end of and put away, a life that has already conquered hell and the devil, the world and the flesh, a life of Divine power in human nature, This is the life that likeness to His resurrection gives us:

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11

Oh that through the Holy Spirit God might reveal to us the glory of the life in the likeness of Christ’s resurrection! In it we find the secret of power for a life of conformity to Him.

To most Christians this is a mystery, and therefore their life is full of sin and weakness and defeat. They believe in Christ’s resurrection as the sufficient proof of their justification. They think that He had to rise again, to continue His work in heaven as Mediator. But that He rose again, in order that His glorious resurrection life might now be the very power of their daily life, of this they have no idea. Hence their hopelessness when they hear of following Jesus fully, and being, perfectly conformed to His image. They cannot imagine how it can be required of a sinner, that he should in all things act as Christ would have done. They do not know Christ in the power of His resurrection, or the mighty power with which His life now works in those, who are willing to count all things but loss for His sake (Phil. 3:8; Eph. 1:19, 20). Come, all you who are weary of a life unlike Jesus, and long to walk always in His footsteps, who begin to see that there is in the Scriptures a better life for you than you have hitherto known, come and let me try to show you the unspeakable treasure that is yours, in your likeness to Christ in His resurrection. Let me ask three questions.

The first is: Are you ready to surrender your life to the rule of Jesus and His resurrection life? I doubt not that the contemplation of Christ’s example has convinced you of sin in more than one point. In seeking your own will and glory instead of God’s, in ambition and pride and selfishness and want of love towards man, you have seen how far you are from the obedience and humility and love of Jesus. And now it is the question, whether in view of all these things, in which you have acknowledged sin, you are willing to say: If Jesus will take possession of my life, then I resign all right or wish ever in the least to have or to do my own will. I give my life with all I have and am entirely to Him, always to do what He through His Word and Spirit commands me. If He will live and rule in me, I promise unbounded and hearty obedience.

For such a surrender faith is needed; therefore the second question is:

Are you prepared to believe that Jesus will take possession of the life entrusted to Him, and that He will rule and keep it? When the believer entrusts his entire spiritual and temporal life completely to Christ, then he learns to understand aright Paul’s words: "I am dead; I live no more: Christ lives in me." Dead with Christ and risen again, the living Christ in His resurrection life takes possession of and rules my new life. The resurrection life is not a thing that I may have if I can undertake to keep it: No, just this is what I cannot do. But blessed be God! JESUS CHRIST himself is the resurrection and the life, is the resurrection life. He Himself will from day to day and hour to hour see to it and ensure that I live as oil who is risen with Him. He does it through that Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of His risen life. The Holy Spirit is in us, and will, if we trust Jesus for it, maintain within us every moment the presence and power of the risen Lord. We need not fear, that we never can succeed in leading such a holy life as becomes those who are temples of the living God. We are indeed not able. But it is not required of us. The living Jesus, who is the resurrection, has shown His power over all our enemies; He Himself, who so loves us, He will work it in us. He gives us the Holy Spirit as our power, and He will perform His work in us with Divine faithfulness, if we will only trust Him; Christ Himself is our life.

And now comes the third question: are you ready to use this resurrection life for the purpose for which God gave it Him, and gives it to you, as a power of blessing to the lost? All desires after the resurrection life will fail, if we are only seeking our own perfection and happiness. God raised up and exalted Jesus to give repentance and remission of sins. He ever lives to pray for sinners. Yield yourself to receive His resurrection life with the same aim. Give yourself wholly to working and praying for the perishing: then will you become a fit vessel and instrument in which the resurrection life can dwell and work out its glorious purposes.

Believer! your calling is to live like Christ. To this end you have already been made one with Him in the likeness of His resurrection. The only question is now, whether you are desirous after the full experience of His resurrection life, whether thou art willing to surrender thy whole life that He Himself may manifest resurrection power in every part of it. I pray that you, do not draw back. Offer yourself unreservedly to Him, with all thy weakness and unfaithfulness. Believe that as His resurrection was a wonder above all thought and expectation, so He as the Risen One will still work in thee exceeding abundantly above all you could think or desire. 

Like Christ… in His use of Scripture: by Andrew Murray

“That all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me” (Lk. 24:44).

What the Lord Jesus accomplished here on earth as man He owed greatly to His use of the Scriptures. In them, He found the way in which He had to walk, the food and the strength on which He could work, and the weapon by which He could overcome every enemy. The Scriptures were indeed indispensable to Him through all His life and passion: from the beginning to the end of His life was the fulfilment of what had been written of Him in the volume of the Book.

It is scarcely necessary to give proof of this.

