 9th day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Like Christ, not of the world. These are in the world. The world hath hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. John chapter 17, verses 11, 14 and 16. Even as he is, so are we in this world. First John chapter 4, verse 17. If Jesus was not of the world, why was he in the world? If there was no sympathy between him and the world, why was it that he lived in it and did not remain in that high and holy and blessed world to which he belonged? The answer is, the Father had sent him into the world. In these two expressions, in the world, not of the world, we find the whole secret of his work as saviour, of his glory as the God-man. In the world. In human nature, as God would show that this nature belonged to him and not to the God of this world, that it was most fit to receive the divine life and in this divine life to reach its highest glory. In the world. In fellowship with men, to enter into loving relationship with them, to be seen and known of them, and thus to win them back to the Father. In the world. In the struggle with the powers which rule the world, to learn obedience and so to perfect and sanctify human nature. Not of the world, but of heaven, to manifest and bring nigh the life that is in God and which man had lost that men might see and long for it. Not of the world, witnessing against its sin and departure from God, its impotence to know and please God. Not of the world, founding a kingdom entirely heavenly in origin and nature, entirely independent of all that the world holds desirable or necessary, with principles and laws, the very opposite of those that rule in the world. Not of the world, in order to redeem all who belong to him and bring them into that new and heavenly kingdom which he had revealed. In the world. Not of the world. In these two expressions we have revealed to us the great mystery of the person and work of the Saviour. Not of the world, in the power of his divine holiness judging and overcoming it, still in the world and through his humanity and love, seeking and saving all that can be saved. The most entire separation from the world, with the closest fellowship with those in the world, these two extremes meet in Jesus, in his own person he has reconciled them. And it is the calling of the Christian in his life to prove that these two dispositions, however much they may seem at variance, can in our life too be united in perfect harmony. In each believer there must be seen a heavenly life shining out through earthly forms. To take one of these truths and exclusively cultivate it is not so difficult, so you have those who have taken not of the world as their motto. From the earliest ages when people thought they must fly to cloisters and deserts to serve God, to our own days when some seek to show the earnestness of their piety by severity in judging all that is in the world, there have been those who counted this the only true religion. There was separation from sin, but then there was also no fellowship with sinners. The sinner could not feel that he was surrounded with the atmosphere of a tender heavenly love. It was a one-sided and therefore a defective religion. Then there are those who on the other side lay stress on in the world, and very specially appeal to the words of the apostle, for then ye must needs go out of the world. They think that by showing that religion does not make us unfriendly or unfit to enjoy all that there is to enjoy, they will induce the world to serve God. It has often happened that they have indeed succeeded in making the world very religious, but at too high a price. Religion became very worldly. The true follower of Jesus must combine both. If he does not clearly show that he is not of the world and proved the greater blessedness of a heavenly life, how will he convince the world of sin or prove to her that there is a higher life or teach her to desire what she does not yet possess? earnestness, holiness, and separation from the spirit of the world must characterize him. His heavenly spirit must manifest that he belongs to a kingdom not of this world. An unworldly and otherworldly, a heavenly spirit must breathe in him. And still he must live as one who is in the world, expressly placed here of God amongst those who are of the world, to win their hearts, to acquire influence over them, and to communicate to them of the spirit which is in him, it must be the great study of his life how he can fulfill this, his mission. Not as the wisdom of the world would teach by yielding and complying and softening down the solemn realities of religion will he succeed. No, but only by walking in the footsteps of him who alone can teach how to be in the world and yet not of it. Only by a life of serving and suffering love in which the Christian distinctly confesses that the glory of God is the aim of his existence, and in which full of the Holy Spirit he brings men into direct contact with the warmth and love of the heavenly life, can he be a blessing to the world. Oh, who will teach us the heavenly secret of uniting every day in our lives what is so difficult to unite, to be in the world and not of the world. He can do it, who has said, they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. That even as has a deeper meaning and power than we know. If we suffer the Holy Spirit to unfold that word to us, we shall understand what it is to be in the world as he was in the world. That even as has its root and strength in a life union. In it we shall discover the divine secret that the more entirely one is not of the world, the more fit he is to be in the world, the freer the church is of the spirit and principles of the world, the more influence she will exert in it. The life of the world is self-pleasing and self-exaltation. The life of heaven is wholly self-denying love. The weakness of the life of many Christians who seek to separate themselves from the world is that they have too much of the spirit of the world. They seek their own happiness and perfection more than ought else. Jesus Christ was not of the world and had nothing of its spirit. This is why he could love sinners, could win them and save them. The believer is as little of the world as Christ. The Lord says, not of the world, even as I am not of the world. In his new nature he is born from heaven, has the life and love of heaven in him. His supernatural heavenly life gives him power to be in the world without being of it. The disciple who believes fully in the Christ-likeness of his inner life will experience the truth of it. He cultivates and gives utterance to the assurance, even as Christ, so am I not of the world, because I am in Christ. He understands that alone in close union with Christ can his separation from the world be maintained. In as far as Christ lives in him can he lead a heavenly life. He sees that the only way to answer to his calling is on the one side as crucified to the world to withdraw himself from its power, and on the other as living in Christ to go into it and bless it. He lives in heaven and walks on earth. See here the true imitation of Jesus Christ, wherefore come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord. Then the promise is fulfilled, I will dwell in them and walk in them. Then Christ sins you as the Father sent him to be in the world as the place ordained of your Father to glorify him and to make known his love. Not so much in the desire to leave earth for heaven as in the willingness to live the life of heaven here on earth does a truly unworldly heavenly spirit manifest itself. Not of the world is not only separation from and testimony against the world, but is the living manifestation of the spirit and the love and the power of the other world, of the heaven to which we belong in its divine work of making this world partaker of its blessedness. O thou great High Priest, who in thy high priestly power didst pray for us to the Father, as those who know more than thyself belong to the world and still must remain in it, let thy all-prevailing intercession now be effectual in our behalf. The world has still entrance to our hearts, its selfish spirit is still too much within us. Through unbelief the new nature has not always full power. Lord, we beseech of thee, as fruit of thy all-powerful intercession, let that word be fully realized in us, not of the world, even as I am not of the world. In our likeness to thee is our only power against the world. Lord, we can only be like thee when we are one with thee. We can only walk like thee when we abide in thee. Blessed Lord, we surrender ourselves to abide in thee alone. A life entirely given to thee thou dost take entire possession of. Let thy holy spirit, who dwells in us, unite us so closely with thyself that we may always live as not of the world. And let thy spirit so make known to us thy work in the world that it may be our joy in deep humility and fervent love to exhibit to all what a blessed life there is in the world for those who are not of the world. May the proof that we are not of the world be the tenderness and fervency with which, like thee, we sacrifice ourselves for those who are in the world. Amen. End of night day. Tenth day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Like Christ in his heavenly mission. