"Whenever we think of drawing near to God, of serving Him, and of offering ourselves to Him, the thought is ever present: Can I in my sinfulness, with all my transgressions and shortcomings since my conversion, actually have fellowship with God every day? The answer is: We have been drawn close to God by the blood of Jesus. “Having … boldness by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near.” Have any of you felt afraid to make a complete surrender because you felt too unworthy? Consider this: Your worthiness is not in yourself or in the intensity or uprightness of your consecration; your worthiness is in Christ Jesus. We read in God’s Word, it is “the altar that sanctifies the gift,” and we know that Christ is not only the Priest and “the Lamb that was slain,” but that the living Christ himself is the altar."
Absolute Surrender by Murray, Andrew
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"And God comes to all of us who are asking, “My God, I have made an absolute surrender to you, and you know that although it was done in weakness and trembling, it was done in honesty and uprightness; but, my God, what does it mean? How am I to live that life?”The Father points to the beloved Son and says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him, follow Him, live like Him, let Christ be the law of your life.”Let us yield our hearts to God in prayer that He might search and reveal to us whether the life of Christ has actually been the law of our life. I am not speaking about attainment, but whether we have actually said, “How blessed it would be! This is what I desire and wait upon God for! It almost sounds too high or too presumptuous.”But what did Christ mean when He said, “As I have loved you, even so love one another; as I kept the commandments of my Father, so, if you keep His commandments, you will abide in my love”? What does the Holy Spirit mean when He says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus …who made himself of no reputation …but humbled himself, and became obedient unto death”? The mind of Christ must be my mind, my disposition, and my life."
Absolute Surrender by Murray, Andrew What do I find as I look at Christ? I find absolute surrender to God. That was the very root of His life. He came as a man whom God had sent into the world, and as a man whose only purpose was to fulfill the will of God. He came as a man who had nothing in himself, but who every day depended upon God and waited for God to teach Him, to speak words through Him, and to show Him the works He had to do. “The Son can do nothing of himself.”He lived a life of absolute surrender to God. God’s will, God’s honor, and God’s kingdom—He lived and He died for them. He did not do it only at certain times, casting off responsibility at other times to seek relaxation in something of the world and forgetting to hold communion with God, as many believers today do. The Christian walk is often seen as a burden or a duty, and it is a relief just to relax a little and throw off the strain. But God the Father was Christ’s joy and the fountain of living waters to Him; it was His delight and His strength to live in God and for God. The will of God was His meat and refreshment and strength."
Absolute Surrender by Murray, Andrew "If Christ is to be our life, we must first look at Christ as our example. When I speak of Christ as my life, it must not be a vague generalization. Life always works itself out in conduct and action; if Christ comes into me as my life, He must not be hidden in my heart, but a presence that proves himself in every action and in every moment of my existence. If I want to know how it will be, what my attitudes and words and actions and habits will be if I have Christ’s life, I must study the life of the Lord Jesus on earth. As I study the life and walk of God’s beloved Son, I must remember that one of the reasons God sent Jesus to live on the earth was so that I might have a picture, a revelation, a representation of what God wanted me to be and was willing to make me. That is the light in which we should study the life of Christ in the Gospels—not the only light, but perhaps the most important light."
Absolute Surrender by Murray, Andrew " When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Colossians 3: 4 "
"I know that many who have made an absolute surrender have felt as I have felt: O God, how little we understand it! And they have prayed, “Lord God, you must truly take possession if we are to know what it really means.”It has been stated that we believe that through our faith God does accept our surrender, although the experience and the power of that absolute surrender may not come at once, and that we are to hold fast our faith in God until the experience and power do come. But let me now add what has only been mentioned before: If this absolute surrender is to be maintained and lived out, it must be by having Christ come into our life in new power. That is the thought I wish to address now. It is only in Christ that we can draw near to God, and it is only in Christ that God can draw near to us. Christ is our life. We often plead with God to work mightily in the church and in the world, in the power of the Holy Spirit for the sanctification of His people and for the conversion of sinners. What we need is that what we ask God to do in others would be done also in ourselves. We need to allow Christ to take entire possession of us, and then Christ will be able to work through us above what we ask or think. To illustrate this great truth of “Christ our life,”I want to use four very simple thoughts. If we want to understand those words, let us consider, first, Christ our example; second, Christ our propitiation; third, Christ our Savior from sin; and finally, Christ our strength and our life. Absolute Surrender by Murray, Andrew "So what is my object in having briefly pointed to the story of Peter? It is the story of every servant who will be truly used by God. Peter’s story is a prophecy of what each of us can receive from God. We must not only pray for God’s work and talk about it; not only pray for an outpouring of the Spirit of love and that God would bind us together in the power of love; but we must come to God as individuals. For it is when individual servants are blessed that the work will prosper and the body will be strong and healthy."
Absolute Surrender by Murray, Andrew "(4) Peter’s deliverance from self. As we know, Christ took Peter with the others to the footstool of the throne and told him to wait there; on the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came, and Peter was a changed man. We usually only detect the change in Peter in the boldness and power, the insight into the Scriptures, and the blessing with which he preached on that day. But there was something deeper and better for Peter. Peter’s whole nature was changed. If you want to see it, read the first epistle of Peter. You know Peter’s former tendencies to fail. When he said to Christ, in effect, “You must never suffer; it cannot be”— it showed he had not understood what it was to pass through death into life. Christ said, “Deny yourself,” and in spite of that Peter denied his Lord. When Christ warned him, “You will deny me,” and he insisted that he never would, Peter showed how little he understood himself.
But when I read his epistle and hear him say, “If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name” (4: 16) then I know it is not the old Peter but the very Spirit of Christ breathing and speaking through him. When I read how he says, “Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed,” I understand what a change has come over Peter. Instead of denying Christ, he found joy and pleasure in denying self, even giving it over to death. Therefore , in Acts we read that when he was called before the council , he could boldly say, “We must obey God rather than men”; he could return with the other disciples and rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s name. And so dear readers, I ask you, look at Peter utterly changed— the self-pleasing, self-trusting, self-seeking Peter filled with the Spirit and the life of Jesus. Christ changed him by the Holy Spirit." Absolute Surrender by Murray, Andrew |
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