by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
Power
through Prayer by E. M. Bounds is becoming a book on prayer that is
being highly recommended. Many great people of faith have said Bounds
has been a major influence in having a dedicated prayer life. Here are
summaries of the chapters in Power through Prayer.
Power Through Prayer, chapter 2, Our Sufficiency, God’s Spirit not man’s spirit..
"The
speaker holds the keys... When properly executed, its benefits are
untold; when wrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging results.
Paul
says: “Our sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able ministers
of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the
letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” The true ministry is
God-touched, God-enabled, and God-made. The Spirit of God is on the
speaker in anointing power.
The
life-giving speaker is a man of God, whose heart is ever athirst for
God, whose soul is ever following hard after God, whose eye is single to
God, and in whom by the power of God’s Spirit the flesh and the world
have been crucified and his ministry is like the generous flood of a
life-giving river.
The
preaching that kills is non-spiritual preaching. The ability of the
preaching is not from God. Lower sources than God have given to it
energy and stimulant. The Spirit is not evident in the preacher nor his
preaching. Many kinds of forces may be projected and stimulated by
preaching that kills, but they are not spiritual forces. They may
resemble spiritual forces, but are only the shadow, the counterfeit;
life they may seem to have. The preaching that kills is the letter;
shapely and orderly it may be, but it is the letter still, the dry,
husky letter, the empty, bald shell.
Truth
unquickened by God’s Spirit deadens as much as, or more than, error. It
may be the truth without admixture; but without the Spirit its shade
and touch are deadly, its truth error, its light darkness.
There
may be no discount on his orthodoxy, honesty, cleanness, or
earnestness; but somehow the man, the inner man, in its secret places
has never broken down and surrendered to God, his inner life is not a
great highway for the transmission of God’s message, God’s power.
Somehow self and not God rules in the holy of holiest.
Somewhere,
all unconscious to himself, some spiritual nonconductor has touched his
inner being, and the divine current has been arrested. His inner being
has never felt its thorough spiritual bankruptcy, its utter
powerlessness; he has never learned to cry out with an ineffable cry of
self-despair and self-helplessness till God’s power and God’s fire comes
in and fills, purifies, empowers.
Self-esteem,
self-ability in some pernicious shape has defamed and violated the
temple which should be held sacred for God.
Life-giving speaking costs
the presenter much—death to self, crucifixion to the world, the travail
of his own soul.
Only a Crucified messenger can give life. Crucified speaking can come only from a crucified man.”
The complete chapter on Our Sufficiency:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bounds/power.II.html
The
Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on
Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old whose works have been
passed down through the ages.
Saturday, March 09, 2013
Thursday, March 07, 2013
Power Through Prayer (1) ... Men of Prayer Needed
by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
Power through Prayer by E. M. Bounds is becoming a book on prayer that is being highly recommended. Many great people of faith have said Bounds has been a major influence in having a dedicated prayer life. Here are summaries of the chapters in Power through Prayer.
Power Through Prayer, chapter 1, Men of Prayer Needed:
"We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization.
The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. When God declares that “the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him,” he declares the necessity of men and his dependence on them as a channel through which to exert his power upon the world.
What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use—men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men—men of prayer.
God must make the man. The messenger is, if possible, more than the message. The preacher is more than the sermon.
Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to make a sermon, because it takes twenty years to make the man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows. The sermon is forceful because the man is forceful. The sermon is holy because the man is holy. The sermon is full of the divine unction because the man is full of the divine unction.
(Bounds refers to the “preacher” frequently in this chapter, although the thought relates to all the messengers of the Gospel to their fellow man.)
The sermon cannot rise in its life-giving forces above the man. Dead men give out dead sermons, and dead sermons kill. Everything depends on the spiritual character of the preacher.
The gospel of Christ does not move by popular waves. It has no self-propagating power. It moves as the men who have charge of it move.
The constraining power of love must be in the messenger as a projecting, eccentric, an all-commanding, self-oblivious force. The energy of self-denial must be his being, his heart and blood and bones. He must go forth as a man among men, clothed with humility, abiding in meekness, wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove; the bonds of a servant with the spirit of a king, a king in high, royal, in dependent bearing, with the simplicity and sweetness of a child.
The preacher (messenger) must throw himself, with all the abandon of a perfect, self-emptying faith and a self-consuming zeal, into his work for the salvation of men. Hearty, heroic, compassionate, fearless martyrs must the men be who take hold of and shape a generation for God. If they be timid time servers, place seekers, if they be men pleasers or men fearers, if their faith has a weak hold on God or his Word, if their denial be broken by any phase of self or the world, they cannot take hold of the Church nor the world for God.
The training of the twelve was the great, difficult, and enduring work of Christ. Preachers are not sermon makers, but men makers and saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business who has made himself a man and a saint. It is not great talents nor great learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God—men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mold a generation for God.
Men they were of solid mold, preachers after the heavenly type—heroic, stalwart, soldierly, saintly. Preaching with them meant self-denying, self-crucifying, serious, toilsome, martyr business. They applied themselves to it in a way that told on their generation, and formed in its womb a generation yet unborn for God. The preaching man(messenger of God) is to be the praying man.
Prayer is the messenger’s mightiest weapon. An almighty force in itself, it gives life and force to all.
The real power of the message is made in the closet. The man—God’s man—is made in the closet. His life and his profoundest convictions were born in his secret communion with God. The burdened and tearful agony of his spirit, his weightiest and sweetest messages were got when alone with God. Prayer makes the man; prayer makes the preacher; prayer makes the pastor.
The pulpit of this day and venues for the Gospel are weak in praying. The pride of learning is against the dependent humility of prayer. Prayer is with the pulpit too often only official—a performance for the routine of service. Prayer is not to our meetings the mighty force it was in Paul’s life or Paul’s ministry. Every messenger who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God’s work and is powerless to project God’s cause in this world."
The complete chapter on Men of Prayer Needed::
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bounds/power.I_1.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old whose works have been passed down through the ages.
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
Power through Prayer by E. M. Bounds is becoming a book on prayer that is being highly recommended. Many great people of faith have said Bounds has been a major influence in having a dedicated prayer life. Here are summaries of the chapters in Power through Prayer.
Power Through Prayer, chapter 1, Men of Prayer Needed:
"We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization.
The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. When God declares that “the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him,” he declares the necessity of men and his dependence on them as a channel through which to exert his power upon the world.
What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use—men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men—men of prayer.