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. John 17 verse 18. As my father hath sent me, even so send I you. John 20 verse 21. The Lord Jesus lived here on earth under a deep consciousness of having a mission from his father to fulfil. He continually used the expression, the father hath sent me. He knew what this mission was. He knew the father had chosen him and sent him into the world with the one purpose of fulfilling that mission. And he knew the father would give him all that he needed for it. Faith in the father having sent him was the motive and power for all that he did. In earthly things it is a great help if an ambassador knows clearly what his mission is, that he has nothing to do but to care for its accomplishment and that he has given himself undividedly to do this one thing. For the Christian it is of no less consequence that he should know that he has a mission, what its nature is and how he is to accomplish it. Our heavenly mission is one of the most glorious parts of our conformity to our Lord. He said it plainly in the most solemn moments of his life that even as the father sent him, so he sends his disciples. He says it to the father in his high priestly prayer as the ground upon which he asks for their keeping and sanctification. He says it to the disciples after his resurrection as the ground on which they are to receive the Holy Spirit. Nothing will help us more to know and fulfill our mission than to realize how perfectly it corresponds to the mission of Christ, how they are in fact identical. Our mission is like his in its object. Why did the father send his son? To make known his love and his will in the salvation of sinners. He was to do this not alone by word and precept but in his own person, disposition and conduct to exhibit the father's holy love. He was so to represent the unseen father in heaven that men on earth might know what the father was like. After the Lord had fulfilled his mission he ascended into heaven and became to the world like the father the unseen one. And now he has made over his mission to his disciples after having shown them how to fulfill it. They must so represent him the invisible one that from seeing them men can judge what he is. Every Christian must so be the image of Jesus, must so exhibit in his person and conduct the same love to sinners and desire for their salvation as animated Christ that from them the world may know what Christ is like. Oh, my soul, take time to realize these heavenly thoughts. Our mission is like Christ in its object, the showing forth of the holy love of heaven in earthly form. Like Christ's in its origin too. It was the father's love that chose Christ for this work and counted him worthy of such honor and trust. We also are chosen by Christ for this work. Every redeemed one knows that it was not he who sought the Lord but the Lord who sought and chose him. In that seeking and drawing the Lord had expressly this heavenly mission in view. Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit. Believer, whoever thou art and wherever thou dwellest, the Lord who knows thee and thy surroundings has need of thee and has chosen thee to be his representative in the circle in which thou movest. Fix thy heart on this. He hath fixed his heart on thee and saved thee in order that thou shouldest bear and exhibit to those who surround thee the very image of his unseen glory. Oh, think of this origin of thy heavenly mission in his everlasting love as his had its origin in the love of the Father. Thy mission is in very truth just like his. Like it too in the fitting for it. Every ambassador expects to be supplied with all that he needs for his embassy. He who hath sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone. That word tells us how when the Father sent the Son he was always with him, his strength and comfort. Even so the Church of Christ in her mission, go ye and teach all nations, has the promise lo, I am with you all way. The Christian never need hold back because of unfitness. The Lord does not demand anything which he does not give the power to perform. Every believer may depend on it that as the Father gave his Holy Spirit to the Son to fit him for his work, so the Lord Jesus will give his people too all the preparation they need. The grace to show forth Christ ever more, to exhibit the lovely light of his example and likeness, and like Christ himself, to be a fountain of love and life and blessing to all around, is given to everyone who only heartily and believingly takes up his heavenly calling. In this too that the sender cares for all that is needful for the sent ones is our mission like his. And like also in the consecration which it demands, the Lord Jesus gave himself over entirely and undividedly to accomplish his work, he lived for it alone. I must work the work of him that sent me while it is day, the night cometh when no man can work. The Father's mission was the only reason of his being on earth, for that alone he would live, to reveal to mankind what a glorious blessed God the Father in heaven was. As with Jesus so with us, Christ's mission is the only reason for our being on earth, were it not for that he would take us away. Most believers do not believe this. To fulfil Christ's mission is with them at best something to be done along with other things, for which it is difficult to find time and strength. And yet it is so certainly true to accomplish Christ's mission is the only reason of my being upon earth. Then first when I believe this, and like my Lord in his mission consecrate myself undividedly to it, shall I indeed live well pleasing to him. This heavenly mission is so great and glorious that without an entire consecration to it we cannot accomplish it. Without this the powers which fit us for it cannot take possession of us. Without this we have no liberty to expect the Lord's wonderful help and the fulfilment of all his blessed promises. Just as with Jesus our heavenly mission demands nothing less than entire consecration. Am I prepared for this? Then I have indeed the key through which the holy hidden glories of this word of Jesus will be revealed to my experience, as the Father sent me, even so send I you. O brothers, this heavenly mission is indeed worthy that we devote ourselves entirely to it as the only thing we live for. O Lord Jesus, Thou didst descend from heaven to earth to show us what the life of heaven is. Thou couldst do this because Thou weret of heaven. Thou didst bring with thee the image and spirit of the heavenly life to earth. Therefore didst thou so gloriously exhibit what constitutes the very glory of heaven, the will and love of the unseen Father. Lord, Thou art now the invisible one in heaven and sendest us to represent thee in thy heavenly glory as saviour. Thou dost ask that we should so love men that from us they may form some idea of how Thou lovest them in heaven. Blessed Lord, our heart cries out, how canst thou send us with such a calling? How canst thou expect it of us who have so little love? How can we who are of the earth earthy show what the life of heaven is? Precious saviour, our souls do bless thee that we know that Thou dost not demand more than Thou givest. Thou who art thyself the life of heaven, Thou livest thyself in thy disciples. Blessed be thy holy name, they have from thee thy holy spirit from heaven as their life breath. He is the heavenly life of the soul. Whoever surrenders himself to the leading of the spirit can fulfil his mission. In the joy and power of the holy spirit we can be thy image-bearers, can show to men in some measure what thy likeness is. Lord, teach me and all thy people to understand that we are not of the world as Thou were not of the world, and therefore are sent of thee, even as Thou were sent of the Father, to prove in our life that we are of that world full of love and purity and blessing of which Thou were. Amen. End of Tenth Day. Eleventh Day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Like Christ as the elect of God. It is predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Romans 8 verse 29. Scripture teaches us a personal election. It does this not only in single passages. Its whole history of the working out here in time of the Councils of Eternity proves it. We see continually how the whole future of God's Kingdom depends upon the faithful filling of his place by some single person. The only security for the carrying out of God's purpose is his foreordaining of the individual. In predestination alone the history of the world and of God's Kingdom, as of the individual believer, has its sure foundation. There are Christians who cannot see this. They are so afraid of interfering with human responsibility that they reject the doctrine of divine predestination because it appears to rob man of his liberty of will and action. Scripture does not share this fear. It speaks in one place of man's free will as though there were no election, in another of election as though there were no free will. Thus it teaches us that we must hold fast both these truths alongside each other even when we cannot understand them or make them perfectly to harmonise. In the light of eternity the solution of the mystery will be given. He who grasps both in faith will speedily experience how little they are in conflict. He will see that the stronger his faith is in God's everlasting purpose, the more his courage for work will be strengthened, while on the other side the more he works and is blessed the clearer it will become that all is of God. For this reason it is of so much consequence for a believer to make his election sure. The Scriptures give the assurance that if we do this we shall never stumble, revised version. The more I believe not only in general that I am elected of God, but see how this election has referenced to every part of my calling, the more shall I be strengthened in the conviction that God himself will perfect his work in me, and that therefore it is possible for me to be all that God really expects. With every duty Scripture lays upon me, with every promise for whose fulfilment I long, I will go to find in God's purposes the firm footing upon which my expectations may rest and the true measure by which they are to be guided. I shall understand that my life on earth is to be a copy of the heavenly life plan that the Father has drawn out of what I am to be on earth. Christian, make your calling and election sure. Let it become clear to you that you are elected and to what. If ye do these things ye shall never stumble. Quiet communion with God on the ground of his unchangeable purpose, in parts to the soul an immovable firmness that keeps from stumbling. One of the most blessed expressions in regards to God's purpose concerning us in Christ is this word, predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son. The man Christ Jesus is the elect of God. In him election has its beginning and ending. In him we are chosen, for the sake of our union with him and to his glory our election took place. The believer who seeks in election merely the certainty of his own salvation or relief from fear and doubt knows very little of its real glory. The purposes of election embrace all the riches that are prepared for us in Christ and reach to every moment and every need of our lives. Chosen in him