Abide in Christ
by Andrew Murray
The following excerpts are from
four chapters (4, 12, 17, 21) of Abide in Christ, with bold-emphasis added by me.
4. Abide in Christ: As the branch in
the Vine
"I am the Vine, ye are the
branches." John 15:5
The connection between
the vine and the branch is a living one. No external, temporary union
will suffice; no
work of man can effect it: the branch, whether an original or an engrafted
one, is such only by the Creator's own work, in virtue of which the life,
the sap,
the fatness, and the fruitfulness of the vine communicate themselves to the
branch. And just so it is
with the believer, too.
His union with his Lord
is no work of human wisdom or human will, but
an act of God, by which
the closest
and most complete life-union is effected between the Son of God and the believer.
12.
Abide in Christ: God Himself will establish you in Him
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 feel what a joy it is to know that God alone
has charge,
ask and trust Him by the Holy Spirit ever to remind you of this
your blessed relation to Him. He will do it; and with each new morning
your faith may grow stronger and brighter: I have a God to see that each day
I become
more firmly united to Christ. ...
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, that is of power to
establish you, be glory for ever. Amen. "Yes,
glory to God, who has undertaken to establish us in Christ!
"
17. Abide in Christ: Through the Holy
Spirit
The Holy Spirit is indeed the
mighty power of God. And He
comes to us from the heart of Christ, the bearer
of Christ's
life, the revealer and communicator of Christ Himself within us. In the expression,
the fellowship of the Spirit," we are taught what His highest work is.
He is the bond of fellowship between the Father and the Son: by Him they are
one. He is the bond of fellowship between all believers: by Him they are one. Above all, He is the bond of fellowship between Christ and believers; He is
the life-sap through which Vine and branch grow into real and living oneness:
by Him we are one. And we can be assured of it, that
if we do but believe in
His presence and working, if we do but watch not to grieve Him, because we
know
that He is in us, if we wait and pray to be filled with Him, He will teach
us how to abide. First guiding our will to a whole-hearted cleaving to Christ,
then quickening our faith into ever larger confidence and expectation, then
breathing into our hearts a peace and joy that pass understanding, He teaches
us to abide. .....
If we would have the Spirit guide
us into the abiding life, our first need is quiet restful faith. ... Believe
that as surely as you have part in Christ, you have His Spirit, too. Believe
that He will do His work with power, if only you do not hinder Him.
Believe
that He is working, even when you cannot discern it. Believe that He will work
mightily if you ask this from the Father. It is impossible to live the life
of full abiding without being full of the Holy Spirit. Believe that the
fullness of the Spirit is indeed your daily portion. .....
Oh, if we did but know the graciousness
of our Holy Comforter, and the blessedness of wholly yielding ourselves to His
leading, we should indeed experience the divine comfort of having such a teacher
to secure our biding in Christ.
The Holy Spirit was given for this one purpose
— that the glorious redemption and life in Christ might with divine power
be conveyed and communicated to us. We have the Holy Spirit to make the
living Christ, in all His saving power, and in the completeness of His victory
over sin, ever present within us. It is this that constitutes Him the Comforter:
with Him we need never mourn an absent Christ. Let us therefore, as often as
we read, or meditate, or pray in connection with this abiding in Christ, reckon
upon it as a settled thing that we have the Spirit of God Himself within us,
teaching, and guiding, and working. Let us rejoice in the confidence that we
must succeed in our desires, because the Holy Spirit is working all the while
with secret but divine power in the soul that does not hinder Him by its unbelief. .....
Faith trusts the working of the
Spirit unseen in the deep recesses of the inner life.
21. Abide in Christ: So you will have
power in prayer
"
If ye abide in me, and my
words abide in you, ye shall
ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." John
15:7
Prayer is both one of the
means and one of the
fruits of union to Christ. ...
Prayer is one of the chief
channels of influence by which, through us as fellow-workers with God, the
blessings
of Christ's redemption are to be dispensed to the world. ...
The soul who is truly abiding in Christ realizes increasingly how
it is in
the real spiritual unity with Christ that we are accepted and heard. The union
with
the Son of God is a life union: we are in very deed one with Him — our prayer
ascends as His prayer. It is because we abide in Him that we can ask what we will. ...
Abiding in Christ, and having
His words abiding in us, teach us to pray in accordance with the will of God. With
the abiding in Christ
our self-will is kept down, the thoughts and wishes
of nature are brought into captivity to the thoughts and wishes of Christ; likemindedness
to Christ grows upon us —
all our working and willing become transformed
into harmony with His. ... Everything is yielded to the power of His
life in us, that it may exercise its
sanctifying influence even on ordinary
wishes
and
desires. His holy Spirit breathes through our whole being; and without our
being conscious how,
our desires, as the breathings of the divine life, are
in conformity
with the divine will, and are fulfilled. Abiding in Christ renews and sanctifies
what we will, and it is given us. ...
Abiding in Christ
teaches
the believer in prayer only to seek the glory of God. ... Abiding in Christ,
the soul learns not only
to desire, but spiritually
to discern what will be
for God's glory; and one of the first conditions of acceptable prayer is fulfilled
in it when,
as the fruit of its union with Christ, the whole mind is brought
into harmony with that of the Son as He said: "
Father, glorify thy name."
Abiding in Christ,
we
can fully avail ourselves of the name of Christ. Asking in the name
of another means that that other authorized me and sent me to ask, and wants
to be considered
as asking himself: he wants the favor done to him. ...
The promise, "Whatsoever
ye ask in my name," may not be severed from
the command, "Whatsoever
ye do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." If the name
of Christ is to be wholly at my disposal, so that I may have the full command
of it for
all I will,
it must be because I first put myself wholly at His disposal, so that
He has free and full command of me. It is the
abiding in Christ that
gives
the right and power to use His name with confidence. To Christ the Father
refuses nothing.
Abiding in Christ, I come to the Father as one with
Him. His righteousness
is in me, His Spirit is in me;
the Father sees the Son in me, and gives me
my
petition. It is not — as so many think — by a sort of imputation that
the Father looks upon us as if we were in Christ, though we are not in Him. No; the Father wants to see us living in Him: thus shall our prayer really have
power to prevail. Abiding in Christ not only
renews the will to pray, ...
Abiding in Christ also
works
in us the faith that alone can obtain an answer. ...
Abiding in Christ, further,
keeps us in the place where an answer can be bestowed. ... Abiding
in Christ is the place for receiving answers. Out of Him the answer would
be dangerous
— we would consume it on our own lusts (James 4:3).
Many of the richest
answers — say for spiritual grace, or for power to work and to bless —
can only come
in the shape of a larger experience of what God makes Christ to us. The fullness is IN HIM;
abiding in Him is the condition of power in prayer, because the answer is treasured up and bestowed in Him.
Believer,
abide in Christ, for
there is the school of prayer — mighty, effectual, answer-bringing prayer. Abide
in Him, and you shall learn what to so many is a mystery:
That the secret
of the prayer of faith is the life of faith — the
life that abides in
Christ alone.