GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 14

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES:

JESUS, YOU………. PLANT IRREPRESSIBLE JOY IN ME…Ps 97:11(Amp)

JESUS, YOU…………HEAR MY SIGHING …Ps 38:9

JESUS, YOU…………..SURROUND ME WITH SONGS OF DELIVERANCE…Ps 32:7

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THE WORD FOR TODAY

Colossians 3:17

“And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

Today we finish chapter 21 entitled, “So You Will Have Power in Prayer” in Andrew Murrays beloved book, Abide in Christ.

Once more: abiding in Christ, we can fully avail ourselves of the name of Christ.  Asking in the name of another means that the other authorized me and sent me to ask, and wants to be considered as asking himself; he wants the favor done to him,  Believers often try to think of the name of Jesus and His merits, and to argue themselves into the faith that they will be heard, while they painfully feel how little they have of the faith of His name.  They are not living wholly in Jesus’ name; it is only when they begin to pray that they want to take up that nane and use it.  This cannot be!

 The promise, “Whatsoever you shall ask in My name” (John 14:13) may not be severed from the command, “Whatsoever you do….do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”  (Colossians 3:17).

If the name of Christ is to be wholly at my disposal so that I may have the full command of it for all I will, it must be because I first put myself wholly at His disposal, so that He has free and full command of me.  It is the abiding in Christ that gives the right and power to use His name with confidence. 

To Christ, the Father refuses nothing.  Abiding in Christ, I come to the Father as one with Him.  His righteousness is in me, His spirit is in me; the Father sees the Son in me and gives me my petition.  It is not –as so many think – by a sort of imputation that the Father looks upon us as if we were in Christ, though we are not in Him.  NO! the Father wants to see us living in Him; thus will our prayers really have power to prevail.  Abiding in Christ not only renews the will to pray right, but secures the full power of His merits to us.

Again, abiding in Christ also works in us the faith that alone can obtain the answer:

“According to your faith let it  be to you.” (Matthew 9:29).

This faith rests upon, and is rooted in, the Word but is something infinitely higher than the mere logical conclusion:  God has promised, I will obtain.  No, faith, as a spiritual act, depends upon the words abiding in us as living powers, and so upon the state of the whole inner life.  Without fasting and prayer (see Mark 9:29), without humility and a spiritual mind (see John 5:44), without a whole-hearted obedience (1 John 3:22), there cannot be this living faith.  But as the soul abides in Christ and grows into the consciousness of its union with Him and sees how entirely it is He who makes it and its petition acceptable, it dares to claim an answer because it knows itself one with Him.  It was by faith it learned to abide in Him; as the fruit of that faith, it rises to a larger faith in all that God has promised to be and to do.  It learns to breathe its prayers in the deep quiet, confident assurance: we know we have the petition we ask of Him.

Abiding in Christ, further, keeps us in the place where the answer can be bestowed.  Some believers pray earnestly for blessing, but when God comes and looks for them to bless them, they are not to be found.  They never thought that the blessing must not only be asked, but waited for and received in prayer,  abiding in Christ is the place for receiving answers.  Outside of Him the answer would be dangerous—we would consume it with our lusts (Jaes 4:3).  Many of the richest answers – say for spiritual grace or for power to work and to bless – can only come in the shape of a larger experience of what God makes Christ to us.  The fullness is in Him; abiding in Him is the condition of power in prayer, because the answer is treasured up and bestowed in Him.

Believer, abide in Christ, for there is the school of prayer – mighty, effectual, answer-bringing prayer.  Abide in Him, and you will learn what to so many is a mystery:

 THAT THE SECRET OF THE PRAYER OF FAITH IS THE LIFE OF FAITH – THE LIFE THAT ABIDES IN CHRIST ALONE.

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