Abide
in Christ by Andrew Murray
Day
5
AS
YOU CAME TO HIM BY FAITH
As
you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have
been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. (Colossians 2:6,7)
In
these words the apostle teaches us the weighty lesson that it is not
only by faith that we first come to Christ and are united to Him, but
that it is by faith that we are to be rooted and established in our
union with Christ. Faith is not only essential at the beginning of
our spiritual walk in Him, but faith is also essential for the
continual progress of our spiritual life. Abiding in Jesus can ONLY
be by faith.
There
are earnest Christians who do not understand this, or, if they admit
it in theory, they fail to realize its application in practice. They
are very zealous for a free gospel, with our first acceptance of
Christ, and justification by faith alone. But after this they think
everything depends on our diligence and faithfulness. While they
firmly grasp the truth that the sinner is justified by faith (see
Romans 3:28), they have hardly found a place in their scheme for the
larger truth, "The just shall LIVE by faith” (Rom. 1:17) They
have never understood what a perfect Savior Jesus is, and how He will
each day do for the sinner just as much as He did the first day when
he came to Him. They do not know that the life of grace is always and
only a life of faith, and that, in the relationship to Jesus, the one
daily and unceasing duty of the disciple is to
believe. This is
because believing is the one channel through which divine grace and
strength can flow out into the heart of man. The old nature of the
believer remains evil and sinful to the last. Yet it is only as he
daily comes, all empty and helpless, to his Savior to receive of HIS
life and strength, that he can bring forth the fruits of
righteousness to the glory of God. Therefore it is: “As
you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
rooted...in Him and established in the faith...abounding in it....”
As you first
came to Jesus, so now abide in Him by faith.
And
if you would know how faith is to be exercised in abiding in Jesus in
this way, to be rooted more deeply and firmly in Him, you have only
to look back to the time when you first received Him. You remember
well what obstacles at that time there appeared to be in the way of
your believing. There was first your vileness and guilt. It appeared
impossible that the promise of pardon and love could be for such a
sinner as you saw yourself to be. Then there was the sense of
weakness and death. You did not feel the power for the surrender and
the trust to which you were called. And then there was the future.
You did not dare undertake to be a disciple of Jesus while you felt
so sure that you could not remain standing, but would quickly again
be unfaithful and fall. These difficulties were like mountains in
your way. And how were they removed? Simply by the Word of God. That
Word, as it were, compelled you to believe that, in spite of the
guilt in the past, and weakness in the present, and unfaithfulness in
the future, the promise was sure that Jesus would accept and save
you. On that Word you dared to come, and you were not deceived. You
found that Jesus did indeed accept and save.
Now
apply this, your experience in coming to Jesus, to the abiding in
Him. Now, as then, the temptations to keep you from believing are
many. When you think of your sins since you became a disciple, your
heart is cast down with shame, and it looks as if it were too much to
expect that Jesus should indeed receive you into perfect intimacy and
the full enjoyment of His holy love. When you think how utterly, in
times past, you have failed in keeping the most sacred vows, the
consciousness of present weakness makes you tremble at the very idea
of answering the Savior's command with the promise, "Lord, from
now on I will abide in You. " And when you set before yourself
the life of love and joy, of holiness and fruitfulness, which in the
future are to flow from abiding in Him, it is as if it only serves to
make you still more hopeless. You, at least, can never attain to it.
You know yourself too well. It is no use expecting it, only to be
disappointed. A life fully and wholly abiding in Jesus is not for
you.
Oh
that you would learn a lesson from the time of your first coming to
the Savior! Remember, dear soul, how you then were led, contrary to
all that your experience, and your feelings, and even your sober
judgment said, to take Jesus at His word. In this you were not
disappointed. He did receive you, and pardon you. He did love you,
and save you...you know it. And if He did this for you when you were
an enemy and a stranger, do you not think, now that you are His own,
that He will not fulfil His promise to you EVEN MORE? Oh that you
would come and begin simply to listen to His Word, and to ask only
the one question: “Does He really mean that I should abide in Him?”
The answer His Word gives is so simple and so sure: By His almighty
grace you now are in Him. That same almighty grace will indeed enable
you to abide in Him. By faith you became partakers of the initial
grace; by that same faith you can enjoy the continuous grace of
abiding in Him.
And
if you ask what exactly it is that you now have to believe that you
may abide in Him, the answer is not difficult. Believe first of all
what He says: "I am the Vine” (John 15:5). The safety and the
fruitfulness of the branch depend upon the strength of the vine. Do
not think so much of yourself as a branch, nor of the abiding as your
duty, UNTIL you have first had your soul filled with the faith of
what Christ IS as the Vine. He really will be to you all that a vine
can be - holding you fast, nourishing you, and making Himself every
moment responsible for your growth and your fruit. Take time to know,
set yourself heartily to believe: “My Vine, on whom I can depend
for all I need, is Christ.” A large, strong vine bears the feeble
branch, and holds it more than the branch holds the vine. Ask the
Father by the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what a glorious, loving,
mighty Christ this is, in whom you have your place and your life. It
is the faith in what Christ IS, more than anything else, that will
keep you abiding in Him. A soul filled with large thoughts of the
Vine will be a strong branch, and will abide confidently in Him. Be
much occupied with Jesus, and believe much in Him, as the True Vine.
