GOD’S WORD FOR MAY 5

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES:

JESUS, YOU……………..MAKE ME YOUR JEWEL —Malachi 3:17—(“They shall be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts,  On the day that I make them My jewels…..”)

JESUS, YOU……………..HAVE PREDESTINED ME —Ephes. 1:11—(What a glorious assurance of salvation!!!)

JESUS, YOU………………SEATED ME IN HEAVENLY PLACES WITH YOU—Ephesians 2:5-6.  (We are with Him in the spirit now………..a great mystery, but true………).

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THE WORD FOR TODAY

1 Thessalonians 5:23

 “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We are continuing in Andrew Murray’s classic book, “Abide in Christ”, and chapter 9, “As Your Sanctification.”

Christ is made by God unto us sanctification.  Holiness is the very nature of God, and only that which God takes possession of and fills with Himself is holy.  God’s answer to the question, “How could sinful man become holy?” is “Christ, the Holy One of God.”  In Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, God’s holiness was revealed incarnate and brought within reach of man. 

John 17:19:   “For their sakes I sanctify Myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth.”

There is no other way of our being holy but by becoming partakers of the holiness of Christ.  There is no other way for this to take place than by our personal spiritual union with Him, so that through His Holy Spirit, His holy life flows into us.  “Of (God) are you in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us…sanctification.” (1Cor. 1:30).

Abiding by faith in Christ our sanctification is the simple secret of a holy life.  The measure of sanctification will depend on the measure of abiding in Him; as the soul learns wholly to abide in Christ, the promise is increasingly fulfilled:  “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly.” (1 Thes 5:23).

To illustrate this relation between the measure of abiding and the measure of sanctification experienced, let us think of the grafting of a tree, that instructive symbol of our union to Jesus.  The illustration is suggested by the Savior’s words, “Make the tree good, and his fruit good.” (Matthew 12:33).  I can graft a tree so that only a single branch bears good fruit, while many of the natural branches remain and bear their old fruit – a type of believer in whom a small part of the life is sanctified, but in whom, from ignorance or other reasons, the carnal life still has full dominion in many respects.  I can graft a tree so that every branch is cut off, and the whole tree becomes renewed to bear good fruit; and yet, unless I watch over the tendency of the stems to give sprouts, they may again rise and grow strong, and, robbing the new graft of the strength it needs, make it weak.  Such are Christians who, when apparently powerfully converted, forsake all to follow Christ, and yet, after a time, through unwatchfulness, allow old habits to regain their power and whose Christian life and fruit are but feeble.  But if I want a tree wholly made good, I take it when young, and, cutting the stem clean off on the ground, I graft it just where it emerges from the soil.   I watch over every bud that the old nature could possibly put forth, until the flow of sap from the old roots into the new stem is so complete, that the old life has, as it were, been entirely conquered and covered by the new.  Here I have a tree entirely renewed – an emblem of the Christian who has learned in entire consecration to surrender everything for Christ and, in a wholehearted faith, to abide wholly in Him.

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