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Watchman Nee: articles |
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You know in daily life what absolute surrender is. You know that
everything has to be given up to its special, definite object and
service. I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely
surrendered to the one work of writing, and that pen must be absolutely
surrendered to my hand if I am to write properly with it. If another
holds it partly, I cannot write properly. This coat is absolutely given
up to me to, cover my body. This building is entirely given up to
religious services. And now, do you expect that in your immortal being,
in the divine nature that you have received by regeneration, God can
work His work, every day and every hour, unless you are entirely given
up to Him? God cannot. The Temple of Solomon was absolutely surrendered
to God when it was dedicated to Him. And every one of us is a temple of
God, in which God will dwell and work mightily on one condition —
absolute surrender to Him. God claims it, God is worthy of it, and
without it God cannot work His blessed work in us..
God not only claims it, but God will work it Himself.
How is the church to be lifted up to the abundant life in Christ, which will fit her for the work that God is putting before Her? Nothing will help but a revival, nothing less than a tremendous spiritual revival. Great tides of spiritual energy must be put into motion if this work is to be accomplished. Now there may be great differences in what we understand by revival. Many will think of the work of evangelists like Moody and Torrey. We need a different and mightier revival than those were. In them the chief object was the conversion of sinners, and incidentally, the quickening of believers. But the revival that we need calls for a deeper and more entire upheaval of the Church. The great defect of those revivals was that the converts were received into a Church that was not living on the high level of consecration and holiness, and speedily sank down to the average standard of ordinary religious life. Even the believers who had been roused by it, also gradually returned to their former life of clouded fellowship and lack of power to testify for Christ.
Verily, verily, I say unto You, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also and greater works shall he do; because I go unto the Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in My name, that will I do.’—John 14:12-14.
In the words (ver. 10) ‘The Father abiding in Me doeth the works,’ Christ had revealed the secret of His and of all Divine service—man yielding himself for God to dwell and to work in him. When Christ now promises, ‘He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also,’ the law of the Divine inworking remains unchanged. In us, as much as in Him, one might even say a thousand times more than with Him, it must still ever be: The Father in me doeth the works. With Christ and with us, it is ‘the same God who worketh all in all.’
How this is to be, is taught us in the words, ‘He that believeth on Me.’ That does not only mean, for salvation, as a Saviour from sin. But much more. Christ had just said (vers. 10, 11), ‘Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: the Father abiding in Me doeth the works.’ We need to believe in Christ as Him in and through whom the Father unceasingly works. To believe in Christ is to receive Him into the heart. When we see the Father’s working inseparably connected with Christ, we know that to believe in Christ, and receive Him into the heart, is to receive the Father dwelling in Him and working through Him. The works His disciples are to do cannot possibly be done in any other way than His own are done.
by David Smithers
Soon after coming to Christ, I was given two small paperbacks written by Andrew Murray, "The Prayer Life" and "Waiting on God". It seemed with each new chapter came fresh insights and new experiences in prayer. As a young believer, these writings greatly helped me to define and establish my personal prayer life. The principles conveyed in those little dog-eared books still continue to have a significant influence upon my prayer life and ministry. Almost twenty years later, I am only now beginning to feel that I truly understand the depth of what Andrew Murray was writing about! Most works on prayer direct you to a process of prayer, but Mr. Murray’s writings direct you to the person of prayer - JESUS CHRIST.
Info@encouragementonline.net
One
of four children born to Andrew, Sr. and Maria Murray, Andrew Murray
(1828-1917) was raised in what was considered then the most remote
corner of the world - Graaff-Reinet (near the Cape), South Africa. It
was here, after his formal education in Scotland and three years of
theological study in college in Holland, that Andrew Murray returned as
a missionary and minister. 