God must make the man. The messenger is, if possible, more than the message. The preacher is more than the sermon.
Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to make a sermon, because it takes twenty years to make the man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows. The sermon is forceful because the man is forceful. The sermon is holy because the man is holy. The sermon is full of the divine unction because the man is full of the divine unction.
(Bounds refers to the “preacher” frequently in this chapter, although the thought relates to all the messengers of the Gospel to their fellow man.)
The sermon cannot rise in its life-giving forces above the man. Dead men give out dead sermons, and dead sermons kill. Everything depends on the spiritual character of the preacher.
The gospel of Christ does not move by popular waves. It has no self-propagating power. It moves as the men who have charge of it move.
The constraining power of love must be in the messenger as a projecting, eccentric, an all-commanding, self-oblivious force. The energy of self-denial must be his being, his heart and blood and bones. He must go forth as a man among men, clothed with humility, abiding in meekness, wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove; the bonds of a servant with the spirit of a king, a king in high, royal, in dependent bearing, with the simplicity and sweetness of a child.
The preacher (messenger) must throw himself, with all the abandon of a perfect, self-emptying faith and a self-consuming zeal, into his work for the salvation of men. Hearty, heroic, compassionate, fearless martyrs must the men be who take hold of and shape a generation for God. If they be timid time servers, place seekers, if they be men pleasers or men fearers, if their faith has a weak hold on God or his Word, if their denial be broken by any phase of self or the world, they cannot take hold of the Church nor the world for God.
The training of the twelve was the great, difficult, and enduring work of Christ. Preachers are not sermon makers, but men makers and saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business who has made himself a man and a saint. It is not great talents nor great learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God—men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mold a generation for God.
Men they were of solid mold, preachers after the heavenly type—heroic, stalwart, soldierly, saintly. Preaching with them meant self-denying, self-crucifying, serious, toilsome, martyr business. They applied themselves to it in a way that told on their generation, and formed in its womb a generation yet unborn for God. The preaching man(messenger of God) is to be the praying man.
Prayer is the messenger’s mightiest weapon. An almighty force in itself, it gives life and force to all.
The real power of the message is made in the closet. The man—God’s man—is made in the closet. His life and his profoundest convictions were born in his secret communion with God. The burdened and tearful agony of his spirit, his weightiest and sweetest messages were got when alone with God. Prayer makes the man; prayer makes the preacher; prayer makes the pastor.
The pulpit of this day and venues for the Gospel are weak in praying. The pride of learning is against the dependent humility of prayer. Prayer is with the pulpit too often only official—a performance for the routine of service. Prayer is not to our meetings the mighty force it was in Paul’s life or Paul’s ministry. Every messenger who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God’s work and is powerless to project God’s cause in this world."
The complete chapter on Men of Prayer Needed::
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bounds/power.I_1.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old whose works have been passed down through the ages.
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling (13) ... That God be All in All
by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 13, That God be All in All:
There will come a day—the glory is such we can form no conception of it, the mystery is so deep we cannot realize it, when the Son shall deliver up the Kingdom that the Father gave Him. The Son Himself shall be subject also unto the Father, “that God may be all in all.”
It shall then be made manifest, as never before, that God is all in all. It is this that Christ has been working for; it is this that He is working for to-day in us.
What a life ours could be if that were really our banner! To serve God fully, wholly, only, to have Him all in all! How it would ennoble, and enlarge, and stimulate our whole being! I am working, I am fighting, “that God may be all in all;” that the day of glory may be hastened.
Would that we Christians realized in connection with what a grand cause we are working and praying; that we had some conception of what a Kingdom we are partakers of, and what a manifestation of God we are preparing for.
How we should be borne along in this blessed faith! I am living for this: that Christ may have the Kingdom to deliver to the Father. I am living for this, and I will one day see Him made subject to the Father, and then God all in all.
That it may rule in our lives—this one thought, this one faith, this one aim, this one joy: Christ lived, and in His power I reign; only for this one thing, “that God may be all in all.” Let it possess our whole heart, and life. How can we do this? And I say, first of all: Allow God to take His place in your heart and life.
“God first, and I second;” God is all, and I am nothing. Paul said, “I labored more abundantly than they all; though I be nothing.” Let us try to give God His place—begin in our closet, in our worship, in our prayer.
Be quiet, and trusting, and resting, and the everlasting God will shine into your heart, and will reveal Himself. God will take His place as God in the presence of His child, so that absolutely and actually the chief thing in the child’s heart shall be: “God is here, God makes Himself known.”
I must not only allow Him to take His place, but secondly, I must accept His will in everything. I must accept His will in every providence.
Whatever the trouble, or temptation, or vexation, or worry, that comes, I must see God in it, and accept it as God’s will to me. Trouble of any sort that comes to me is God’s will for me. There is never a trial that comes to us but it is God’s will for us, and if we learn to see God in it, then we bid it welcome.
Will you not learn to say from to-day, “Welcome every trial, for it comes from God?” If you want God to be all in all, you must see and meet God in every providence. Oh, learn to accept God’s will in everything! Come learn to say of every trial, without exception, “It is my Father who sent it. I accept it as His messenger,” and nothing in earth or hell can separate you from God.
Thirdly, Trust in His power. You complain of weakness, of feebleness, of emptiness. Never mind; that is what you are made for—to be an emptied vessel, in which God can put His fullness and His strength.
The almighty power of God is working in me. I only need to get down, and be quiet; I need to be more submissive, and surrendered to His will; I need to be more trustful, and to allow God to do with me what He will.” Give God His way with you, and let God work, and He will work mightily. The deepest quietness has often been proved to be the inspiration for the highest action.
Fourthly: If God is to be all in all, sacrifice everything for His kingdom and glory. “That God may be all in all.”
That life is only worth living as it is given to God to fill.” Do let us sacrifice everything for His kingdom and glory. Begin to live day by day with the prayer, “My God, I am given up to You. Be my all in all.”
Let the Holy Spirit dwell in you; let the Holy Spirit burn in you as a fire, and burn in you with unutterable groanings, crying unto God, Himself to reveal His presence and His will in you.
Christians, sacrifice your time; sacrifice your interests; sacrifice your heart’s best powers in praying, and desiring, and crying that “God may be all in all.”
And lastly: if God is to be all in all, wait continually on Him all the day. Wait continually on God all the day. If you are to do that, you must live always in His presence. That is what we have been redeemed for.
