GOD’S WORD FOR MAY 29

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES:

JESUS, YOU..ARE THE FULFILLMENT OF ALL THE SYMBOLS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT – Col. 2:16-17

 JESUS, YOU….GUIDE ME WITH YOUR EYES UPON ME —-Psalm 32:8

JESUS, YOU…. GUIDE ME WITH YOUR COUNSEL –Psalm 73:24

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In the classic book, “Abide in Christ” by Andrew Murray, we’re reading the chapter entitled, “Forsaking All For Him.” (continuing the thought from yesterday that even in our work for Him, we are incapable of doing it of ourselves)

THE WORD FOR TODAY

Romans 4:17

“(as it is written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations’) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;”

The same principle holds good for all the lawful occupations and possessions with which we are entrusted of God.  Such were the fishnets on the sea of Galilee and the household duties of Martha of Bethany – the home and the friends of many of Jesus’ disciples.  Jesus taught them indeed to forsake all for Him.  It was no arbitrary command, but the simple application of the law in nature to the kingdom of His grace: that the more perfectly the old occupant is cast out, the more complete the possession of the new can be, and the more entire the renewal of all within.

This principle has a still deeper application.  The truly spiritual gifts that are the working of God’s own Holy spirit within us – those surely do not need to be thus given up and surrendered? 

THEY DO INDEED!

The interchange of giving up and taking in is a life process and may not cease for a moment.  No sooner does the believer begin to rejoice in the possession of what he has than the inflow of new grace is retarded, and stagnation threatens.  It is only into the thirst of an empty soul that the streams of living waters flow.

 Ever thirsting is the secret of never thirsting.

Each blessed experience we receive as a gift of God must at once be returned back to Him from whom it came, in praise and love, in self-sacrifice and service; so only can it be restored to us again, fresh and beautiful with the bloom of heaven.

Is this not the wonderful lesson Isaac on Moriah teaches us? Was he not the son of promise, the God-given life, the wonder gift of the omnipotence of Him who quickens the dead (Romans 4:17—our verse above).  Yet even he had to be given up and sacrificed, that he might be received back again a thousandfold more precious than before. – a type of the Only Begotten of the father, whose pure and holy life had to be given up before He could receive it again in resurrection power and could make His people partakers of it.

A type, too, of what takes place in the life of each believer, as, instead of resting content with past experiences or present grace, he presses on, forgetting and giving up all that is behind, and reaches out to the fullest possible apprehension of Christ, His life.

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