Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Abide In Christ - Day 12 - God Himself Will Establish You (Video Devotional plus text)




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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