“One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after; that I may dwell all my days in the house of the Lord; to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” “In the secret of His pavilion He hideth me.” God Himself will take you up, and will keep you there, so that all your work shall be done in God.
Beloved, wait continually upon God. You cannot do this unless you are in His presence. You must live in His presence. Then the blessed habit of waiting upon God will be learned. The real difficulty of getting to the point of real waiting upon God, is because most Christians have not sought to realize the nearness of God, and to give God the first place.
“May my life be to live and die, to labor and to pray continually for this one thing: that in me, and around me, and in the church; that throughout the world ’God may be all in all.’”
The complete chapter on That God be All in All.:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.xvi.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old whose works have been passed down through the ages.
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 13, That God be All in All:
There will come a day—the glory is such we can form no conception of it, the mystery is so deep we cannot realize it, when the Son shall deliver up the Kingdom that the Father gave Him. The Son Himself shall be subject also unto the Father, “that God may be all in all.”
It shall then be made manifest, as never before, that God is all in all. It is this that Christ has been working for; it is this that He is working for to-day in us.
What a life ours could be if that were really our banner! To serve God fully, wholly, only, to have Him all in all! How it would ennoble, and enlarge, and stimulate our whole being! I am working, I am fighting, “that God may be all in all;” that the day of glory may be hastened.
Would that we Christians realized in connection with what a grand cause we are working and praying; that we had some conception of what a Kingdom we are partakers of, and what a manifestation of God we are preparing for.
How we should be borne along in this blessed faith! I am living for this: that Christ may have the Kingdom to deliver to the Father. I am living for this, and I will one day see Him made subject to the Father, and then God all in all.
That it may rule in our lives—this one thought, this one faith, this one aim, this one joy: Christ lived, and in His power I reign; only for this one thing, “that God may be all in all.” Let it possess our whole heart, and life. How can we do this? And I say, first of all: Allow God to take His place in your heart and life.
“God first, and I second;” God is all, and I am nothing. Paul said, “I labored more abundantly than they all; though I be nothing.” Let us try to give God His place—begin in our closet, in our worship, in our prayer.
Be quiet, and trusting, and resting, and the everlasting God will shine into your heart, and will reveal Himself. God will take His place as God in the presence of His child, so that absolutely and actually the chief thing in the child’s heart shall be: “God is here, God makes Himself known.”
I must not only allow Him to take His place, but secondly, I must accept His will in everything. I must accept His will in every providence.
Whatever the trouble, or temptation, or vexation, or worry, that comes, I must see God in it, and accept it as God’s will to me. Trouble of any sort that comes to me is God’s will for me. There is never a trial that comes to us but it is God’s will for us, and if we learn to see God in it, then we bid it welcome.
Will you not learn to say from to-day, “Welcome every trial, for it comes from God?” If you want God to be all in all, you must see and meet God in every providence. Oh, learn to accept God’s will in everything! Come learn to say of every trial, without exception, “It is my Father who sent it. I accept it as His messenger,” and nothing in earth or hell can separate you from God.
Thirdly, Trust in His power. You complain of weakness, of feebleness, of emptiness. Never mind; that is what you are made for—to be an emptied vessel, in which God can put His fullness and His strength.
The almighty power of God is working in me. I only need to get down, and be quiet; I need to be more submissive, and surrendered to His will; I need to be more trustful, and to allow God to do with me what He will.” Give God His way with you, and let God work, and He will work mightily. The deepest quietness has often been proved to be the inspiration for the highest action.
Fourthly: If God is to be all in all, sacrifice everything for His kingdom and glory. “That God may be all in all.”
That life is only worth living as it is given to God to fill.” Do let us sacrifice everything for His kingdom and glory. Begin to live day by day with the prayer, “My God, I am given up to You. Be my all in all.”
Let the Holy Spirit dwell in you; let the Holy Spirit burn in you as a fire, and burn in you with unutterable groanings, crying unto God, Himself to reveal His presence and His will in you.
Christians, sacrifice your time; sacrifice your interests; sacrifice your heart’s best powers in praying, and desiring, and crying that “God may be all in all.”
And lastly: if God is to be all in all, wait continually on Him all the day. Wait continually on God all the day. If you are to do that, you must live always in His presence. That is what we have been redeemed for.
“One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after; that I may dwell all my days in the house of the Lord; to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” “In the secret of His pavilion He hideth me.” God Himself will take you up, and will keep you there, so that all your work shall be done in God.
Beloved, wait continually upon God. You cannot do this unless you are in His presence. You must live in His presence. Then the blessed habit of waiting upon God will be learned. The real difficulty of getting to the point of real waiting upon God, is because most Christians have not sought to realize the nearness of God, and to give God the first place.
“May my life be to live and die, to labor and to pray continually for this one thing: that in me, and around me, and in the church; that throughout the world ’God may be all in all.’”
The complete chapter on That God be All in All.:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.xvi.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old whose works have been passed down through the ages.
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling (12) ... Source of Power in Prayer
by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 12, Source of Power in Prayer:
“Powerful prayer! The confession of ignorance! When we are called upon we can pray, but it gets far too easy, and I am afraid we think we are praying often when there is little real prayer. We must begin by feeling, “I cannot pray.” When a man breaks down and cannot pray, and there is a fire burning in his heart, and a burden resting upon him, there is something drawing him to God. “I know not what to pray,”—oh, blessed ignorance!
And again he tells us that we ourselves often do not know what the Spirit is doing within us, but there is one, God, who searches the hearts. Words often reveal my thought and my wishes, but not what is deep in my heart, and God comes and searches my heart, and deep down, hidden, what I cannot see and what was to me an unutterable longing, God finds.
Paul says, “No man knows the things of God but the Spirit of God.” Pray new prayers, rise higher into the riches of God. You must begin to feel your ignorance. When I see a man who cannot pray glibly and smoothly and readily, I say that is a mark of the Holy Spirit. When he begins in his prayers to say, “Oh, God, I want more, I want to be led deeper in. I have prayed to feel the burden of the lost in a new way,” it is an indication of the presence of the Holy Spirit. I tell you, beloved, if you will take time and let God lay the burden of those of the world heavier upon you until you begin to feel, “I have never prayed,”
The Holy Spirit could pray a hundred fold more in us if we were only conscious of our ignorance, because we would then feel our dependence upon Him. May God teach us our ignorance in prayer and our impotence, and may God bring us to say, “Lord, we cannot pray; we do not know what prayer is.” But oh, it is only a little beginning compared to what the Holy Spirit of God teaches.
