Jesus Is

By Andrew Murray

[I encourage you to read this article carefully and prayerfully. Its message is extremely powerful, and gets to the heart of the New Covenant approach to the Christian life. You will be greatly blessed!]

ONE would think that no words could make it plainer than the words of the Covenant state it-that the one difference between Old and New is, that in the latter everything is to be done by God Himself. And yet believers and even teachers do not take it in. And even those who do, find it hard to live it out. Our whole being is so blinded to the true relation to God, His inconceivable Omnipresent Omnipotence working every moment in us is so far beyond the reach of human conception, our little hearts cannot rise to the reality of His Infinite Love making itself one with us, and delighting to dwell in us, and to work all in us that has to be done there—-that, when we think we have accepted the truth, we find it is only a thought. We are such strangers to the knowledge of what a GOD really is, as the actual life by which His creatures live. In Him we live and move and have our being. And specially is the knowledge of the Triune God too high for us, in that wonderful, most real, and most practical indwelling, to make which possible the Son became Incarnate, and the Holy Spirit was sent forth into our hearts. Only they who confess their ignorance, and wait very humbly and persistently on our Blessed God to teach us by His Holy Spirit what that all-working indwelling is, can hope to have it revealed to them. Read the rest of this entry »

By Charles G. Finney

In every period of my ministerial life I have found many professed Christians in a miserable state of bondage either to the world, the flesh, or the Devil. But surely this is no Christian state, for the apostle has distinctly said: “Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law, but under grace.” In all my Christian life I have been pained to find so many Christians living in the legal bondage described in the 7th chapter of Romans–a life of sinning, and resolving to reform and falling again. And what is particularly saddening, and even agonizing, is that many ministers and leading Christians give perfectly false instruction upon the subject of how to overcome sin. The directions that are generally given on this subject, I am sorry to say, amount to about this: “Take your sins in detail, resolve to abstain from them, and fight against them, if need be, with prayer and fasting, until you have overcome them. Set your will firmly against a relapse into sin, pray and struggle, and resolve that you will not fall, and persist in this, until you form the habit of obedience and break up all your sinful habits.” To be sure, it is generally added: “In this conflict you must not depend upon your own strength, but pray for the help of God.” In a word, much of the teaching, both of the pulpit and the press, really amounts to this: Sanctification is by works, and not by faith. I notice that Dr. Chalmers, in his lectures on Romans, expressly maintains that justification is by faith, but sanctification is by works. Some twenty-five years ago, I think, a prominent professor of theology in New England maintained in substance the same doctrine. In my early Christian life I was very nearly misled by one of President Edwards’s resolutions; which was, in substance, that when he had fallen into any sin he would trace it back to its source, and then fight and pray against it with all his might until he subdued it. This, it will be perceived, is directing the attention to the overt act of sin, its source or occasions. Resolving and fighting against it fastens the attention on the sin and its source, and diverts it entirely from Christ.

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From: “The Secret of Victory“, by Dr. J. Charles Stern

John 7:37: “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.” Perhaps the simplest word of Jesus is “Come to Me.” Yet will you please note it implies a very definite action of abandonment. When Peter and the rest of them came, they left their nets. When the blind man came he left his garment. When the sick of the palsy came he left his bed (he arose from his bed).

For us the life of Victory in Reliance upon Christ as our Resource must always mean a quiet but fixed determination to have His will done in our lives at every point and in every detail great or small, always, no matter what the cost. Anything less than this means a turning from Him to some other resource. “He that hath entered into His rest hath ceased from his own works as God did from His” (Hebrews 4:10). Read the rest of this entry »