Abide
in Christ by Andrew Murray
Day
12
God
Himself Will Establish You
“Now
He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us..is
God,...” (2 Cor. 1:21)
These
words of Paul teach us a much needed and most blessed truth—that
just as our first being united with Christ was the work of Divine
power, so we may look to the Father, too, for being kept and being
fixed more firmly in Him. "The Lord will perfect that which
concerns me" (Psalm 138:8a)—this expression of confidence
should always accompany the prayer, "Do not forsake the works of
Your hands" (Psalm 138:8b). In all his longings and prayers to
attain to a deeper and more perfect abiding in Christ, the believer
must hold fast his confidence: "He
who has begun a good work in you will complete it
until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil: 1:6).
There is nothing that will so help to root and ground him in Christ
as this faith: "He who establishes us...in Christ...is God."
How
many are there who can attest to the fact that this faith is just
what they need! They continually mourn over the inconsistency of
their spiritual life. Sometimes there are hours and days of deep
earnestness, and even of blessed experience in the grace of God. But
how little is needed to ruin their peace, to bring a cloud over the
soul! And then, how their faith is shaken! All efforts to regain
their standing appear utterly fruitless. Neither solemn vows nor
watching and prayer help to restore to them the peace they had tasted
for awhile. Could they only understand how just their own efforts are
the cause of their failure, because it is God alone who can establish
us in Christ Jesus. They would see that just as in justification they
had to cease from their own working, and to accept in faith the
promise that God would give them life in Christ, so now, in the
matter of their sanctification, their first need is to cease from
striving themselves to establish the connection with Christ more
firmly, and to allow God to do it. "God is faithful, by whom you
were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord”
(1 Cor. 1:9). What they need is the simple faith that the act of
establishing in Christ, day by day, is God's work—a work that He
delights to do, in spite of all our weakness and unfaithfulness, if
we will only trust Him for it.
Many
can testify to the blessedness of such a faith and the experience it
brings. What peace and rest, to know that there is a Gardener who
cares for the branch, to see that it grows stronger, and that its
union with the Vine becomes more perfect. This Gardener watches over
every hindrance and danger, and supplies every needed aid! What peace
and rest, fully and finally to give up our abiding into the care of
God, and never to have a wish or thought, never to offer a prayer or
engage in an exercise connected with it, without first having the
glad remembrance that what we do is only the manifestation of what
God is doing in us! Establishing us in Christ is His work. He
accomplishes it by stirring us to watch and to wait and to work. But
this He can do with power only as we cease interrupting Him by our
self-working—as we accept in faith the dependent posture which
honors Him and opens the heart to let Him work. How such a faith
frees the soul from care and responsibility! In the midst of the rush
and bustle of the world's stirring life, amid the subtle and
ceaseless temptations of sin, amid all the daily cares and trials
that so easily distract and lead to failure, how blessed it would be
to be an established Christian— always abiding in Christ! How
blessed even to have the faith that one can surely become it...that
the attainment is within our reach!
Dear
believer, the blessing is indeed within your reach. ‘He who
establishes you with us in Christ...is God.” What I want you to
take in is this: that believing this promise will not only give you
comfort, but will be the means of your obtaining your desire. You
know how Scripture teaches us that in all God's leadings of His
people, faith has everywhere been the one condition of the
manifestation of His power. Faith is the ceasing from all nature's
efforts, and all other dependence. Faith is confessed helplessness
casting itself upon God's promise, and claiming its fulfillment.
Faith is putting ourselves quietly into God's hands for Him to do His
work. What you and I need now is to take time, until this truth
stands out before us in all its spiritual brightness: It is God
Almighty, God the Faithful and Gracious One, who has undertaken to
establish us in Christ Jesus.
Listen
to what the Word teaches you: "The Lord will establish you as a
holy people unto Himself” (Deut. 28:9). "O Lord God, fix
their heart toward You’ (1 Chron. 29:18). "Your God loved
Israel, to establish them forever;" ""Now to Him who
is able to establish you, be glory through Jesus Christ forever"
(Rom. 16:25, 27) "That He may establish your hearts blameless in
holiness” (1 Thess. 3:13). "But the Lord Is faithful, who
will establish you and guard you from the evil one" (2 Thess.
