GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 17

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES:

JESUS, YOU……ARE THE ROCK OF MY SALVATION…Deut 32:5;  Ps 89:26;  Ps 18:2,31 &46;  Ps 95:1

JESUS, YOU………ARE THE ROCK OF MY REFUGE…Ps 94:22; Is 17:10 (maybe more under “refuge)

JESUS, YOU………ARE THE ROCK THAT IS HIGHER THAN I…Ps 61:2

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THE WORD FOR TODAY

Isaiah 54:10

“For the mountains shall depart

And the hills be removed,

But My kindness shall not depart from you,

Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,”

Says the Lord, who has mercy on you.”

Today’s reading will finish chapter 22 (And in His Love) of Andrew Murray’s book Abide in Christ.

And now, does not this love suggest the motive, the measure, and the means of that surrender by which we yield ourselves wholly to abide in Him?

This love surely supplies a motive.  Only look and see how this love stands and pleads and prays.  Gaze, oh gaze on the divine form, the eternal glory, the heavenly beauty, the tenderly pleading gentleness of crucified love, as it stretches out its pierced hands and says, “Oh will you not abide with Me?”  Will you not come and abide in Me?”  It points you up to the eternity of love from where it came to seek you.  It points you to the Cross and all it has borne to prove the reality of its affection and to win you for itself.  It reminds  you of all it has promised to do for you, if you will but throw yourself unreservedly into its arms.  It asks you whether, so far as you have come to dwell with it and taste its blessedness, it has not done well by you.  With a divine authority, mingled with such an inexpressible tenderness that one might almost think He heard the tone of reproach in it, it says, “Soul, as the father has loved me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.”  Surely there can be but one answer to such pleading:  “Lord Jesus Christ!  Here I am.  From now on, Your love will be the only home of my soul’ in Your love alone will I abide.”

That love is not only the motive, but also the measure of our surrender to abide in it.  Love gives all, but asks all.  It does so, not because it grudges us anything, but because without this it cannot get possession of us to fill us with itself.  In the love of the father and the Son, it was so.  In the love of Jesus to us, it was so.  In our entering into His love to abide there, it must be so too;  our surrender to it must have no other measure than its surrender to us.  Oh that we understood how the love that calls us has infinite riches and fullness of joy for us, and that what we give up for its sake will be rewarded a hundredfold in this life! 

Or rather, would that we understood that it is a love with a height, a depth,  length and breadth that passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:19)!  How all thought of sacrifice or surrender would pass away, and our souls be filled with wonder at the unspeakable privilege of being loved with such a love, of being allowed to come and abide in it forever.

Doubt may again suggest the question, “but is it possible, can I always abide in His love?”  Then listen how that love itself supplies the only means for the abiding in Him:  it is faith in that love that will enable us to abide in it.  If this love is indeed so divine, such an intense and burning passion, then surely I can depend on it to keep me and to hold me fast.  Then surely all my unworthiness and feebleness can be no hindrance. If this love is indeed so divine, with infinite power at its command, I surely have a right to trust that it is stronger than my weakness, and that, with its almighty arm, it will clasp me to its bosom and allow me to go out no more.  I see how this is the one thing my God requires of me. 

Treating me as a reasonable being, endowed with  the wondrous power of willing and choosing, He cannot force all this blessedness on me, but waits until I give the willing consent of the heart.  In His great kindness, He has ordered the token of this consent to be faith – that faith by which utter sinfulness casts itself into the arms of love to be saved and utter weakness to be kept and made strong.  Oh, Infinite Love!  Love with which the Father loved the Son!  Love with which the Son loves us!  I can trust You;  I do trust You.  Oh, keep me abiding in You!

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