And
then, when faith can well say, "He is my Vine," let it
further say, "I am His branch. I am in Him." I speak to
those who say they are Christ's disciples, and on them I cannot too
earnestly press the importance of exercising their faith in saying,
"I am in Him." It makes the abiding so simple.
If I realize clearly as I meditate: “Now I am in Him, I see at once
that there is nothing lacking but just my consent to be what He has
made me, to remain where He has placed me.” I
am in Christ:
This simple thought, carefully, prayerfully, believingly uttered,
removes all difficulty as if there were some great attainment to be
reached. No, I am in Christ, my blessed Savior. His love hath
prepared a.home for me with Himself, when He says, "Abide in my
love.” His power has undertaken to keep the door, and to keep me
in, if I will only consent. I am in Christ: I have now only to say,
“Savior, I bless You for this wondrous grace. I yield myself to
Your gracious keeping. I do abide in You."
It
is astonishing how such a faith will work out all that is further
implied in abiding in Christ. There is in the Christian life great
need of watchfulness and of prayer, of self-denial and of striving,
of obedience and of diligence. But "all things are possible to
him who believes” (Mark 9:23). "This is the victory that
overcomes...even our faith” (1 John 5:4). It is the faith that
continually closes its eyes to the weakness of the creature, and
finds its joy in the sufficiency of an Almighty Savior that makes the
soul strong and glad. It gives itself up to be led by the Holy Spirit
into an ever deeper appreciation of that wonderful Savior whom God
hath given us,—the
Infinite Immanuel.
It follows the leading of the Spirit from page to page of the blessed
Word, with the one desire to take each revelation of what Jesus is
and what He promises as its nourishment and its life. In heeding the
promise, “...If
what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide
in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2:24).
It lives by “every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”
(Matt. 4:4). And so it makes the soul strong with the strength of
God, to be and to do all that is needed for abiding in Christ.
Believer,
you desire to abide in Christ. Only
believe. Believe always. Believe now. Bow
even now before your Lord, and say to Him in childlike faith, that
because He is your Vine, and you are His branch, you will this day
abide in Him.
Note.
'"I
am the True Vine” (John 15:1). He who offers us the privilege of
an actual union with Himself is the great I Am, the almighty God, who
upholds all things by the word of His power. And this almighty God
reveals Himself as our perfect Savior, even to the unimaginable
extent of seeking to renew our fallen natures by grafting them into
His own Divine nature.
To
realize the glorious Deity of Him whose call sounds forth to longing
hearts with such exceeding sweetness, is no small step towards
gaining the full privilege to which we are invited. But longing is by
itself of no use. Still less can there be any profit in reading of
the blessed results to be gained from a close and personal union with
our Lord, if we believe that union to be practically beyond our
reach. His words are meant to be a living, an eternal, precious
reality. And this they can never become unless we are sure that we
may reasonably expect their accomplishment. But what could make the
accomplishment of such an idea possible? What could make it
reasonable to suppose that we poor, weak, selfish creatures, full of
sin and full of failures, might be saved out of the corruption of our
nature and made partakers of the holiness of our Lord? Only the fact
- the marvelous, unalterable fact - that He who proposes to us so
great a transformation is Himself the everlasting God, as able as He
is willing to fulfill His own word. In meditating, therefore, upon
these utterances of Christ, containing as they do the very essence of
His teaching and the very concentration of His love, let us, at the
beginning, put away all tendency to doubt. Let us not allow ourselves
so much as to question whether such erring disciples as we are can be
enabled to attain the holiness to which we are called through a close
and intimate union with our Lord. If there be any impossibility, any
falling short of the proposed blessedness, it will arise from the
lack of earnest desire on our part. There is no lack in any respect
on His part who puts forth the invitation. With God there can be no
shortcoming in the fulfillment of His promise." (The Life of
Fellowship; Meditations on John 15:1-2 by A. M. James)
It
is perhaps necessary to say, for the sake of young or doubting
Christians, that there is something more necessary than the effort to
exercise faith in each separate promise that is brought under our
notice. What is of even greater importance is the cultivation of a
trustful disposition towards God, the habit of always thinking of
Him, of His ways and His works, with bright, confiding hopefulness.
In such soil alone can the individual promises strike root and grow
up. In a little work published by the Tract Society, Encouragements
to Faith,
by James Kimball, there will be found many most suggestive and
helpful thoughts, all pleading for the right God has to claim that He
shall be trusted. The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life is another
little work that has been a great help to many. Its bright and
buoyant tone, its loving and unceasing repetition of the keynote,—we
may indeed depend on Jesus to do all He has said, and more than we
can think,—has breathed hope and joy into many a heart that was
almost ready to despair of ever getting on. In Frances Havergal's
Kept
for the Master's Use,
there is the same healthful, hope-inspiring tone.
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