There is the first thought: our ignorance. “We know not what we should pray for as we ought;” but “the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
“I cannot limit the holy one of Israel by my thoughts; I give myself up in the faith that the Holy Spirit can be praying for me with groanings, with longings, that cannot be expressed.” Apply that to your prayers.
There are different phases of prayer. There is worship, when a man just bows down to adore the great God. We do not take time to worship. We need to worship in secret, just to get ourselves face to face with the everlasting God, that He may overshadow us and cover us and fill us with His love and His glory. It is the Holy Spirit that can work in us such a yearning that we will give up our pleasures and even part of our business, that we may the oftener meet our God.
The next phase of prayer is fellowship. In prayer there is not only the worship of a king, but fellowship as of a child with God. Christians take far too little time in fellowship. They think prayer is just coming with their petitions. If Christ is to make me what I am to be, I must tarry in fellowship with God.
The blacksmith puts his rod of iron into the fire. If he leaves it there but a short time it does not become red hot. If he takes time and leaves the rod ten or fifteen minutes in the fire the whole iron will become red hot with the heat that is in the fire. So if we are to get the fire of God’s holiness and love and power we must take more time with God in fellowship.
Another, and a most important phase of prayer is intercession. If the Spirit could find men and women who would give up their lives to cry to God, the Spirit would most surely come.
Then comes the last thought, that God Himself comes to look with complacency upon the attitude of His child. Christ the almighty high priest pleading day and night. His whole person is one intercession, and there goes up from Him without ceasing the pleading to the Father, “Bless thy church.” Let us open and enlarge our hearts and say to God, “Oh that I might be a priest, to enter God’s presence continually and to take hold of God and to bring down a blessing to my perishing fellowmen!” God longs to find the intercession of Jesus reflected in the hearts of His children, and where He finds it, it is a delight.
Think of the thousands of nominal Christians—Christians in name, but robbing God! (by not praying for those around them) and can we be happy?
God has spoken to us to ask us if we realize what we are. Let us go to God and may He by the Holy Spirit fill our hearts with unutterable sorrow at the state of the our Christian commitment, and may God give us grace to mourn before Him. And when we begin to confess our sins in our fellowships, we will begin to feel our own sins as never before.”
Power in prayer comes when we come to God in meekness and in our weakness, and plead for the betterment of our fellow man.
The complete chapter on the Source of Power in Prayer:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.xv.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old who’s works have been passed down through the ages.
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 12, Source of Power in Prayer:
“Powerful prayer! The confession of ignorance! When we are called upon we can pray, but it gets far too easy, and I am afraid we think we are praying often when there is little real prayer. We must begin by feeling, “I cannot pray.” When a man breaks down and cannot pray, and there is a fire burning in his heart, and a burden resting upon him, there is something drawing him to God. “I know not what to pray,”—oh, blessed ignorance!
And again he tells us that we ourselves often do not know what the Spirit is doing within us, but there is one, God, who searches the hearts. Words often reveal my thought and my wishes, but not what is deep in my heart, and God comes and searches my heart, and deep down, hidden, what I cannot see and what was to me an unutterable longing, God finds.
Paul says, “No man knows the things of God but the Spirit of God.” Pray new prayers, rise higher into the riches of God. You must begin to feel your ignorance. When I see a man who cannot pray glibly and smoothly and readily, I say that is a mark of the Holy Spirit. When he begins in his prayers to say, “Oh, God, I want more, I want to be led deeper in. I have prayed to feel the burden of the lost in a new way,” it is an indication of the presence of the Holy Spirit. I tell you, beloved, if you will take time and let God lay the burden of those of the world heavier upon you until you begin to feel, “I have never prayed,”
The Holy Spirit could pray a hundred fold more in us if we were only conscious of our ignorance, because we would then feel our dependence upon Him. May God teach us our ignorance in prayer and our impotence, and may God bring us to say, “Lord, we cannot pray; we do not know what prayer is.” But oh, it is only a little beginning compared to what the Holy Spirit of God teaches.
There is the first thought: our ignorance. “We know not what we should pray for as we ought;” but “the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
“I cannot limit the holy one of Israel by my thoughts; I give myself up in the faith that the Holy Spirit can be praying for me with groanings, with longings, that cannot be expressed.” Apply that to your prayers.
There are different phases of prayer. There is worship, when a man just bows down to adore the great God. We do not take time to worship. We need to worship in secret, just to get ourselves face to face with the everlasting God, that He may overshadow us and cover us and fill us with His love and His glory. It is the Holy Spirit that can work in us such a yearning that we will give up our pleasures and even part of our business, that we may the oftener meet our God.
The next phase of prayer is fellowship. In prayer there is not only the worship of a king, but fellowship as of a child with God. Christians take far too little time in fellowship. They think prayer is just coming with their petitions. If Christ is to make me what I am to be, I must tarry in fellowship with God.
The blacksmith puts his rod of iron into the fire. If he leaves it there but a short time it does not become red hot. If he takes time and leaves the rod ten or fifteen minutes in the fire the whole iron will become red hot with the heat that is in the fire. So if we are to get the fire of God’s holiness and love and power we must take more time with God in fellowship.
Another, and a most important phase of prayer is intercession. If the Spirit could find men and women who would give up their lives to cry to God, the Spirit would most surely come.
Then comes the last thought, that God Himself comes to look with complacency upon the attitude of His child. Christ the almighty high priest pleading day and night. His whole person is one intercession, and there goes up from Him without ceasing the pleading to the Father, “Bless thy church.” Let us open and enlarge our hearts and say to God, “Oh that I might be a priest, to enter God’s presence continually and to take hold of God and to bring down a blessing to my perishing fellowmen!” God longs to find the intercession of Jesus reflected in the hearts of His children, and where He finds it, it is a delight.
Think of the thousands of nominal Christians—Christians in name, but robbing God! (by not praying for those around them) and can we be happy?
God has spoken to us to ask us if we realize what we are. Let us go to God and may He by the Holy Spirit fill our hearts with unutterable sorrow at the state of the our Christian commitment, and may God give us grace to mourn before Him. And when we begin to confess our sins in our fellowships, we will begin to feel our own sins as never before.”
Power in prayer comes when we come to God in meekness and in our weakness, and plead for the betterment of our fellow man.
The complete chapter on the Source of Power in Prayer:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.xv.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old who’s works have been passed down through the ages.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling (11) ... Triumph of Faith
by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 11, Triumph of Faith.