that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. It is only when the connection between election and sanctification is rightly apprehended in the church that the doctrine of election will bring its full blessing. Second Thessalonians 2 verse 13, 1 Peter 1 verse 2. It teaches the believer how it is God who must work all in him, who will work all in him, and how he may rely even in the smallest matters upon the unchangeable purpose of God to work out itself in the accomplishment of everything that he expects of his people. In this light the word predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son gives new strength to everyone who has begun to take what Christ is as the rule of what he himself is to be. Christian, would you in very deed be like Christ? Fix your mind upon the thought of how certainly this is God's will concerning you, how the whole of redemption has been planned with the view of your becoming so, how God's purpose is the guarantee that your desires must be fulfilled. There where your name is written in the book of life, there stands also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son. All the powers of the deity which have already wrought together in the accomplishment of the first part of the eternal purpose, the revealing of the Father's perfect likeness in the man Christ Jesus are equally engaged to accomplish the second part and work that likeness in each of God's children. In the work of Christ there is the most perfect provision possible for the carrying out of God's purposes in this. Our union to Christ held fast in the living faith will be an all prevailing power. We can depend upon it as something ordained with a divine certainty and that must come if we yield ourselves to it. Has not God elected us to be conformed to the image of his son? It can easily be understood what a powerful influence the living consciousness of this truth will have. It teaches us to give up ourselves to the eternal will that it may with divine power effect its purpose in us. It shows us how useless and impotent our own efforts are to accomplish this work. All that is of God must also be through him. He who is the beginning must be the middle and the end. In a very wonderful manner it strengthens our faith with a holy boldness to glory in God alone and to expect from God himself the fulfilment of every promise and every command of every part of the purpose of his blessed will. And where does this likeness to Christ consist? In sonship. It is to the image of his son we are to be conformed. All the different traits of a Christ-like life resolve themselves into this one as their spring and end. We are predestinated unto the adoption of children by Christ Jesus. It was as the son Christ lived and served and pleased the Father. It is only as a son with the spirit of his own son in my heart that I can live and serve and please the Father. I must each day walk in the full and clear consciousness. Like Christ I am a son of the Most High God born from above the beloved of the Father. As a son the Father is engaged to provide my every need. As a son I live in dependence and trust, in love and obedience, in joy and hope. It is when I live with the Father as a son that it becomes possible to make any sacrifice and to obey every command. Believer take time and prayer to take in this truth and let it exercise its full power in your soul. Let the Holy Spirit write it into your inmost being that you are predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son. The Father's object was the honour of his son that he might be the first born among many brethren. Let this be your object to in all your life so to show forth the image of your elder brother that other Christians may be pointed to him alone, may praise him alone and seek to follow him more closely too. Let it be the fixed and only purpose of your life, the great object of your believing prayer that Christ be magnified in my body. This will give you new confidence to ask and expect all that is necessary to live like Christ. Your conformity to Christ will be one of the links connecting the eternal purpose of the Father with the eternal fulfilment of it in the glorifying of the Son. Your conformity to Christ becomes then such a holy, heavenly, divine work that you realise that it can come only from the Father, but that from him you can and shall most certainly receive it. What God's purpose has decreed, God's power will perform. What God's love has ordained and commanded, God's love will most certainly accomplish. A living faith in his eternal purpose will become one of the mightiest powers in urging and helping us to live like Christ. Oh, thou incomprehensible being, I bow before thee in deepest humility. It has been such a strength to know that thy Son has chosen me in order to send me into the world as thou had sent him. But here thou hast led me still higher and shown that this mission to be as he was in the world was from eternity decreed by thyself. Oh, my God, my soul bows prostrate in the dust before thee. Lord God, now that thy child comes to thee for the fulfilment of thy own purpose, he dares confidently look for an answer. Thy will is stronger than every hindrance. The faith that trusts thee will not be put to shame. Lord, in holy reverence and worship, but with childlike confidence and hope, I utter this prayer. Father, give me the desire of my soul, conformity to the image of thy Son. Father, likeness to Jesus, this is what my soul desires of thee. Let me, like him, be thy holy child. Oh, my Father, write it in thy book of remembrance and write it in my remembrance, too, that I have asked it of thee as what I desire above all things, conformity to the image of thy Son. Father, to this thou has chosen be. Thou wilt give it me to thine own and his glory. Amen. End of eleventh day. Twelfth day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray. Dislib revoked recording is in the public domain. Like Christ in doing God's will. For I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me, John 638 and 530. In the will of God we have the highest expression of his divine perfection, and at the same time the highest energy of his divine power. Creation owes its being and its beauty to it. It is the manifestation of God's will. In all nature the will of God is done. In heaven the angels find their highest blessedness in doing God's will. For this man was created with a free will in order that he might have the power to choose and, of his own accord, do God's will. And lo, deceived by the devil, man committed the great sin of rather doing his own than God's will. Yes, rather his own than God's will. In this is the root and the wretchedness of sin. Jesus Christ became man to bring us back to the blessedness of doing God's will. The great object of redemption was to make us and our will free from the power of sin and to lead us again to live and do the will of God. In his life on earth he showed us what it is to live only for the will of God. In his death and resurrection he won for us the power to live and do the will of God as he had done. Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. These words uttered through the Holy Spirit by the mouth of one of his prophets long ages before Christ's birth are the key to his life on earth. At Nazareth in the carpenter's shop, at the Jordan with John the Baptist, in the wilderness with Satan, in public with the multitude, in living and dying it was this that inspired and guided and gladdened him. The glorious will of the Father was to be accomplished in him and by him. Let us not think that this cost him nothing. He says repeatedly, Not my will, but the will of the Father, to let us understand that there was in very deed a denial of his own will. In Gethsemane the sacrifice of his own will reached its height, but what took place there was only the perfect expression of what had rendered his whole life acceptable to the Father. Not herein is sin that man has a creature will different from the creators, but in this that he clings to his own will when it is seen to be contrary to the will of the Creator. As man Jesus had a human will, the natural though not sinful desires which belong to human nature. As man he did not always know beforehand what the will of God was. He had to wait and be taught of God and learn from time to time what that will was. But when the will of his Father was once known to him, then he was always ready to give up his own human will and do the will of the Father. It was this that constituted the perfection and the value of his self-sacrifice. He had once for all surrendered himself as a man to live only in and for the will of God and was always ready even to the sacrifice of Gethsemane and Calvary to do that will alone. It is this life of obedience wrought out by the Lord Jesus in the flesh that is not only imputed to us but imparted through the Holy Spirit. Through his death our Lord Jesus has atoned for our self-will and disobedience. It was by conquering it in his own perfect obedience that he atoned for it. He has thus not only blotted out the guilt of our self-will before God but broken its power in us. In his resurrection he brought from the dead a life that had conquered and destroyed all self-will. And the believer who knows the power of Jesus' death and resurrection has the power to consecrate himself entirely to God's will. He knows that the call to follow Christ means nothing less than to take and speak the words of the Master as his own solemn vow, I seek not my own will but the will of the Father. To attain this we must begin by taking the same stand that our Lord did. Take God's will as one great whole as the only thing for which you live on earth. Look at the sun and moon, the grass and flowers, what glory each of them has only because it is just doing God's will. But they do it without knowing it. Thou canst do it still more gloriously because knowing and willing to do it. Let thine heart be filled with the thoughts of the glory of God's will concerning his children and concerning thee and say that it is thy one purpose that that will should be done in thee. Yield thyself to the Father frequently and distinctly with the declaration that with thee as with Jesus it is a settled thing that his beautiful and blessed will must and shall be done. Say