March 20 – Help From Everywhere

Your foolish little activities are valueless in themselves. Seemingly trivial or of seemingly great moment, all deeds are alike if directed by Me. Just cease to function except through Me.

I am your Lord, just obey Me as you would expect a faithful willing secretary to carry out your directions. Just have no choice but Mine, no will but Mine.

I am dependent on no one agency when I am your supply. Through many channels My help and material flow can come.

“I delight to do thy will, O my God.” – Psalm 40:8

Absolute Surrender 1

Absolute Surrender

By Andrew Murray

“And Ben-hadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria , and warred against it. And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel into the city, and said unto him, Thus saith Ben-hadad, Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine. And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, 0 king, according to thy saying, I am thine and all that I have” (I Kings 20:1-4).

Ahab gave what was asked of him by Ben-hadad – absolute surrender. I want to use these words: “My lord, 0 king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have,” as the words of absolute surrender with which every child of God ought to yield himself to his Father. We have heard it before, but we need to hear it very definitely-the condition of God’s blessing is absolute surrender of all into His hands. Praise God! If our hearts are willing for that, there is no end to what God will do for us, and to the blessing God will bestow.

Absolute surrender-let me tell you where I got those words. I used them myself often, and you have heard them numerous times. But once, in Scotland , I was in a company where we were talking about the condition of Christ’s Church, and what the great need of the Church and of believers is. There was in our company a godly Christian worker who has much to do in training other workers for Christ, and I asked him what he would say was the great need of the Church-the message that ought to be preached. He answered very quietly and simply and determinedly:

“Absolute surrender to God is the one thing.”

The words struck me as never before. And that man began to tell how, in the Christian workers with whom he had to deal, he finds that if they are sound on that point, they are willing to be taught and helped, and they always improve. Whereas, others who are not sound there very often go back and leave the work. The condition for obtaining God’s full blessing is absolute surrender to Him.

And now, I desire by God’s grace to give to you this message-that your God in heaven answers the prayers which you have offered for blessing on yourselves and for blessing on those around you by this one demand: Are you willing to surrender yourselves absolutely into His hands? What is our answer to be? God knows there are hundreds of hearts who have said it, and there are hundreds more who long to say it but hardly dare to do so. And there are hearts who have said it, but who have yet miserably failed, and who feel themselves condemned because they did not find the secret of the power to live that life. May God have a word for all!

Let me say, first of all, that God claims it from us.

God Expects Your Surrender

Yes, it has its foundation in the very nature of God. God cannot do otherwise. Who is God? He is the Fountain of life, the only Source of existence and power and goodness. Throughout the universe there is nothing good but what God works. God has created the sun, the moon, the stars, the flowers, the trees, and the grass. Are they not all absolutely surrendered to God? Do they not allow God to work in them just what He pleases? When God clothes the lily with its beauty, is it not yielde

d up, surrendered, given over to God as He works in it its beauty? And God’s redeemed children, oh, can you think that God can do His work if there is only half or a part of them surrendered? God cannot do it. God is life, love, blessing, power, and infinite beauty, and God delights in communicating Himself to every child who is prepared to receive Him. But ah! this one lack of absolute surrender is just the thing that hinders God. And now He comes, and as God, He claims it.

You know in daily life what absolute surrender is. You know that everything has to be given up to its special, definite object and service. I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely surrendered to the one work of writing. That pen must be absolutely surrendered to my hand if I am to write properly with it. If another holds it partly, I cannot write properly. This coat is absolutely given up to me to cover my body. This building is entirely given up to religious services. And now, do you expect that in your immortal being, in the divine nature that you have received by regeneration, God can work His work, every day and every hour, unless you are entirely given up to Him? God cannot. The temple of Solomon was absolutely surrendered to God when it was dedicated to Him. And every one of us is a temple of God , in which God will dwell and work mightily on one condition-absolute surrender to Him. God claims it, God is worthy of it, and without it God cannot work His blessed work in us.

God not only claims it, but God will work it Himself.

Note: We will continue reading the book together in weekly portions for the next 11 weeks. New portions will post each Thursday.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Murray (1828-1917) was an amazingly prolific Christian author. He lived and ministered as both a pastor and a writer from the towns and villages of South Africa . All of his publications were originally written in Dutch and then translated into English. As his popularity grew, Murray ‘s books found their way into more than twelve foreign languages during his lifetime alone.

Andrew Murray’s early writings were primarily written for the edification of the believer-building them up in faith, love, and prayer. They include Abide in Christ, The Spirit of Christ, and With Christ in the School of Prayer . Later writings leaned more heavily upon the sanctification of the believer with such works as Holy in Christ and Be Perfect. Finally, in his last days, Murray addressed the issue of the Church and its lack of power on the earth. He emphasized the need for a constant and vital relationship with Jesus Christ and for consistent, fervent prayer.

Murray was an alert and intense man, continuing on in his writings until his death at age eighty-nine. His burning desire to transpose all that lay on his heart and spirit to paper was revealed in the presence of several manuscripts in various stages of completion at the time of his death.

Andrew Murray has greatly blessed the Christian world with richness of his spiritual wisdom and his ability to see and answer the needs of God’s people.