“Let me point out to you the three aspects of faith which we have here: first, faith seeking; then, faith finding; and then, faith enjoying.
Or, still better:
faith struggling;
faith resting;
faith triumphing.
First of all, faith struggling.
Here is a man, a heathen, a nobleman, who has heard about Christ. He has a dying son at Capernaum. He has heard of His other miracles round Capernaum, and he has a certain trust that Jesus will be able to help him. He goes to Him, and his prayer is that the Lord will come down to Capernaum and heal his son.
He had at first a faith that was seeking, and struggling, and searching for blessing; then he had a faith that accepted the blessing simply as it was contained in the word of Jesus. When Christ said, “Thy son liveth,” he was content, and went home, and found the blessing—the son restored. Then came the third step in his faith. He believed with his whole house. That is to say, he did not only believe that Christ could do just this one thing, the healing of his son; but he believed in Christ as his Lord. He gave himself up entirely to be a disciple of Jesus.
The struggling and wrestling and seeking are the beginnings of faith in you—a faith that desires and hopes. But it must go on further. And how can that faith advance? Look at the second step. There is the nobleman, and Christ speaks to him this wonderful word: “Go your way; your son liveth;” and the nobleman simply rests upon that word of the living Jesus. He rests on it, and without any proof of what he is to get, and without one man in the world to encourage him. He goes away home with the thought, “I have received the blessing, I have got life from the dead for my son. The living Christ promised it me, and on that I rest.” The struggling, seeking faith has become a resting faith.
You can have a living Christ within you. And are you going to believe that, apart from any experience, and apart from any consciousness of strength? If the peace of God is to rule in your heart, it is the God of peace Himself must be there to do it. The peace is inseparable from the God.
“Lo, I am with you alway.” “I live, and you shall live also.” “I wait to take charge of your whole life. Will you have me do this? Trust to me all that is evil and feeble; your whole sinful and perverse nature—give it up to Me; that dying, sin-sick soul—give it up to Me, and I will take care of it.”
Will you not, like the nobleman, take the simple step of faith, and believe the word Jesus hath spoken? Will you not say, “Lord Jesus, you have spoken: I can rest on your Word. I have seen that Christ is willing to be more to me than I ever knew; I have seen that Christ is willing to be my life in the most actual and intense meaning of the words.”
The faith that rests in Jesus, is the faith that trusts all to Him, with all we have. Do we not read that when God had finished His work, and rested, it was only to begin new work? Yes; the great work was to be carried on—watching over and ruling His world and His church. And is it not so with the Lord Jesus? When He had finished His work. The Holy Spirit is carrying on that blessed work, teaching us to rest in Christ, and in the strength of that rest to go on, and to cover our whole life with the power, and the obedience, and the will, and the likeness of the Lord Jesus.
Lastly, comes the triumphant faith. The man went home holding fast the promise. He had only one promise, but he held it fast. When God gives me a promise, He is just as near me as when He fulfills it. That is a great comfort. When I have the promise I have also the pledge of the fulfillment. But the whole heart of God is in His promise, just as much as in the fulfillment of it, and sometimes God, the promiser, is more precious because I am compelled to cling more to Him, and to come closer, and to live by simple faith, and to adore His love.
One thought more,—he believed with his whole house. That was triumphant faith. And if you want power in your own house, come into contact with Jesus in this rest of faith that accepts His life fully, that trusts Him fully, and the power will come by faith to overcome the world; by faith to bless others; by faith to live a life to the glory of God.
“Lo, I am with you alway.” Go your way, with the heart open to welcome Him, and the heart believing He has come in. Surely we have not prayed in vain. Christ has listened to the yearnings of our hearts and has entered in. “Go your way, your soul liveth;” and ever saying, “I have trusted Christ to reveal His abundant life in my soul; by His grace I will wait upon Him to fulfill His promise.” Amen.
The complete chapter on Triumph of Faith:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.xiv.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old who’s works have been passed down through the ages.
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 11, Triumph of Faith.
“Let me point out to you the three aspects of faith which we have here: first, faith seeking; then, faith finding; and then, faith enjoying.
Or, still better:
faith struggling;
faith resting;
faith triumphing.
First of all, faith struggling.
Here is a man, a heathen, a nobleman, who has heard about Christ. He has a dying son at Capernaum. He has heard of His other miracles round Capernaum, and he has a certain trust that Jesus will be able to help him. He goes to Him, and his prayer is that the Lord will come down to Capernaum and heal his son.
He had at first a faith that was seeking, and struggling, and searching for blessing; then he had a faith that accepted the blessing simply as it was contained in the word of Jesus. When Christ said, “Thy son liveth,” he was content, and went home, and found the blessing—the son restored. Then came the third step in his faith. He believed with his whole house. That is to say, he did not only believe that Christ could do just this one thing, the healing of his son; but he believed in Christ as his Lord. He gave himself up entirely to be a disciple of Jesus.
The struggling and wrestling and seeking are the beginnings of faith in you—a faith that desires and hopes. But it must go on further. And how can that faith advance? Look at the second step. There is the nobleman, and Christ speaks to him this wonderful word: “Go your way; your son liveth;” and the nobleman simply rests upon that word of the living Jesus. He rests on it, and without any proof of what he is to get, and without one man in the world to encourage him. He goes away home with the thought, “I have received the blessing, I have got life from the dead for my son. The living Christ promised it me, and on that I rest.” The struggling, seeking faith has become a resting faith.
You can have a living Christ within you. And are you going to believe that, apart from any experience, and apart from any consciousness of strength? If the peace of God is to rule in your heart, it is the God of peace Himself must be there to do it. The peace is inseparable from the God.
“Lo, I am with you alway.” “I live, and you shall live also.” “I wait to take charge of your whole life. Will you have me do this? Trust to me all that is evil and feeble; your whole sinful and perverse nature—give it up to Me; that dying, sin-sick soul—give it up to Me, and I will take care of it.”
Will you not, like the nobleman, take the simple step of faith, and believe the word Jesus hath spoken? Will you not say, “Lord Jesus, you have spoken: I can rest on your Word. I have seen that Christ is willing to be more to me than I ever knew; I have seen that Christ is willing to be my life in the most actual and intense meaning of the words.”
The faith that rests in Jesus, is the faith that trusts all to Him, with all we have. Do we not read that when God had finished His work, and rested, it was only to begin new work? Yes; the great work was to be carried on—watching over and ruling His world and His church. And is it not so with the Lord Jesus? When He had finished His work. The Holy Spirit is carrying on that blessed work, teaching us to rest in Christ, and in the strength of that rest to go on, and to cover our whole life with the power, and the obedience, and the will, and the likeness of the Lord Jesus.