it frequently in thy quiet meditations with a joyful and trusting heart. Praise God, I may live only to do the will of God. Let no fear keep us back from this. Think not that this will be too hard for us to do. God's will only seems hard as long as we look at it from a distance and are unwilling to submit to it. Just look again how beautiful the will of God makes everything in nature. Ask yourself now that he loves and blesses you as a child if it is right to distrust him. The will of God is the will of his love. How can you fear to surrender yourself to it? Nor let the fear that you will not be able to obey that will keep you back. The Son of God came on earth to show what the life of man must and may become. His resurrection life gives us power to live as he lived. Jesus Christ enables us through his spirit to walk not after the flesh but according to the will of God. I come to do thy will, O God. Before ever the Lord Jesus was come down to earth a believer in the Old Testament was able through the spirit to speak that word of himself as well as for Christ. Christ took it up and filled it with new life power. And now he expects of his redeemed ones that since he has been on earth they will even more heartily and entirely make it their choice. Let us do so. We must not first try and see whether in single instances we succeed in doing God's will in the hope of afterwards attaining to the entire consecration that can say I come to do thy will. No, this is not the right way. Let us first recognize God's will as a whole and the claims it has upon us as well as its blessedness and glory. Let us surrender ourselves to it as to God himself and consider it as one of the first articles of our creed. I am in the world like Christ only to do the Father's will. This surrender will teach us with joy to accept every command and every providence as part of the will we have already yielded ourselves to. This surrender will give us courage to wait for God's sure guidance and strength because the man who lives only for God's will may depend on it that God takes him for his reckoning. This surrender will lead us deeper into the consciousness of our utter impotence but also deeper into the fellowship and the likeness of the beloved Son and make us partakers of all the blessedness and love that the Son has prepared for us. There is nothing that will bring us closer to God in union to Christ than loving and keeping and doing the will of God. Child of God, one of the first marks of conformity to Christ is obedience, simple and implicit obedience to all the will of God. Let it be the most marked thing in thy life. Begin by a willing and wholehearted keeping of every one of the commands of God's Holy Word. Go on to a very tender yielding to everything that conscience tells thee to be right, even when the Word does not directly command it. So shall thou rise higher. A hearty obedience to the commandments as far as thou knowest them and a ready obedience to conscience wherever it speaks are the preparation for that divine teaching of the Spirit which will lead thee deeper into the meaning and application of the Word and into a more direct and spiritual insight into God's will with regard to thyself personally. It is to those who obey him God gives the Holy Spirit through whom the blessed will of God becomes the light that shines ever more brightly on our path. If any man will do his will he shall know. Blessed will of God, blessed obedience to God's will. Oh, that we knew to count and keep these as our most precious treasures. And if it ever appear too hard to live only for God's will let us remember wherein Christ found his strength. It was because it was the Father's will that the Son rejoiced to do it. This commandment have I received of my Father. This made even the laying down of his life possible. Our union to Jesus and our calling to live like him ever point us to his sonship as the secret of his life and strength. Let it be our chief desire to say each day I am the Father's beloved child and to think of each commandment as the Father's will. A Christ like sense of sonship will lead to a Christ like obedience. Oh, my God, I thank thee for this wondrous gift. Thy Son become man to teach us how man may do the will of his God. I thank thee for the glorious calling to be like him in this too, with him to taste the blessedness of a life in perfect harmony with thy glorious and perfect will. I thank thee for the power given in Christ to do and bear all that will. I thank thee that in this too I may be like the first begotten Son. I come now, O my Father, afresh, to take up this my calling in childlike joyous trust and love. Lord, I would live holy and only to do thy will. I would abide in the word and wait upon the Spirit. I would, like thy Son, live in fellowship with thee in prayer, in the firm confidence that thou wilt day by day make me to know thy will more clearly. Oh, my Father, let this my desire be acceptable in thy sight. Keep it in the thoughts of my heart for ever. Give me grace with true joy continually to say, not my will, but the will of my Father must be done. I am here on the earth only to do the will of my God. Amen. On three different occasions Matthew tells us that our Lord was moved with compassion on the multitude. His whole life was a manifestation of the compassion with which he had looked on the sinner from everlasting and of the tenderness with which he was moved at the sight of misery and sorrow. He was in this the true reflection of our compassionate God, of the Father who moved with compassion towards his prodigal son, fell on his neck and kissed him. In this compassion of the Lord Jesus, we can see how he did not look upon the will of God he came to do as a duty or an obligation, but had that divine will dwelling within him as his own, inspired by the will of God, he came to do again, inspiring and ruling all his sentiments and motives. After he had said, I came from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me, he at once added, and this is the will of the Father, that of all he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one believeth on the Son, may have everlasting life. For the Lord Jesus, the will of God, consisted not in certain things which were forbidden or commanded. No, he had entered into that which truly forms the very heart of God's will, and that is to lost sinners he should give eternal life. Because God himself is love, his will is that love should have full scope in the salvation of sinners. The Lord Jesus came down to us in order to manifest and accomplish this will of God. He did not do this as a servant obeying the will of a stranger. In his personal life and all his dispositions, he proved that the loving will of his Father to save sinners was his own. Not only his death on Golgotha, but just as much the compassion in which he took and bore the need of all the wretched and the tenderness of his intercourse with them, was the proof that the Father's will had truly become his own. In every way he showed that life was of no value to him but as the opportunity of doing the will of his Father. Beloved followers of Christ, who have offered yourselves to imitate him, let the will of the Father be to you what it was to your Lord. The will of the Father in the mission of his Son was the manifestation and the triumph of divine compassion in the salvation of lost sinners. Jesus could not possibly accomplish this will in any other way than by having and sharing this compassion. God's will is for us what it was for Jesus, the salvation of the perishing. It is impossible for us to fulfill that will otherwise than by having and bearing about and showing in our lives the compassion of our God. The seeking of God's will must not be only denying ourselves certain things which God forbids and doing certain works which God commands but must consist especially in this that we surrender ourselves to have the same mind and disposition towards sinners as God has and that we find our pleasure and joy alone in living for this. By the most personal devotion to each poor perishing sinner around us and by our helping them in compassionate love we can show that the will of God is become our will. With the compassionate God as our Father, with Christ who was so often moved with compassion as our life, nothing can be not just than the command that the life of every Christian should be one of compassionate love. Compassion is the spirit of love which is awakened by the sight of need or wretchedness. What abundant occasion is there every day for the practice of this heavenly virtue and what a need of it in a world so full of misery and sin. Every Christian ought therefore by prayer practice to cultivate a compassionate heart as one of the most precious marks of likeness to the Blessed Master. Everlasting love longs to give itself to a perishing world and to find its satisfaction in saving the lost. It seeks for vessels which it may fill with the love of God and send out among the dying that they may drink and live forever. It asks hearts to fill its own tender compassion at the sight of all the need in which sinners live. Hearts that will reckon it their highest blessedness as the dispensers of God's compassion to live entirely to bless and save sinners. Oh, my brother, the everlasting compassion which has had mercy on thee calls thee as one who has obtained mercy to come and let it fill thee. It will fit thee in thy compassion on all around to be a honest to God's compassionate love. The opportunity for showing compassion we have all around us. How much there is of temporal want. There are the poor and the sick, the widows and orphans, distressed and despondent souls who need nothing so much as the refreshment a compassionate heart can bring. They live in the midst of Christians and sometimes complain that it is as if there are children of the world who have more sympathy than those who are only concerned about their own salvation. Oh, brothers, pray earnestly for a compassionate heart, always on the lookout for an opportunity of doing some work of love, always ready to be an instrument of the divine compassion. It was the compassionate sympathy of Jesus that attracted so many to Him upon earth. That same compassionate tenderness will still more than anything draw souls to you and