God at Eventide – March 19

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Your Resolutions

“By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”

Obedience is the keystone of your arch of worship. On it depends your Love and Power.

Through that archway shall many pass into My Holy Place. Once therein their questing souls will pass into My Holy of Holies. Is it too much to ask of you obedience that this may be accomplished?

Do not fret that your life is lived in lowly places. It is not to be lived to impress this earth-plane, but to be so faithful and obedient that those for whom you desire much, shall have THAT much impressed upon them on the spirit-plane.

That much, and more, than you can desire for them.

March 19 – Courage

I am here. Fear not. Can you really trust Me? I am a God of Power, as well as a Man of Love, so human, yet so divine.

Just trust. I cannot, and I will not, fail you. All is well. Courage.

Many are praying for you both.

“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we
will remember the name of the Lord our God.” – Psalm 20:7

God at Eventide – March 18

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Joy for Sorrow

I bind up the broken hearts with the cords wherewith men scourged Me in the Judgment Hall, with the whips of scorn wherewith men have mocked My Love and Divinity down the ages.

Symbol, this, of the way in which, out of seeming obstacles stepping-stones can be fashioned, and, out of trials undreamt-of, blessings can be wrought.

Share My Life with its longings and tears, with its Joys unspeakable and its heartaches beyond human description.

Share My Joy.

March 18 – Your Resolutions

Listen, listen, I am your Lord. Before me there is none other. Just trust Me in everything. Help is here all the time.

The difficult way is nearly over, but you have learnt in it lessons you could learn in no other way. “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” Wrest from Me, by firm and simple trust and persistent prayer, the treasures of My Kingdom.

Such wonderful things are coming to you, Joy – Peace – Assurance – Security – Health – Happiness – Laughter.

Claim big, really big, things now. Remember, nothing is too big. Satisfy the longings of My Heart to give. Blessing, abundant blessing on you both now and always. Peace.

“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and
mighty things, which thou knowest not.” – Jeremiah 33:3

God at Eventide – March 17

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The Real World

“Blessed are they that hear My Voice.”

Deaf to My Voice man can so often be. Live, My children, more in the Unseen World. There, in the contemplation of Me, your whole nature becomes sensitive to My faintest whisper.

I have told you, I tell you again, the Unseen World is the real world. Realize more and more as you go through this earth-life that this is only a material-plane parenthesis. The real paragraph, chapter, book of Life is the Spirit-Life.

This point of view will alter your idea of suffering, failure, and the work of life here. It will give you a new view of death. Birth begins the parenthesis, death closes it. Then back to real Life-History. Absorb this.

When you have done so, you will get that same idea about the various periods of your earth-life. Times of struggle, defeat, joy, failure, work, rest, success — treat them all as parts of a parenthesis in the one Eternal Life of spiritual progress.

March 17 – No Greater Joy

Withdraw into the calm of communion with Me. Rest – rest, rest in that calm and Peace. Life knows no greater joy than you will find in converse and companionship with Me.

You are Mine. When the soul finds its home of rest in Me, then it is, that its real Life begins. Not in years, as man counts it, do we measure in My Kingdom.

We count only from his second birth, that new birth of which I spoke to Nicodemus when I said, “Ye must be born again.” We know no life but Eternal Life and when a man enters into that, then he lives.

And this is Life Eternal, to know God, My Father and Me, the Son sent by Him. So immature, so childish, so empty is all so-called living before that. I shower Love on you. Pass Love on.

Do not fear. To fear is as foolish as if a small child with a small coin, but a rich father, fretted about how rent and rates should be paid, and what he or she would do about it. Is this work Mine or not? You need to trust Me for everything.

“There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased
from his own works, as God did from his.” – Hebrews 4:9,10

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 1:24-25

God at Eventide – March 16

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Perfect Everything

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven.”

That was the aim I set before My disciples when I spoke to them on the Mount.

That is the aim I set before you and every follower of Mine today.

To achieve this you would be as God.

To aim at less would mean an unworthy standard.

To keep your gaze on this as your standard means that your eyes are fixed on the Heights of God, always directed above the difficulties and the lower aims and desires and standards of others round you.

March 16 – Reflect Me

My children, I am here beside you. Draw near in spirit to Me. Shut out the distractions of the world. I am your Life, the very breath of your soul. Learn what it is to shut yourself in the secret place of your being, which is My secret place too.

True it is, I wait in many a heart, but so few retire into that inner place of the being to commune with Me. Wherever the soul is, I am. Man has rarely understood this. I am actually at the center of every man’s being, but, distracted with the things of the sense-life, he finds Me not.

Do you realize that I am telling you truths, revealing them, not repeating oft-told facts. Meditate on all I say. Ponder it. Not to draw your own conclusions, but to absorb Mine.

All down the ages, men have been too eager to say what they thought about My truth, and so doing, they have grievously erred. Hear Me. Talk to Me. Reflect Me. Do not say what you think about me. My words need none of man’s explanation. I can explain to each heart.

Make Me real, and leave Me to do My own work. To lead a soul to Me is one thing, to seek to stay with it to interpret mars the first great act. So would it be with human intercourse. How much more then, when it is a question of the soul, and Me, its Maker, and only real Spirit that understands it.

“In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness
and in confidence shall be your strength.” – Isaiah 30:15