Lastly, comes the triumphant faith. The man went home holding fast the promise. He had only one promise, but he held it fast. When God gives me a promise, He is just as near me as when He fulfills it. That is a great comfort. When I have the promise I have also the pledge of the fulfillment. But the whole heart of God is in His promise, just as much as in the fulfillment of it, and sometimes God, the promiser, is more precious because I am compelled to cling more to Him, and to come closer, and to live by simple faith, and to adore His love.
One thought more,—he believed with his whole house. That was triumphant faith. And if you want power in your own house, come into contact with Jesus in this rest of faith that accepts His life fully, that trusts Him fully, and the power will come by faith to overcome the world; by faith to bless others; by faith to live a life to the glory of God.
“Lo, I am with you alway.” Go your way, with the heart open to welcome Him, and the heart believing He has come in. Surely we have not prayed in vain. Christ has listened to the yearnings of our hearts and has entered in. “Go your way, your soul liveth;” and ever saying, “I have trusted Christ to reveal His abundant life in my soul; by His grace I will wait upon Him to fulfill His promise.” Amen.
The complete chapter on Triumph of Faith:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.xiv.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old who’s works have been passed down through the ages.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling (10) ... Joy in the Holy Spirit
by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 10, Joy in the Holy Spirit.
“What now is this invisible pane of plate glass, that hinders my taking the beautiful things I see? It is nothing but the self-life; I see divine things but cannot reach them, the self-life is the invisible plate glass. We are willing, we are working, we are striving, and yet we are holding back something; we are afraid to give up everything to God. We do not know what the consequences may be.
What is this joy? First of all, it is the joy of the presence of Jesus. We are often inclined to speak most of two other things, the power for sanctification, and the power for service. But I find there is a thing more important than either of those two, and that is that the Holy Ghost came from Heaven to be the abiding presence of Christ in His disciples, in the Church, and in the heart of every believer.
But when He had ascended to Heaven, He came back in the Spirit to dwell in their hearts. With God’s people, there seems to be one hindrance, they do not know their Saviour. They do not realize that this blessed Christ is an ever present, all-pervading, in-dwelling Christ, who wants to take charge of their entire lives.
Begin to believe with your whole heart, “The joy of the Holy Ghost is my portion,” for the Holy Ghost secures to me without interruption the presence and the love of Jesus.
Secondly, there is the joy of deliverance from sin.
He wants Christ so formed in us that we are one with Christ, and that in our thinking, feeling and living, the image of His blessed Son is manifest before Him. The Holy Spirit is given to sanctify us.
How often the believer forgets that this body is the very secret temple of the Holy Ghost and that every mouthful we eat and drink must be for the glory of God in such a way as to be perfectly well pleasing to Him!
There is access for you into the rest of God, and the Holy Spirit is given to bring you in, and the Holy Spirit will fill your heart with the unutterable joy of Christ’s presence; and with the joy of deliverance from sin, of victory over sin; the unutterable joy of knowing that you are doing God’s will and are pleasing in His sight; the unutterable joy of knowing that He is sanctifying and keeping the temple for Christ to dwell in.
My third thought is: the joy of the Holy Ghost is the joy of the love of the saints. When He dwells with me and my brother we learn to love each other. Though I be unloving naturally, and though I have very little grace, if the heart of my brother is full of the Holy Spirit he loves me through it all. You know love is a wonderful thing.
One sharp word to your brother or sister brings a cloud upon you without your knowing it. People are so accustomed to talk just as they like about each other that they say sharp and unkind and unloving things, and when a cloud comes in consequence they cannot understand it. If there is one thing that grieves God, if there is one thing that hinders the Spirit—the fruit of the Spirit is love—it is the want of lovingness. “Love is rest and rest is love, and where there is no love the rest must be disturbed.” And let us say to-day, “I see what the joy is; it is the joy of always loving, it is the joy of losing my own life in love to others.”
Come and accept a blessing and give yourself up to live a life of humility in which you are nothing, and a life of love like Christ’s in which you only live for your fellow-men, for the kingdom of God is the joy of the Holy Ghost.
My last thought is that the joy of the Holy Ghost is the joy of working for God.
The joy of the presence of Jesus, the joy of deliverance from sin, the joy of love for the brethren, and then the joy of working for God.
Do let us remember the joy of the Holy Ghost is the joy of working for God in Christ. I believe that God has new ways and new leadings and new power for His people, if they will only wait on Him.
The great need is that all Christians should consecrate themselves wholly to God for His work. May God help us to know what is the joy of the Holy Ghost.
He who is almighty and omnipresent is always going to be with us and is always going to work within us. And let us when we have done that, claim the promise, that as we have sought first the kingdom and God’s righteousness, all things shall be added unto us. Beloved, the kingdom of God is within you, and it is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Come, let us claim it even now in simple, childlike, humble faith,”
The complete chapter on Joy in the Holy Spirit:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.xiii.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth,
by the best of the Saints of Old who’s works have been passed down through the ages.
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 10, Joy in the Holy Spirit.
“What now is this invisible pane of plate glass, that hinders my taking the beautiful things I see? It is nothing but the self-life; I see divine things but cannot reach them, the self-life is the invisible plate glass. We are willing, we are working, we are striving, and yet we are holding back something; we are afraid to give up everything to God. We do not know what the consequences may be.
What is this joy? First of all, it is the joy of the presence of Jesus. We are often inclined to speak most of two other things, the power for sanctification, and the power for service. But I find there is a thing more important than either of those two, and that is that the Holy Ghost came from Heaven to be the abiding presence of Christ in His disciples, in the Church, and in the heart of every believer.
But when He had ascended to Heaven, He came back in the Spirit to dwell in their hearts. With God’s people, there seems to be one hindrance, they do not know their Saviour. They do not realize that this blessed Christ is an ever present, all-pervading, in-dwelling Christ, who wants to take charge of their entire lives.
Begin to believe with your whole heart, “The joy of the Holy Ghost is my portion,” for the Holy Ghost secures to me without interruption the presence and the love of Jesus.
Secondly, there is the joy of deliverance from sin.
He wants Christ so formed in us that we are one with Christ, and that in our thinking, feeling and living, the image of His blessed Son is manifest before Him. The Holy Spirit is given to sanctify us.