to your Lord. Note. Evil can only be overcome by the contact of a most personal self-devotion, never by a love that stands at a distance. Ye are the salt of the earth, Jesus said. Ye yourselves just as you are in the midst of society. In every place and every moment a sanctifying power must flow out from you and your presence. Christ Himself is the life and the light. In all that He does or says or suffers it is always Himself. Whoever separates ought from Himself no longer preserves it, it vanishes in His hands. And just this is the radical error of our modern Christianity. Men separate the words and works of Christ from Himself, and so it comes that many, with all they do as Christians, have never found Christ Himself. So there are many who trust in His suffering and merit, who cannot show that they have any real fellowship with Him or truly follow Him. Christ had His abode not only in Cana of Galilee but also in Gethsemane and on Calvary. Alas, are there not many who make their boast of the cross and yet are more afraid of the real cross than they are of the devil? They have so wisely arranged their profession of Christ's cross that no loss to their honor, their goods, or their liberty can ever come from it. Christ's true and actual imitation must once again, as in the olden times, become the standard of Christendom. Only and alone in this way will faith again conquer unbelief and superstition. Many are laboring hard at present to prove to a doubting world the inspiration of Holy Scripture, the truth of the words and the life of the Lord Jesus. It is labor in vain to try and prove by words and argument that which can alone be made known by its own self-evidencing power and its actual presence. Let the proof be given in your deeds that the spirit of the miracles dwells in you. Prove above all in your life that Jesus Christ is continuing in you His heavenly eternal life and your words will bring many to believe. But if you are wanting in this demonstration of the spirit and of power, be not surprised if the world bestow little attention on your eloquent arguments. The hour is come that all Christendom must rise up as one man and in the power of Christ repeat over again what Christ himself did to a perishing world. This is the need there is for the imitation of Jesus Christ. This is the only valid proof for the truth of Christianity. From M. Deema. End of note. And how much of spiritual misery surrounds us on all sides. Here is a poor rich man. There is a foolish, thoughtless youth. There is again a poor drunkard or a hopeless unfortunate. Or perhaps none of these, but simply people entirely wrapped up in the follies of the world which surround them. How often are words of unloving indifference or harsh judgment or slothful hopelessness heard concerning all these? The compassionate heart is wanting. Compassion looks upon the deepest misery as the plate prepared for her by God and is attracted by it. Compassion never wearies, never gives up hope. Compassion will not allow itself to be rejected, for it is the self-denying love of Christ which inspires it. The Christian does not confine his compassion to his own circle. He has a large heart. His Lord has shown him the whole heathen world as his field of labour. He seeks to be acquainted with the circumstances of the heathen. He carries their burden on his heart. He is really moved with compassion and means to help them. Whether the heathen is near or far off, whether he witnesses it in all its filth and degradation or only hears of it, compassionate love lives only to accomplish God's will in saving the perishing. Like Christ in his compassion. Let this now be our motto. After uttering the parable of the compassionate Samaritan who moved with compassion helped the wounded stranger, the Lord said, Go and do likewise. He is himself the compassionate Samaritan who speaks to every one of us whom he has saved. Go and do likewise. Even as I have done to you, do ye likewise. We who owe everything to his compassion, who profess ourselves his followers, who walk in his footsteps and bear his image. Oh, let us exhibit his compassion to the world. We can do it. He lives in us. His spirit works in us. Let us, with much prayer and firm faith, look to his example as the sure promise of what we can be. It will be to him an unspeakable joy if he finds us prepared for it, not only to show his compassion to us, but through us to the world. And ours will be the unutterable joy of having a Christ-like heart full of compassion and of great mercy. Oh, my Lord, my calling is becoming almost too high. In thy compassionate love, too, I must follow and imitate and reproduce thy life. In the compassion wherewith I see and help every bodily and spiritual misery, in the gentle tender love wherewith every sinner feels that I long to bless men, must the world form some idea of thy compassion. Most merciful one, forgive me that the world has seen so little of it in me. Most mighty Redeemer, let thy compassion not only save me, but so take hold of me and dwell in me that compassion may be the very breath and joy of my life. May thy compassion towards me be within me, a living fountain of compassion towards others. Lord Jesus, I know thou canst only give this on one condition, that I let go my own life and my efforts to keep and sanctify that life and suffer thee to live in me, to be my life. Most merciful one, I yield myself to thee. Thou hast a right to me, thou alone. There is nothing more precious to me than thy compassionate countenance. What can be more blessed than to be like thee? Lord, here I am. I have faith in thee that thou thyself will teach and fit me to obey thy word, thou shouldest have had compassion even as I had compassion on thee. In that faith I go out this very day to find in my intercourse with others the opportunity of showing how thou hast loved me. In that faith it will become the great object of my life to win men to thee. Amen. End of thirteenth day. Fourteenth day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Like Christ in his oneness with the Father. Holy Father keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one even as we are. That they all may be one even as thou Father art in me and I in thee. That they also may be one in us. That the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me. John chapter eleven verses eleven twenty one and twenty two. What an unspeakable treasure we have in this high priestly prayer. There the heart of Jesus is laid open to our view and we see what his love desires for us. There the heavens are opened to us and we learn what he as our intercessor is continually asking and obtaining for us from the Father. In that prayer the mutual union of believers has a larger place than anything else. In his prayer for all who in future shall believe this is the chief petition verses twenty through to twenty-six. Three times he repeats this prayer for their unity. The Lord tells us plainly why he desires it so strongly. This unity is the only convincing proof to the world that the Father had sent him. With all its blindness the world knows that selfishness is the curse of sin. It helps but little that God's children tell that they are born again and that they are happy, that they can do wonders in Jesus' name or prove that what the Scriptures teach is the truth. When the world sees such a church from which selfishness is banished then it will acknowledge the divine mission of Christ because he has wrought such a wonder, a community of men who truly and heartily love one another. The Lord speaks of this unity three times as the reflection of his own oneness with the Father. He knew that this was the perfection of the Godhead. The Father and Son as persons separate and yet perfectly one in the living fellowship of the Holy Spirit. And he cannot imagine anything higher than this that his believing people should with him and in him be one with each other even as he and the Father are one. The intercession of the Lord Jesus avails much. It is all prevailing. What he asks he receives of his Father. But lo, the blessing which descends finds no entrance in hearts where there is no open door, no place prepared to receive it. How many believers there are who do not even desire to be one even as the Father and the Son are one. They are so accustomed to a life of selfishness and imperfect love that they do not even long for such perfect love. They cannot hold off that union until they meet in heaven and yet the Lord thought of a life on earth when he twice said that the world may know that they may be one even as we are one. The church must be awakened to understand and to value this prayer all right. This union is one of life and love at once. Some explain it as having an entrance to the hidden life union which binds all believers even under external divisions. But this is not what the Lord means. He speaks of something that the world can see something that resembles the union between God the Father and God the Son. The hidden unity of life must be manifest in the visible unity and fellowship of love only when it becomes impossible for believers in the different smaller circles in which they are associated not to live in the full oneness of love with the children of God around them only when they learn that a life in love to each other such as Christ to us and the Fathers to him is simple duty and begin to cry to God for his Holy Spirit to work it in them then only will there be a hope of change in this respect. The fire will spread from church to church until all who truly do the will of God will consecrate themselves to abide in love even as God is love. And what are we to do now while we wait for and wish to hasten that day? Let every one who takes up earnestly the word of the Master even as I so also ye let him begin with his own circle and in that circle with himself first however weak or sickly however perverse or trying the members of Christ's body may be with whom he is surrounded let him live with them in close fellowship and love whether they are willing for it or not whether they accept or reject let him love them with a Christ like love yes to love them as Christ does must be the purpose of his life this love will find an echo in some hearts at least and awaken in them the desire too to seek after the life of love and