Saturday, July 28, 2007

Sin Of Prayerlessness by Andrew Murray


What think you? Do you not begin to see that the sin of prayerlessness has had a more terrible effect than you at first supposed? It is because of this hasty and superficial converse with God that the sense of sin is so weak and that no motives have power to help you to hate and flee from sin as you ought.

Nothing, nothing except the hidden, humble, constant fellowship with God can teach you, as a child of God, to hate sin as God wants you to hate it. Nothing, nothing but the constant nearness and unceasing power of the living Christ can make it possible for you rightly to understand what sin is and to detest it. And without this deeper understanding of sin, there will be no thought of appropriating the victory which is made possible for you in Christ Jesus, and will be wrought in you by the Spirit.

O' my God, cause me to know my sin and teaching me to tarry before thee and to wait on thee till thy Spirit causes something of thy holiness to rest upon me! 0 my God, cause me to know my sin, and let this drive me to listen to the promise: 'He that abideth in him sinneth not,' and to expect the fulfillment from Thee!

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Friday, July 13, 2007

The LORD my Deliverer

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."
"Who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us." 2 Cor. 1:10



It was a needful and precious petition the Lord Jesus taught His disciples--and which we require daily to offer--"DELIVER us from evil." We are in constant need of deliverance, exposed, as we are, to continued, varied, and potent evils, visible and invisible, temporal and spiritual, to evade and overcome which we have no native power, and can therefore hope for no self-deliverance.
But who is our true Deliverer? It is He who is our Portion, who taught us thus to pray, and who is Himself our Great Deliverer. Let us take the THREE TENSES employed by the apostle in the words at the head of this meditation, as illustrating the Lord's great deliverance of His people.
And first, there is the Lord's PAST deliverance. "Who deliverED us from so great a death." Jesus stooped from the throne of Deity to the cross of a condemned felon, to deliver us from 'so great a death,' and from the bitter pains and pangs of the 'second death,' the death that is eternal. A sin-offering for our sins, accursed with our curse, condemned by our condemnation, and dying our death, the precious blood streaming from His torn side and bursting heart made a full atonement for our vast and countless offences, effacing every syllable of the indictment that was against us, and blotting out every stain of sin that was upon us--thus having delivered us from so great a death. My soul! avail yourself of this wondrous deliverance, this perfect redemption, this free pardon; and by the application of the atoning blood to your conscience, walk in the happy enjoyment of all the blessings of a charter of salvation and celestial citizenship which Christ's deliverance makes yours.
Second, there is a PRESENT deliverance. "And He DOES deliver." In addition to the canceling of all past offences, Christ's deliverance involves our present emancipation from an unrenewed nature. To pardon our guilt and to leave us the servants of sin and the slaves of Satan would be a species of refined cruelty with which God could never be charged. Our present deliverance, then, is freedom from spiritual death, by which we become living souls, and thus we are now delivered from so great a death, and can join the apostle in "giving thanks unto the Father who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son." Yes! Jesus delivers now.
Are you in any present difficulty or sorrow, need or temptation? Christ can deliver you, and deliver you now. Cry mightily to Him. He has power to deliver, fullness to supply, and a loving, sympathizing heart to comfort. Your perplexity cannot baffle His wisdom, your needs cannot exhaust His resources, your sorrow cannot distance His sympathy. He who has delivered you out of six troubles will not forsake you in the seventh. O my soul! live upon a present Savior, rejoice in a present salvation, and do not forget that God in Christ is a very present help in every time of need.
Third, He who has delivered, who does deliver, will yet deliver us in all the FUTURE of our history. Faith acquires strength for the present by a remembrance of the past deliverances of God; and from the experience of the present, it looks forward with confidence to the future--"In whom we trust that He will yet deliver us." Then, O my soul, be not over-anxious about your future. God is faithful, Jesus is unchangeable, and all that the Lord your Portion has been He is now, and He will be in all future trouble, sickness, and death--an all-sufficient, all-loving, all-faithful deliverer, never leaving nor forsaking you, until He has "delivered you out of the miseries of this sinful world, having your perfect consummation and bliss in body and soul in His eternal and everlasting kingdom." "Call upon Me in the day of trouble--I will DELIVER you, and you shall glorify Me."

By Octavius Winslow, 1870

Saturday, July 07, 2007

GOD'S UNCHANGING LOVE

"The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord who has mercy on you."--Isaiah 54:10

There is nothing true but heaven--none unchangeable but God. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed"--the lofty and the beautiful, the strong and the attractive of created good shall decay and vanish--the earthquake of time's revolution and of human instability shaking them to the center; but God's covenant of love, and God's love of the covenant, abides forever--for God has spoken it, and it is impossible for Him to lie. Sit down, my soul, and meditate awhile upon this heart-cheering, soul-satisfying truth--the unchangeable love of your covenant God and Father. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord who has mercy on you."

"My kindness." Oh what touching and impressive words are these! Human kindness is sweet and grateful--the kindness and love of the creature; what, then, must be divine kindness--the kindness and love of God? Oh how kind is Jesus! There is kindness in all He does and in all He says--kindness in His promises, kindness in His rebukes, kindness in what He gives, kindness in what He withholds, and kindness in what He recalls; kindness in every stroke of His rod, and kindness in every smile of His love. O! my Savior, how great Your kindness in bearing my sins, in calling me by Your effectual grace, in keeping me from falling by Your power, and in giving me a name and a place among Your saints.

"Shall not depart from you."
My soul, consider the love of God for you, as everlasting love. It never did, it never will, depart. Notwithstanding your fall in Adam--your depraved nature--your constant sins and departures, the love of God continues. He may veil for a little moment the light of His countenance, may chastise and afflict you for your revoltings and backslidings; still, having loved you once, He loves you to the end. Whatever else departs, His love never will. Wealth may leave you, health may fail you, friends may forsake you, and life itself expire; but God's paternal love, and Christ's fraternal sympathy, will never, never change.

"Neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed." The covenant of peace made with Christ, on your behalf, O my soul, sealed with His blood, even the "blood of the everlasting covenant," which procured peace, speaks peace, and bequeaths peace, even "the peace of God which passes all understanding," shall never be removed. The mountains of human strength, lofty and sun-gilded--the hills of creature good, clad with verdure, and smiling with fruit--shall be removed--the strongest, the loveliest, and the dearest the first to die--but, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Amid the vicissitudes and changes of the present--the dying friends and revolving landscapes of life--cling, O my soul, to Him whose covenant never alters, whose kindness never changes; who, having loved you before all time, and loved you in all time, will love you to the end of all time--yes, when time shall be no longer. The Lord that has mercy upon you has said it.

Unconverted soul! the day will come when, if found out of Christ, you will cry to the mountains and to the rocks to cover you--but will cry in vain! Before His face of glory the heavens and the earth will flee away, and your soul will stand without a shelter or a hiding place. Escape for your life! There is one mountain, and one only, where you can find shelter from the wrath that is to come--it is Mount Calvary. Hidden there, the "Avenger of Blood" cannot reach you. No refuge but the cross--no fountain but the blood--no righteousness but Christ's--no Savior but Jesus--will meet your case. "Him that comes unto Me I will in no way cast out.''

"Just as I am! without one plea,
But that the Savior died for me,
And that You bid me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come!"


by Octavius Winslow, 1872