How often the believer forgets that this body is the very secret temple of the Holy Ghost and that every mouthful we eat and drink must be for the glory of God in such a way as to be perfectly well pleasing to Him!
There is access for you into the rest of God, and the Holy Spirit is given to bring you in, and the Holy Spirit will fill your heart with the unutterable joy of Christ’s presence; and with the joy of deliverance from sin, of victory over sin; the unutterable joy of knowing that you are doing God’s will and are pleasing in His sight; the unutterable joy of knowing that He is sanctifying and keeping the temple for Christ to dwell in.
My third thought is: the joy of the Holy Ghost is the joy of the love of the saints. When He dwells with me and my brother we learn to love each other. Though I be unloving naturally, and though I have very little grace, if the heart of my brother is full of the Holy Spirit he loves me through it all. You know love is a wonderful thing.
One sharp word to your brother or sister brings a cloud upon you without your knowing it. People are so accustomed to talk just as they like about each other that they say sharp and unkind and unloving things, and when a cloud comes in consequence they cannot understand it. If there is one thing that grieves God, if there is one thing that hinders the Spirit—the fruit of the Spirit is love—it is the want of lovingness. “Love is rest and rest is love, and where there is no love the rest must be disturbed.” And let us say to-day, “I see what the joy is; it is the joy of always loving, it is the joy of losing my own life in love to others.”
Come and accept a blessing and give yourself up to live a life of humility in which you are nothing, and a life of love like Christ’s in which you only live for your fellow-men, for the kingdom of God is the joy of the Holy Ghost.
My last thought is that the joy of the Holy Ghost is the joy of working for God.
The joy of the presence of Jesus, the joy of deliverance from sin, the joy of love for the brethren, and then the joy of working for God.
Do let us remember the joy of the Holy Ghost is the joy of working for God in Christ. I believe that God has new ways and new leadings and new power for His people, if they will only wait on Him.
The great need is that all Christians should consecrate themselves wholly to God for His work. May God help us to know what is the joy of the Holy Ghost.
He who is almighty and omnipresent is always going to be with us and is always going to work within us. And let us when we have done that, claim the promise, that as we have sought first the kingdom and God’s righteousness, all things shall be added unto us. Beloved, the kingdom of God is within you, and it is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Come, let us claim it even now in simple, childlike, humble faith,”
The complete chapter on Joy in the Holy Spirit:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.xiii.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth,
by the best of the Saints of Old who’s works have been passed down through the ages.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling (9) ... Dead with Christ
by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net
Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace
The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 9, Dead with Christ:
“I have been crucified with Christ.”
I doubt if we fully realize that the Holy Spirit is a heavenly life come to expel the selfish, and fleshly, and the earthly life.
What it is to be dead with Christ, and how it is that I can practically enter into this death with Christ. If we are to experience the full power of what Christ can do for us, we must learn to die with Christ. You are dead with Christ.” On the strength of that he says, “Reckon yourselves dead unto sin.” What does that mean—You are dead to sin?
“Reckon yourselves indeed dead unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus.” You are to reckon it as true, because God says it—for your new nature is indeed, in virtue of your vital union to Christ, actually and utterly dead to sin.
It is a command: “Reckon ye yourselves indeed to be dead unto sin.” Get hold of your union to Christ; believe in the new nature within you, that spiritual life which you have from Christ, a life that has died and been raised again.
What is the life Christ lives in me?
Praise God, when a man begins to see what it is, and begins in obedience to say, “I will do what God’s Word says; I am dead, I reckon myself dead,” he enters upon a new life. On the strength of God’s everlasting Word, and your union to Christ, and the great fact of Calvary, reckon, know yourself as dead indeed unto sin. A man must see this truth; this is the first step.
The second is—he must accept it in faith.
The power of Christ’s death keeps from sin, and destroys the power of sin; the power of Christ’s death can be manifested in the Holy Spirit’s unceasingly mortifying the deeds of the body.
A man may at times be filled with the Holy Ghost, and yet there may be great imperfections in him. Why? For this reason: because his heart, perhaps, had not been fully prepared by a complete discovery of sin. There may be pride, or self-consciousness, or forwardness, or other qualities of this nature which he has never noticed. The Holy Spirit does not always cast these out at once.
“Lord Jesus, let the power of Thy death work through, let it penetrate my whole being.” As the man gives himself unreservedly up, he will begin to bear the marks of a crucified man.
What are the marks of a crucified man? The first is, deep, absolute humility. Christ humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. When the death to sin begins to work mightily, that is one of its chief and most blessed proofs. It breaks a man down, down, and the great longing of his heart is, “Oh, that I could get deeper down before my God, and be nothing at all, that the life of Christ might be exalted. I deserve nothing but the cursed cross; I give myself over to it.” Humility is one of the great marks of a crucified man.
Another mark is impotence, helplessness. When a man hangs on the cross, he is utterly helpless, he can do nothing. As long as we Christians are strong, and can work, or struggle, we do not get into the blessed life of Christ; but when a man says, “I am a crucified man, I am utterly helpless, every breath of life and strength must come from my Jesus,” then we learn what it is to sink into our own impotence, and say, “I am nothing.”
Still another mark of crucifixion is restfulness. There is no place of rest like the grave; a man can do nothing there, “My flesh shall rest in hope,” said David, and said the Messiah. Yes, and when a man goes down into the grave of Jesus, it means this: I am waiting upon God; my flesh rests in Him; I have given up everything, that I may rest, waiting upon what God is to do to me.” Remember, the crucifixion, and the death, and the burial are inseparably one.
Here is one of the reasons why the Church of Christ enters so little into the death of Christ; men do not want to believe that the curse of God is upon everything in them that has not died with Christ. My intellect, has that been defiled by sin? Terribly, and the curse of sin is on it, and therefore my intellect must go down into the death. Ah, I believe that the Church of Christ suffers more today from trusting in intellect, in sagacity, in culture, and in mental refinement, than from almost anything else.
The Spirit of the world comes in, and men seek by their wisdom, and by their knowledge, to help the Gospel, and they rob it of its crucifixion mark. Christ directed Paul to go and preach the Gospel of the cross, but to do it not with wisdom of words.
Brother, you and I need to take time to come to a much larger and deeper faith in the power of Christ, that the almighty Christ will indeed take us in His arms and carry us through this death life, revealing the power of His death in us. I cannot live it without personal contact with Christ every hour of the day. Christ must do it; Christ can do it.
Christ will carry you through the very process He went through; will make His death work in you every day of your life.