perfect oneness but what discoveries such effort will bring of the impotence of the believer who has been hitherto satisfied with the ordinary Christian life at all to reach this standard he will soon find that nothing will avail but a personal undivided consecration to have a love like Christ's I must truly have a life like Christ's I must live with his life the lesson must be learnt anew that Christ in the fullest sense of the word will be the life of those who dare to trust him for it those who cannot trust with a full trust cannot love with a full love believer listen once more to the simple way to such a life first of all acknowledge your calling to live and love just like Christ confess your inability to fulfill this calling even in the very least listen to the word that Christ is waiting to fit you to fulfill this calling if you will give yourself unreservedly to him make the surrender in this that's conscious of being utterly unable to do anything in your own strength you offer yourself to your Lord to work in you both to will and to do and count then most confidently upon him who in the power of his unceasing intercession can save completely to work in you what he has asked of his father for you yes count on him who has said to the father thou in me and I in them that they may be one even as we are one that he will manifest his life in you with heavenly power as you live with his life you will love with his love beloved fellow Christians the oneness of Christ with the father is our model even as they so must we be one let us love one another serve one another bear with one another help one another live for one another for this our love is too small but we will earnestly pray that Christ give us his love wherewith to love with God's love shared abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit we shall be so one that the world will know that it is indeed the truth that the father sent Christ into the world and that Christ has given in us the very life and love of heaven Holy Father we know now with what petitions he who ever liveth to make intercession continually approaches thee it is for the perfect unity of his disciples Father we too would cry to thee for this blessing alas how divided is thy church it is not the division of language or country that we deplore not even the difference of doctrine or teaching that so much grieves us but Lord the want of that unity of spirit and love whereby thy church can convince the world that she is from heaven oh Lord we desire to confess before thee with deep shame the coldness and selfishness and distrust and bitterness that is still at times to be seen among thy children we confess before thee our own want of that fervent and perfect love to which thou has called us oh forgive and have mercy upon us visit thy people it is through the one spirit that we can know and show our unity in the one Lord let thy Holy Spirit work powerfully in thy believing people to make them one let it be felt in every circle where God's children meet each other how indispensable a close union in the love of Jesus is and let my heart too be delivered from self to realise in the fellowship with thy children how we are one even as thou father and thy son art one Amen End of fourteenth day fifteenth day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Like Christ in his dependence on the father verily verily I say unto you the son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the father doing for what things so ever he doeth these the son also doeth in like manner for the father loveth the son and showeth him all things that himself doeth and greater works than these will he show him that ye may marvel John chapter five verses nineteen and twenty I know mine own and mine own know me even as the father knoweth me and I know the father John chapter ten verse fifteen revised version Our relation to Jesus is the exact counterpart of his to the father and so the words in which he sets forth his intercourse with the father have their truth in us too and as the words of Jesus in John chapter five describe the natural relation to every father and son whether on earth or in heaven they are applicable not only to the only begotten but to everyone who in and like Jesus is called a son of God we cannot better catch the simple truth and force of the illustration than by thinking of Jesus with his earthly father in the carpenter shop learning his trade the first thing you notice the son can do nothing of himself but what he seeeth the father doing then you are struck by the implicit obedience that just seeks to imitate the father for whatsoever things the father doeth these doeth the son in like manner you then notice the loving intimacy to which the father admits him keeping back none of his secrets for the father loveth the son and showeth him all things that himself doeth and in this dependent obedience on his son's part and the loving teaching on the father's part you have the pledge of an ever growing advance to greater works step by step the son will be led up to all that the father himself can do greater works than these he will show him that he may marvel in this picture we have the reflection of the relationship between god the father and the son in his blessed humanity if his human nature is to be something real and true and if we are to understand how christ is in very deed to be our example we must believe fully in what our blessed lord here reveals to us of the secrets of his inner life the words he speaks are literal truth his dependence on the father of his life was absolutely and intensely real the son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the father doing he counted it no humiliation to wait on him for his commands he rather considered it his highest blessedness to let himself be led and guided of the father as a child and accordingly he held himself bound in strict obedience to say and do only what the father showed him whatsoever things the father doeth these the son also doeth in like manner the proof of this is in the exceeding carefulness with which in everything he seeks to keep to holy scripture in his sufferings he will endure all in order that the scriptures may be fulfilled for this he remained the whole night in prayer in such continued prayer he looks to the father and waits for the answer that he may know the father's will no child in his ignorance no slave in his bondage was ever so anxious to keep to what the father or master had said as the Lord Jesus was to follow the teaching and guidance of his heavenly father on this account the father kept nothing hid from him the entire dependence and willingness always to learn he used perfect communication of all the father's secrets for the father loveth the son and showeth him all things and will show him greater works than these that he may marvel the father had formed a glorious life plan for the son that in him the divine life might be shown forth in the conditions of human existence this plan was shown to the son piece by piece until all was gloriously accomplished child of God it is not only for the only begotten son that a life plan has been arranged but for each one of his children just in proportion as we live in more or less entire dependence on the father will this life plan be more or less perfectly worked out in our lives the nearer the believer comes to this entire dependence of the son doing nothing but what he sees the father do and then to his implicit obedience whatsoever he doeth doing these in like manner so much more will the promise be fulfilled to us the father showeth him all things that he himself doeth and will show him greater works than these like Christ that word calls us to a life of conformity to the son in his blessed dependence on the father each one of us dedicated thus to live to such a life in dependence on the father the first thing that is necessary is a firm faith that he will make known his will to us I think this is something that keeps many back they cannot believe that the Lord cares for them so much that he will indeed give himself the trouble every day to teach them and to make known to them his will just as he did to Jesus Christian thou art of more value to the father than thou knowest thou art as much worth as the price he paid for thee that is the blood of his son he therefore attaches the highest value to the least thing that concerns thee and will guide thee even in what is most insignificant he longs more for close and constant intercourse with thee than thou canst conceive he can use thee for his glory and make something of thee higher than thou canst understand the father loves his child and shows him what he does that he proved in Jesus and he will prove it in us too there must only be the surrender to expect his teaching through his Holy Spirit he gives this most tenderly without removing us from our circle the father can so conform us to Christ's image and blessing and to joy to all do not let unbelief of God's compassionate love prevent us from expecting the father's guidance in all things let the unwillingness to submit yourself as little keep you back this is the second great hindrance the desire for independence was the temptation in paradise is the temptation in each human heart it seems hard to be nothing to know nothing, to will nothing and yet it is so blessed this dependence brings us into the most blessed communion with God of us it becomes true as of Jesus the father loveth the son and showeth him all things whatsoever he doeth this dependence takes from us all care and responsibility we have only to obey orders it gives real power and strength of will we know that he works in us to will and to do it gives us the blessed assurance that our work will succeed because we have allowed God alone to take charge of it my brother if you have hitherto known but little of this life of conscious dependence and simple obedience begin to day let your saviour be your example in this it is his blessed will to live in you and in you to be again what he was here on earth he only longs for your acquiescence he will work it in you offer yourself to the father this day after the example of the first begotten to do nothing of yourself but only what the father shows you fix your gaze on Jesus as also did this the example and promise of