GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 19

OUR PERSONALPROMISES:

JESUS, YOU………. ARE MY STRENGTH AND LATTER RAIN ….Ps 84:5-7

JESUS, YOU………..HAVE MADE THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH BY YOUR GREAT POWER……….Jer 32:17

JESUS, YOU…………HAVE GIVEN ME HOPE BY YOUR WORD…..Ps 119:49

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THE WORD FOR TODAY

John 17:22-23

“And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:  I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”

Today we go on in Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray, with the chapter entitled “As Christ in The Father.”

Think then, too, of the mode of that abiding in the Father and His love that is to be the law of your life.

“I have kept my Father’s Commandments, and abide in His love.” (John 15:10).

His was a life of subjection and dependence, and yet most blessed.  To our proud self-seeking nature, the thought of dependence and subjection suggests the idea of humiliation and servitude; in the life of love that the Son of God lived, and to which He invites us, they are the secret of blessedness.  The Son is not afraid of losing anything by giving up all to the Father, for He knows that the father loves Him and can have no interest apart from that of the beloved Son.  The Son knows that as completely as He is dependent on the Father, so completely does the Father communicate all He possesses to the Son.  Hence, when He had said:

“…..The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do.” (John 5:19), He added at once this: (verses 19-20):

“….. for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.   For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does….”

The believer who studies this life of Christ as the pattern and the promise of what his may be, learns to understand how the “without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5) is but the forerunner of “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13).

We learn to glory in infirmities (weakness) to take pleasure in necessities and distresses for Christ’s sake; for:

“…….When I am weak, then I am strong.”(2 Corinthians 12:10).

We ride above the ordinary tone, in which so many Christians speak of their weakness while they are content to stay there, because we have learned from Christ that, in the life of divine love, the emptying of self and the sacrifice of our will is the surest way to have all we can wish or will.  Dependence, subjection, self-sacrifice, are for the Christian, as for Christ, the blessed path of life.  As Christ lived through and in the Father, even so the believer lives through and in Christ.

Think of the glory of this life of Christ in the Father’s love.  Because He gave Himself wholly to the Father’s will and glory, the Father crowned Him with glory and honor.  He acknowledged Him as His only representative; He made Him partaker of His power and authority; He exalted Him to share His throne as God.  Even so will it be with him who abides in Christ’s love.  If Christ finds us willing to trust ourselves and our interests to His love, if in that trust we give up all care for our own will and honor, if  we make it our glory to exercise and confess absolute dependence on Him in all things, if we are content to have no life but in Him, He will do for us what the Father did for Him. He will lay His glory on us:  as the name of our Lord Jesus is glorified in us, we are glorified in Him (2Thessalonians 1:12). 

He acknowledges us as His true and worthy representatives;  He entrusts us with His power.  He admits us to His counsels, as He allows our intercession to influence His rule of His church and the world.  He makes us the vehicles of His authority and His influence over men.  His spirit knows no other dwelling than such and seeks no other instruments for His divine work.  Blessed life of love for the soul that abides in Christ’s love, even as He in the Father’s!!

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