3:3) "The God of all grace, who has called us...by Christ
Jesus...perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you” (1 Peter
5:10). Can you take these words to mean anything less than that you
too—however unsettled your spiritual life has up to this time
been, however unfavorable your natural character or your
circumstances may appear—can be established in Christ Jesus...that
you can become an established Christian? Let us only take time to
listen, in simple childlike teachableness, to these words as the
truth of God, and the confidence will come: As surely as I am in
Christ, I will also, day by day, be established in Him.
The
lesson appears so simple, and yet most of us take so long to learn
it. The chief reason is this...that the grace the promise offers is
so large, so God-like, so beyond all our thoughts, that we do not
take it really to mean what it says. The believer who has once come
to see and to accept what it brings can bear witness to the wonderful
change that comes over the spiritual life. Up to this time, he had
taken charge of his own welfare...now he has a God to take charge of
it. He now knows himself to be in the school of God. He has a Teacher
who plans the whole course of study for each of His pupils with
infinite wisdom, and delights to have them come daily for the lessons
He has to give. All he asks is to feel himself constantly in God's
hands, and to follow His guidance, neither lagging behind Him nor
going ahead of Him. Remembering that it is God who works both to will
and to do, he sees his only safety to be in yielding himself to God's
working. He lays aside all anxiety about his inner life and its
growth, because the Father is the Gardener under whose wise and
watchful care each plant is well secured. He knows that there is the
prospect of a most blessed life of strength and fruitfulness to every
one who will take God alone and wholly as his hope.
Believer,
you must admit that such a life of trust must be a most blessed one.
You say, perhaps, that there are times when you do, with your whole
heart, consent to this way of living, and that you do completely
abandon the care of your inner life to your Father. But somehow it
does not last. You forget again, and instead of beginning each
morning with the joyous transfering of all the needs and cares of
your spiritual life to the Father's charge, you again feel anxious,
burdened, and helpless. Is it not, perhaps, my brother or sister,
because you have not committed to the Father's care this matter of
daily remembering to renew your entire surrender? Memory is one of
the highest powers in our nature. By it day is linked to day, the
unity of life through all our years is kept up, and we know that we
are still ourselves. In the spiritual life, recollection is of
infinite value. For the sanctifying of our memory, in the service of
our spiritual life, God has provided most bountifully. The Holy
Spirit is the Rememberer, the Spirit of recollection. Jesus said, "He
will bring to your remembrance all things…(John 14:26). "He
who establishes us with you in Christ...is God, who has also sealed
us, and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (1 Cor.
1:21-22). It is just for the establishing of us in Him that the Holy
Rememberer has been given. Each day God will enable you to remember
His blessed promises as well as your unceasing acts of faith and
surrender in accepting them. The Holy Spirit is—blessed be God —the
memory of the new man.
Apply
this to the promise of the text: "He who establishes us...in
Christ...is God." As you now, at this moment, abandon all
anxiety about your growth and progress to the God who has undertaken
to establish you in the Vine, and to feel what a joy it is to know
that God alone has charge, ask and trust Him by the Holy Spirit
always to remind you of this your blessed relationship to Him. He
will do it.
With each new morning your faith may grow stronger and brighter. I
have a God who sees to it that each day I become more firmly united
to Christ.
And
now, beloved fellow believer, "may the God of all grace, who has
called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus...perfect, establish,
strengthen, and settle you" (1 Peter 5:10) What more can you
desire? Expect it confidently. Ask it fervently. Count on God to do
His work. And learn in faith to sing the song, the notes of which
each new experience will make deeper and sweeter:” Now to Him who
is able to establish you, be glory through Jesus Christ forever"
(Rom.16:25, 27). Yes, glory to God, who has undertaken to establish
us in Christ!
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