what you shall be adore him who for your sake humbled himself and showed how blessed the dependent life can be blessed dependence it is indeed the disposition which becomes us towards such a God it gives him the glory which belongs to him as God it keeps the soul in peace and rest for it allows God to care for all it keeps the mind quiet and prepared to receive and use the father's teaching and it is so gloriously rewarded in the deeper experience of holy intercourse and the continued ever advancing discoveries of his will and work with which the father crowns it blessed dependence in which the son lived on earth thou art the desire of my soul blessed dependence it was because Jesus knew that he was a son that he thus loved to be dependent on the father all the teaching in regard to the likeness to Christ this is the centre and son I must live as a son with my father if I stand clear in this relationship as a son realising that the father is everything to me a son like life living through the father living for the father will be its natural and spontaneous outcome oh my father the longer I fix my gaze on the image of the son the more I discover the fearful ruin of my nature and how far sin has estranged me from thee to be dependent upon thee there can be no higher blessedness than this to trust in all things in a God such as thou art so wise and good so rich and powerful and lo it has become the most difficult thing there can be we would rather be dependent on our own folly than the God of all glory even thine own children own most blessed father often think it so hard to give up their own thoughts and will and to believe that absolute dependence on God to the very these things is alone true blessedness Lord I come to thee with the humble prayer teach me this he who purchased with his own blood for me the everlasting blessedness hath shown me in his own life wherein that blessedness consists and I know he will now lead and keep me in it oh my father in thy son I yield myself to thee to be made like him like him to do nothing of myself but what I see the father doing father thou wilt take even me too like the firstborn and for his sake into thy training and show me what thou doest oh my God be thou a father unto me as unto Christ and let me be thy son as he was amen end of fifteenth day sixteenth day of like Christ by Andrew Murray this LibriVox recording is in the public domain like Christ in his love a new commandment I give unto you that ye love one another even as I have loved you that ye also love one another John chapter 13 verse 34 this is my commandment that ye love one another even as I have loved you John chapter 15 verse 12 even as we begin to understand somewhat of the blessedness of that little word it is not the command of a law which only convinces of sin and impotence it is a new command under a new covenant that is established upon better promises it is the command of him who asks nothing that he has not provided and now offers to bestow it is the assurance that he expects nothing from us that he does not work in us even as I have loved you and every moment and pouring out that love upon you through the Holy Spirit even so do ye love one another the measure, the strength and the work of your love you will find in my love to you even as I have loved you that word gives us the measure of the love wherewith we must love each other true love knows no measure it gives itself entirely it may take into consideration the time and measure of showing it but love itself is ever whole and undivided this is the greatest glory of divine love that we have in the Father and Son two persons who in love remain one being each losing himself in the other this is the glory of the love of Jesus who is the image of God that he loves us even as the Father loves him and this is the glory of brotherly love that it will know of no other law than to love even as God and Christ he who would be like Christ must unhesitatingly accept this as his rule of life he knows how difficult how impossible it often is thus to love brethren in whom there is so much that is offensive or unamiable before going out to meet them in circumstances where his love may be tried he goes in secret to the Lord and with his eye fixed on his own sin and unworthiness asks how much ois thou thy Lord he goes to the cross and seeks there to fathom the love where with the Lord has loved him he lets the light of the immeasurable love of him who is in heaven his head and his brother on his soul until he learns to feel divine love has but one law love seeks not its own love gives itself holy and he lays himself on the altar before his Lord even as thou has loved me so will I love the brethren in virtue of my union with Jesus and in Jesus with them there can be no question of anything less I love them as Christ did O that Christians would close their ears to all the reasonings of their own hearts and fix their eyes only on the law which he who loves them has promulgated in his own example they would realize that there is nothing for them to do but this to accept his commands and to obey them our love may recognize no other measure than his because his love is the strength of ours the love of Christ is no mere idea or sentiment it is a real divine life power as long as the Christian does not understand this it cannot exert its full power in him but when his face rises to realize that Christ's love is nothing less than the imparting of himself and his love to the beloved and he becomes rooted in this love as the source whence his life sustenance then he sees that his Lord simply asks that he should allow his love to flow through him he must live in a Christ given strength the love of Christ constrains him and enables him to love as he did from this love of Christ the Christian also learns what the work of his love to the brethren must be we have already had occasion to speak of many manifestations of love its loving service its self-denial its meekness love is the root of all these it teaches the disciple to look upon himself as really called upon to be in his little circle just like Jesus the one who lives solely to love and help others Paul prays for the Philippians that your love may abound more and more in knowledge 1 verse 9 love does not comprehend at once what the work is that it can do the believer who prays that his love may abound in knowledge and really takes Christ's example as his rule of life will be taught what a great and glorious work there is for him to do the church of God and every child of God as well as the world Christ's love the Christian who really takes the Lord's word love one another even as I have loved you as a command that must be obeyed carries about a power for blessing and life for all with whom he comes in contact love is the explanation of the whole wonderful life of Christ and of the wonder of his death divine love in God's children will still work its mighty wonders behold what manner of love behold how he loved these words are the superscription over the love of the Father and of the Son they must yet become the key words to the life of every Christian they will be so where in living faith and true consecration the command of Christ to love even as he loved is accepted as the law of life as early as the call of Abraham this principle was deposited as a living seed in God's kingdom that what God is for us we must be for others I will bless thee and thou shalt be a blessing if I have loved you is the highest manifestation of what God is for us then even so love ye must be the first and highest expression of what the child of God must be in preaching as in the life of the church it must be understood the love which loves like Christ is the sign of true discipleship beloved Christians Christ Jesus longs for you in order to make you amidst those who surround you a very fountain of love the love of heaven would feign take possession of you in order that in and through you it may work its blessed work on earth yield to its rule offer yourself unreservedly to its indwelling honour it by the confident assurance that it can teach you to love as Jesus loved as conformity to the Lord Jesus must be the chief mark of your Christian walk so love must be the chief mark of that conformity be not disheartened if you do not attain it at once only keep fast hold of the command love even as I have loved you it takes time to grow into it take time in secret to gaze on that image of love take time in prayer and meditation to fan the desire for it into a burning flame take time to survey all around you whoever they be and whatever may happen with this one thought I must love them take time to become conscious of your union with your Lord that every fear as to the possibility of thus loving may be met with the word have I not commanded you love as I have loved Christian take time in loving communion with Jesus as your loving example and you will joyfully fulfill this command too to love even as he did Lord Jesus who has loved me so wonderfully and now commanded me to love even as thou behold me at thy feet joyfully would I accept thy commands and now go out in thy strength to manifest thy love to all in thy strength oh my Lord be therefore pleased to reveal thy love to me shed abroad thy love in my heart through thy Holy Spirit let me live each moment that I am the Beloved of God Lord let me understand that I can love not with my own but with thy love thou livest in me, thy Spirit dwells and works in me from thee there streams into me the love with which I can love others thou dost only ask of me that I understand and accept my calling and that I surrender myself to live as thou didst thou wouldest that I look upon my old nature with its selfishness and unlovingness as crucified and in faith prepare to do as thou commandest Lord I do it in the strength of my Lord I would live to love even as thou has loved me Amen End of sixteenth day Seventeenth day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray this LibriVox recording is in the Catholic domain Like Christ in his praying and in the morning rising up a great while before day he went out and departed into a desert place and there prayed Mark chapter 1 verse 35 and he said unto them come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a while Mark chapter 6 verse 31 in his