One thing to remember on the day of Christ’s death... on the cross.
That the whole world, with perhaps the exception of Mary and the women, was turned against Christ that day. Of the whole world of men as far as I know, there was but that one praying to Christ. Do not wait to see what others do; if you wait for that,—alas! I desire to say it in love and tenderness,—you will not find much company in the Church of Christ.
There was , for with the Son of God he entered the glory. What made him sonot a man upon earth during the thirty-three years of Christ’s life that had such wonderful fellowship with the Son of God, as the penitent thief separate from others? He was on the cross with Jesus and entered Paradise with Him. And if I live upon the cross with Jesus, the Paradise life shall be mine every day.
I maintain my position on the cross. Given up to Jesus, to die with Him, I can trust Him to carry me through.
“Lord, here is this life; there is much in it still of self, and sinfulness, and self-will, but I come to You; I long to enter fully into your death; I long to know fully that I have been crucified with You; I long to live Your life every day.” Then say: “Lord Jesus, I have seen Your glory, what You did for the penitent one at Your side on the cross; I am trusting You, that You wilt do it for me. Lord, I cast myself into Your arms.”
The complete chapter on Dead with Christ:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.xii.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old who’s works have been passed down through the ages.
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The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.
Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 9, Dead with Christ:
“I have been crucified with Christ.”
I doubt if we fully realize that the Holy Spirit is a heavenly life come to expel the selfish, and fleshly, and the earthly life.
What it is to be dead with Christ, and how it is that I can practically enter into this death with Christ. If we are to experience the full power of what Christ can do for us, we must learn to die with Christ. You are dead with Christ.” On the strength of that he says, “Reckon yourselves dead unto sin.” What does that mean—You are dead to sin?
“Reckon yourselves indeed dead unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus.” You are to reckon it as true, because God says it—for your new nature is indeed, in virtue of your vital union to Christ, actually and utterly dead to sin.
It is a command: “Reckon ye yourselves indeed to be dead unto sin.” Get hold of your union to Christ; believe in the new nature within you, that spiritual life which you have from Christ, a life that has died and been raised again.
What is the life Christ lives in me?
Praise God, when a man begins to see what it is, and begins in obedience to say, “I will do what God’s Word says; I am dead, I reckon myself dead,” he enters upon a new life. On the strength of God’s everlasting Word, and your union to Christ, and the great fact of Calvary, reckon, know yourself as dead indeed unto sin. A man must see this truth; this is the first step.
The second is—he must accept it in faith.
The power of Christ’s death keeps from sin, and destroys the power of sin; the power of Christ’s death can be manifested in the Holy Spirit’s unceasingly mortifying the deeds of the body.
A man may at times be filled with the Holy Ghost, and yet there may be great imperfections in him. Why? For this reason: because his heart, perhaps, had not been fully prepared by a complete discovery of sin. There may be pride, or self-consciousness, or forwardness, or other qualities of this nature which he has never noticed. The Holy Spirit does not always cast these out at once.
“Lord Jesus, let the power of Thy death work through, let it penetrate my whole being.” As the man gives himself unreservedly up, he will begin to bear the marks of a crucified man.
What are the marks of a crucified man? The first is, deep, absolute humility. Christ humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. When the death to sin begins to work mightily, that is one of its chief and most blessed proofs. It breaks a man down, down, and the great longing of his heart is, “Oh, that I could get deeper down before my God, and be nothing at all, that the life of Christ might be exalted. I deserve nothing but the cursed cross; I give myself over to it.” Humility is one of the great marks of a crucified man.
Another mark is impotence, helplessness. When a man hangs on the cross, he is utterly helpless, he can do nothing. As long as we Christians are strong, and can work, or struggle, we do not get into the blessed life of Christ; but when a man says, “I am a crucified man, I am utterly helpless, every breath of life and strength must come from my Jesus,” then we learn what it is to sink into our own impotence, and say, “I am nothing.”
Still another mark of crucifixion is restfulness. There is no place of rest like the grave; a man can do nothing there, “My flesh shall rest in hope,” said David, and said the Messiah. Yes, and when a man goes down into the grave of Jesus, it means this: I am waiting upon God; my flesh rests in Him; I have given up everything, that I may rest, waiting upon what God is to do to me.” Remember, the crucifixion, and the death, and the burial are inseparably one.
Here is one of the reasons why the Church of Christ enters so little into the death of Christ; men do not want to believe that the curse of God is upon everything in them that has not died with Christ. My intellect, has that been defiled by sin? Terribly, and the curse of sin is on it, and therefore my intellect must go down into the death. Ah, I believe that the Church of Christ suffers more today from trusting in intellect, in sagacity, in culture, and in mental refinement, than from almost anything else.
The Spirit of the world comes in, and men seek by their wisdom, and by their knowledge, to help the Gospel, and they rob it of its crucifixion mark. Christ directed Paul to go and preach the Gospel of the cross, but to do it not with wisdom of words.
Brother, you and I need to take time to come to a much larger and deeper faith in the power of Christ, that the almighty Christ will indeed take us in His arms and carry us through this death life, revealing the power of His death in us. I cannot live it without personal contact with Christ every hour of the day. Christ must do it; Christ can do it.
Christ will carry you through the very process He went through; will make His death work in you every day of your life.
One thing to remember on the day of Christ’s death... on the cross.
That the whole world, with perhaps the exception of Mary and the women, was turned against Christ that day. Of the whole world of men as far as I know, there was but that one praying to Christ. Do not wait to see what others do; if you wait for that,—alas! I desire to say it in love and tenderness,—you will not find much company in the Church of Christ.
There was , for with the Son of God he entered the glory. What made him sonot a man upon earth during the thirty-three years of Christ’s life that had such wonderful fellowship with the Son of God, as the penitent thief separate from others? He was on the cross with Jesus and entered Paradise with Him. And if I live upon the cross with Jesus, the Paradise life shall be mine every day.
I maintain my position on the cross. Given up to Jesus, to die with Him, I can trust Him to carry me through.
“Lord, here is this life; there is much in it still of self, and sinfulness, and self-will, but I come to You; I long to enter fully into your death; I long to know fully that I have been crucified with You; I long to live Your life every day.” Then say: “Lord Jesus, I have seen Your glory, what You did for the penitent one at Your side on the cross; I am trusting You, that You wilt do it for me. Lord, I cast myself into Your arms.”
The complete chapter on Dead with Christ:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.xii.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old who’s works have been passed down through the ages.
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