·        In the temptation in the wilderness, it was by His “It is written…” that He conquered Satan (Mt. 4:4).

·        In His conflicts with the Pharisees, He continually appealed to the Word: “What says the Scripture? … Have you not read? … Is it not written?”

·        In His fellowship with His disciples it was always from the Scriptures that He proved the certainty and necessity of His sufferings and resurrection: “How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled?” (Mt. 26:54).

·        And in His communion with His Father in His last sufferings, it is in the words of Scripture that He pours out the complaint of being forsaken, and then again commends His spirit into the Father’s hands. All this has a very deep meaning.

The Lord Jesus was Himself the living Word (Jn. 1:1-4, 14). He had the Spirit without measure (Jn. 3:34). If anyone could have done without the written Word, it would have been Him. And yet, we see that it is everything to Him. More than anyone else, He thus shows us that the life of God in human flesh and the Word of God in human speech are inseparably connected. Jesus would not have been what He was, could not have done what He did, had He not yielded Himself step by step to be led and sustained by the Word of God.

Let us try to understand what this teaches us. The Word of God is more than once called Seed (Lk. 8:11-15; 1 Pet. 1:23). It is the seed of the divine life. We know what seed is. It is that wonderful organism in which the life, the invisible essence of a plant or tree, is so concentrated and embodied that it can be taken away and made available to impart the life of the tree elsewhere. This use may be twofold. As fruit we eat it, for instance, in the corn that gives us bread. The life of the plant becomes our nourishment and our life. Or, we sow it, and the life of the plant reproduces and multiplies itself. In both aspects, the Word of God is seed.

True life is found only in God. But that life cannot be imparted to us unless it is set before us in some shape in which we know and recognise it. It is in the Word of God that the invisible, divine life takes shape, brings itself within our reach, and become communicable. The life, the thoughts, the sentiments, and the power of God are embodied in His words. And, it is only through His Word that the life of God can really enter into us. His Word is the seed of the heavenly life.

As the bread of life we eat it, we feed upon it. In eating our daily bread, the body takes in the nourishment which visible nature – the sun, water and the earth – prepared for us in the seed corn. We assimilate it, and it becomes our very own, part of ourselves; it is our life. In feeding upon the Word of God, the powers of the heavenly life enter into us, and become our very own; we assimilate them. They become a part of ourselves, the life of our life.

Or, we use the seed to plant. The words of God are sown in our heart. They have a divine power of reproduction and multiplication. The very life that is in them, the divine thought, disposition, or powers that each of them contains, takes root in the believing heart and grows up. And, the very thing of which the word was the expression is produced within us. The words of God are the seeds of the fullness of the divine life.

When the Lord Jesus was made man, He became entirely dependent upon the Word of God. He submitted Himself wholly to it. His mother taught it to Him. The teachers of Nazareth instructed Him in it. In meditation and prayer, in the exercise of obedience and faith, He was led, during His silent years of preparation, to understand and appropriate it. The Word of the Father was to the Son the life of His soul. What He said in the wilderness was spoken from His innermost personal experience: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Mt. 4:4). He felt that He could not live except as the Word brought Him the life of the Father. His whole life was a life of faith, a depending on the Word of the Father. The Word was not a replacement for the Father, but a vehicle for living fellowship with the living God. And, He had His whole mind and heart so filled with it that the Holy Spirit could, at each moment, find within Him, all ready for use, the right word He needed to hear.

Child of God, do you want to become a man of God, strong in faith, full of blessing, rich in fruit to the glory of God, full of the Word of God? Like Christ, make the Word your bread. Let it dwell richly in you. Have your heart full of it. Feed on it. Believe it. Obey it. It is only by believing and obeying that the Word can enter into our inward parts, into our very being. Take it day by day as the Word that proceeds – not has proceeded, but proceeds – out of the mouth of God. Regard it as the Word of the living God, who, in it, holds living fellowship with His children and speaks to them in living power. Take your thoughts of God’s will, God’s work, and God’s purpose not from the church or from Christians around you, but from the Word taught by the Father – and, like Christ, you will be able to fulfil all that is written in the Scripture concerning God’s will for you.

In Christ’s use of Scripture, the most remarkable thing is this: He found Himself there. There, He saw His own image and likeness. And, He gave Himself to the fulfilment of what He found written there. It was this that encouraged Him under the bitterest sufferings, and strengthened Him for the most difficult work. Everywhere, He saw the divine waymark traced by God’s own hand: through suffering to glory. He had only one thought: to be what the Father had said He should be, to have His life correspond exactly to the image of what He should be as He found it in the Word of God.