secret life of prayer too my saviour is my example he could not maintain the heavenly life in his soul without continually separating himself from man and communing with his father with the heavenly life in me it is no otherwise it has the same need of entire separation from man the need not only of single moments but of time enough for intercourse with the fountain of life the father in heaven it was at the commencement of his public ministry that the event happened which so attracted the attention of his disciples that they wrote it down after a day full of wonders and of work at Capernaum verses 21 to 32 the press in the evening became still greater the whole town is before the door sick are healed and devils are cast out it is late before they get to sleep in the throng there is little time for quiet or for secret prayer and low as they rise early in the morning they find him gone in the silence of the night he has gone out to seek a place of solitude in the wilderness when they find him there he is still praying and why did my saviour need these hours of prayer though the blessedness of silently lifting up his soul to God in the midst of the most pressing business did not the father dwell in him and did he not in the depths of his heart enjoy unbroken communion with him yes that hidden life was indeed his portion but that life as subject to the law of humanity had need of continual refreshing and renewing from the fountain it was a life of dependence just because it was strong and true it could not bear the loss of direct and constant intercourse with the father with whom and in whom it had its being and its blessedness what a lesson for every Christian much intercourse with man is dissipating and dangerous to our spiritual life it brings us under the influence of the visible and temporal nothing can atone for the loss of secret direct intercourse with God even work in the service of God and of love is exhausting we cannot bless others without power going out from us this must be renewed from above the law of the manor that what is heavenly cannot remain good long upon earth but must day by day be renewed afresh from heaven still holds good Jesus Christ teaches it to us we need every day time to have communion with my father in secret my life is like his a life hid in heaven in God it needs time day by day to be fed from heaven it is from heaven alone that the power to lead a heavenly life on earth can come and what may have been the prayers that occupied our Lord there so long if I could hear him pray how I might learn how I too must pray God be praised of his prayers we have more than one recorded that in them too we might learn to follow his holy example in the high priestly prayer John chapter 17 we hear him speak as in the deep calm of heaven to his father in his Gethsemane prayer a few hours later we see him call out of the depths of trouble and darkness unto God in these two prayers we have all the highest and the deepest that there is to be found in the communion of prayer between father and son in both these prayers we see how he addresses God each time it is father oh my father in that word lies the secret of all prayer the Lord knew that he was a son and that the father loved him in that word he placed himself in the full light of the father's countenance this was to him the greatest need and greatest blessing of prayer to enter into the full enjoyment of the father's love let it be thus with me too let the principal part of my prayer be the holy silence and adoration of faith in which I wait upon God until he reveals himself to me through his spirit the loving assurance that he looks down upon me as a father that I am well pleasing to him he who in prayer has not time in quietness of soul and in full consciousness of its meaning to say abba father has missed the best part of prayer it is in prayer that the witness of the spirit that we are children of God and that the father draws nigh the light in us must be exercised and strengthened if our heart condemn us not we have confidence toward God and whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we obey his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight in both these prayers I also see what he desired that the father may be glorified he speaks I have glorified thee glorify thy son that thy son also may glorify thee that will assuredly have been the spirit of every prayer the entire surrender of himself only to live for the father's will and glory all that he asked hand but one object that God might be glorified in this too he is my example I must seek to have the spirit of each prayer I offer thus thy child and glorify thy grace in me only that thy child may glorify thee everything in the universe must show forth God's glory the Christian who has inspired with this thought and avails himself of prayer to express it until he is thoroughly imbued with it will have power in prayer even of his work in heaven our Lord says whatsoever you shall ask in my name I do that the father may be glorified in the son oh my soul learn from thy saviour ever thou poorest out thy desires in prayer first to yield thyself as a whole burnt offering with the one object that God may be glorified in thee then thou hast sure ground on which to pray thou wilt field a strong desire as well as the full liberty to ask the father that in each part of Christ's example in each feature of Christ's image thou mayest be made like him that so God may be glorified thou wilt understand how only in continually renewed prayer the soul can surrender itself to wait that God may from heaven work in it what will be to his glory because Jesus surrendered himself so entirely to the glory of his father he was worthy to be our mediator and could in his high priestly prayer ask such great blessings for his people learn like Jesus only to seek God's glory in prayer and thou shalt become a true intercessor who can not only approach the throne of grace with his own needs but can also pray for others the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man that availeth much the words which the saviour put into our mouth in the Lord's prayer thy will be done because he was made like unto his brethren in all things he took from our lips again and made his own in Gethsemane that from him we might receive them back again in the power of his atonement and intercession and so be able to pray them even as he had done thou too shalt become Christ-like in that priestly intercession on which the unity and prosperity of the church and the salvation of sinners so much depend and he who in every prayer makes God's glory the chief object will also, if God calls him to it have strength for the prayer of Gethsemane every prayer of Christ was intercession because he had given himself for us all he asked and received was in our interest every prayer he prayed and a spirit of self-sacrifice give thyself too holy to God for man and as with Jesus so with us the entire sacrifice of ourselves to God in every prayer of daily life is the only preparation for those single hours of soul struggle in which we may be called to some special act of the surrender of the will that costs us tears and anguish but he who has learnt the former will surely receive strength for the latter Oh my brother if thou and I would be like Jesus we must especially contemplate Jesus praying alone in the wilderness there is the secret of his wonderful life what he did and spoke to man was first spoken and lived through with the Father in communion with him the anointing with the Holy Spirit renewed he who would be like him in his walk and conversation must simply begin here that he follows Jesus into solitude even though it costs the sacrifice of night rest of business of intercourse with friends the time must be found to be alone with the Father besides the ordinary hour of prayer he will feel at times irresistibly drawn to enter into the holy place and not to come thence until it has a new been revealed to him that God is his portion in his secret chamber with closed door or in the solitude of the wilderness God must be found every day and our fellowship with him renewed if Christ needed it how much more we what it was to him it will be for us what it was to him that he would be chosen of his baptism it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized and praying the heaven was opened and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him and a voice came from heaven which said thou art my beloved son in thee I am well pleased yes this will be to us the blessing of prayer the opened heaven and the spirit the father's voice the blessed assurance of his love and good pleasure as with Jesus so with us from above from above must it all come in answer to prayer Christ like praying in secret will be the secret of Christ like living in public oh let us rise and avail ourselves of our wonderful privilege the Christ like boldness the Father's presence the Christ like liberty with God in prayer oh my blessed Lord thou hast called me and I have followed thee that I may bear thy image in all things daily would I seek thy footsteps that I may be led of thee with us however thou goest this day I have found them wet with the dew of night leading to the wilderness there I have seen thee for the Father there I have heard thee too in prayer thou giveest up all to the Father's glory and from the Father dust ask and expect and receive all impress I beseech thee this wonderful vision deep in my soul my saviour rising up a great while before day to seek communion with his Father and to ask and obtain in prayer all that he needed in life and work oh my Lord who am I that I may thus listen to thee yea who am I that thou dost call me to pray even as thou hast done precious saviour from the depths of my heart I beseech thee awaken in me that same strong need of secret prayer convince me more deeply that as with thee so with me the divine life cannot attain its full growth without much secret communion with my heavenly Father so that my soul may indeed dwell in the light of his countenance let this conviction awaken in me such burning desire that I may not rest until each day of fresh my soul has been baptised in the streams of heavenly love oh thou who art my example and intercessor teach me to pray like thee Amen End of 17th day