GOD’S WORD FOR MAY 31

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES:

  JESUS, YOUR…. WATERS FOR ME  NEVER FAIL —Isaiah 58:11

    JESUS, YOU….WILL BLESS ME IN MY SMALLNESS—Ps 115:13

   JESUS, YOUR….EYES ARE ON ME—Ps 34:15

******  **********

In our reading of Andrew Murray’s “Abide in Christ”, we’re starting chapter 17 today, entitled: “Through the Holy Spirit.”

THE WORD FOR TODAY

1 John 2:27

 “But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.”

How beautiful is the thought of a life always abiding in Christ!  The longer we think of it, the more attractive it becomes.  Yet how often it is that the precious words, “Abide in Me” (John 15:4) are heard by the young disciple with a sigh!  It is as if he understands so little what they really mean and can realize so little how this full enjoyment can be attained.  He longs for someone who could make it perfectly clear and continually remind him that the abiding is indeed within his reach.  If such a one would but listen to the Word we have from John this day, what hope and joy it would bring!  It gives us the divine assurance that we have the anointing of the Holy Spirit to teach us all things, to teach us how to abide in Christ.

But – someone answers – this word doesn’t give me comfort.  It only depresses me more.  It tells of another privilege I so little know to enjoy:  I don’t understand how the teaching of the Spirit is given – where or how I can discern His voice.  If the Teacher is so unknown, no wonder that the promise of His teaching about the abiding doesn’t help me much.

Thoughts like these come from an error that is very common among believers.  They imagine that the Spirit, in teaching them must reveal the mysteries of the spiritual life first to their intellect, and afterward in their experience.  God’s way is just the opposite of this.  What holds true of all spiritual truth is especially true of the abiding in Christ:

We must live and experience truth in order to know it.

Life fellowship with Jesus is the only school for the science of heavenly things.  In John 13:7 Jesus says:

“…. “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”

This law of the kingdom is especially true of the daily cleansing of which it first was spoken, and the daily keeping. 

Receive what you do not comprehend, submit to what you cannot understand, accept and expect what to reason appears a mystery, believe what looks impossible, walk in a way that you know not –such are the first lessons in the school of God. 

“If you abide in My Word, you will understand the truth” – in these and other Words of God we are taught that there is a habit of mind and life that precedes the understanding of the truth.  True discipleship consists in first following and then knowing the Lord.  Believing surrender to Christ and the submission to His word to expect what appears most improbable is the only way to the full blessedness of knowing Him.

These principles hold especially good in regard to the teaching of the Spirit.  That teaching consists in His guiding the spiritual life within us to what God has prepared for us, without our always knowing how.  On the strength of God’s promise, and trusting in His faithfulness, the believer yields himself to the leading of the Holy spirit, without claiming to have it first made clear to the intellect what He is to do, but consenting to let Him do His work in the soul and afterward to know what He has done.

Faith trusts the working of the Spirit unseen in the deep recesses of the inner life.  So the Word of Christ and the gift of the Spirit are, to the believer, sufficient guarantee that he will be taught by the Spirit to abide in Christ. 

By faith he rejoices in what he does not see or feel; he knows and is confident that the blessed Spirit within is doing His work silently but surely, guiding him into the life of full abiding and unbroken communion.

Published by liveinthelightofourlord

View all posts by liveinthelightofourlord