Articles

How to live on Christ

How does the branch bear fruit? Not by incessant effort for sunshine and air; not by vain struggles for those vivifying ( life giving ) influences which give beauty to the blossom, and verdure ( greenness ) to the leaf; it simply abides in the vine, in silent undisturbed union, and blossoms and fruit appear as a spontaneous growth.

How, then shall a christian bear fruit? By efforts and struggles to obtain that which is freely given; by meditations on watchfulness, on prayer, on action, on temptation, and on dangers? No: There must be a full concentration of the thoughts and affections on Christ; a complete surrender of the whole being to Him; a constant looking to Him for grace.

Christians in whom these dispositions are once firmly fixed go on calmly as the infant borne in the arms of its mother. Christ reminds them of every duty in its time and place, reproves them for every error, counsels them in every difficulty, and excites them to every needful activity.

In spiritual as in temporal matters they take no thought for the morrow; for they know that Christ will be as accessible tommorrow as today, and that time imposes no barrier on His love. Their hope and trust rest solely on what He is willing and able to do for them; on nothing that they suppose themselves able and willing to do for Him. Their talisman ( consecration ) for every temptation and sorrow is their oft- repeated child-like surrender of their whole being to Him.

How George Mueller practiced communion with God

It has pleased the lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord.The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, or I might seek to relieve the distressed. I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world. And yet, not being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day. All this might not be attended to in the right spirit.

Before this time my practice had been for at least ten years previously, as a habitual thing, to give myself to prayer after having dressed myself in the morning. Now I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warmed, reproved, and instructed, and that thus, by means of the word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord.

I began, therefore, to meditate on the New Testement from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord's blessing upon his precious word, was to begin to meditate on the word of God, searching, as it were, into every verse to get a blessing out of it. I did this not for the sake of the public ministry of the word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for obtaining food for my own soul.

The result almost invariably was that after a very few minutes my soul was led to confession, to intercession, to thanksgiving, or to supplication, so that although I did not give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately, more or less, into prayer. When thus I had been for a while making confession, intercession, supplication, or thanksgiving, I went on to the next words or verse, turning all as I went into prayer for myself or others, as the word may have led to it, but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul was the object of my meditation.

The difference, then, between my former practice and my present one is this: Formerly when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible and generally spent all, or almost all, my time till breakfast in prayer. At all events I almost invaribly began with prayer, except when I felt my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I read the word of God for food, refreshment, or revival and renewal of my inner man before I gave myself to prayer. What was the result? I often spent a quater of an hour, half an hour, or even an hour on my knees before being concious of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc. Often, after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray.

I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart, being nourished by the truth, is brought into experimental fellowship with God. I speak to my Father and to my Friend (vile though I am and unworthy of it) about the things He has brought before me in His precious word. It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this point.

Enter into the holy place.

Take the golden key; He calleth thee.

The secret of Revival

When people pray--God works. His methods have not changed.Our prayers are usually hurried and halfhearted. There is little result from such praying. It is no wonder we see so little conviction of sin today.

Oh, that God would shame us for our prayerlessness and for our lack of concern about the unsaved all around us! Oh, that He would humble us, burden us, and melt us to tears! Might He so move our hearts with love for the unsaved that we will have to lay aside other interests and give ourselves to prayer until souls around us are convicted, awakened and saved from going down to hell!

Let us get down to business with God. Whenever you see people who have been awakened to their need, convicted of their sins and brought to the saviour, you can be certain of one fact--somebody has been praying! Let us give ourselves to prayer until something happens!

C. D. Carter

Put the dog out

There are 3 people million people in my home country of New Zeland, and an incredible 70 million sheep (they aren't sure of the exact amount, because the guy that counts them keeps falling asleep). So it's fitting that each year there is a nationally televised shepherding contest.

During one of these programs, I watched while a shepherd stood motionless with a rod in his hand. Six pea brained sheep stood immobile about two feet from the sheep gate. One wrong move on the shepherd's part and the flock would scatter.

I joked to a pastor friend, "Come and look at this poor pastor trying to get his flock into evangelism."

Scrutinizing the scene, the pastor asked, "Where's the evangelist?"

Suddenly, a black and white dog flashed onto the screen and barked at the sheep. As the animals charged through the gate, I cried, "There he is!"

The shepherd's best friend.

The word "evangelist" has come to mean either television's manipulator with a bottomless collection bag in his hungry hand or the man whose ministry is restricted solely to reaching out to the lost at mass crusades.

How the devil has slurred the shepherd's best friend!

This faithful laborer longs for a nod from the local shepherd to do his God-given work. Instead, he lies low, tarnished by the devil's brush as a good-for-nothing, flea bitten, money-hungry hound.

But there is a forgotten side to the evangelist. When the local pastor has to handle the subject of the believer's responsibility to the lost, he is forced to do so with kid gloves lest his sheep scatter to greener and more comfortable pastures. He has the rod of authority in his right hand, but he cannot excercise it as he would like.

What does a wise pastor do? He calls on one of God's gifts to the church-the equipping evangelist (see Eph. 4:11-12).

The evangelist can bark at the sheep without being unduly concerned with their response to him personally. He's usually leaving the next day!

Besides, he knows from experience that the sheep will jump when he barks because he is not a "prophet in his own country or his own house." They will honor his words because his are not native to the community.

Check the dog carefully.

Having spent a number of years as a pastor before venturing out as an evangelist, I am well aware of the riskof entrusting another ministry to the pulpit. I fully appreciate that letting another take charge of the sheep is like giving your car keys to a stranger, sitting in the back seat with your family and saying "please stay on the right side of the road"

Therefore, a wise pastor will protect his sheep prayerfully, checking the breeding back-ground of the prospective sheepdog. Is he of a faithful strain? Many a deceitful and devouring wolf has crept into an unsuspecting flock in the guise of a sheepdog.

Does he honor and submit to the local shepherd? Does he genuinely care about the sheep, or is his motive solely to get his teeth into the bone you may throw him after his work is done? That is what you must find out from the Chief Shepherd before you let the evangelist loose amoung your flock.

Down to the slaughter house.

I once asked a shepherd what he would do if his flock didn't reproduce. He looked troubled and said, "I would give them one season, and if they didn't reproduce I would send them down to the slaughterhouse to have their throats cut." There's a sermon there somewhere.

Many a sheep in these last days has become impotent. A recent survey in Christianity Today magazine found only 1 percent of their readers had shared the gospel recently, while more than 3,000 churchs in a major U.S. denomination didn't report even one soul saved in 1992.

I am convinced a major reason for this impotence is we have lost sight of the legitimate ministry of the equipping evangelist. Most Christians long for others to be saved , but what soldier is going to rush into battle when he has little confidence in his weapons? Issue him 10 great cannons, however, and the weapons themselves will fill his heart with ciurage.

The equipping evangelist is like a distributor of special weapons. Let him help you turn your timid soldiers into courageous men and women of God.

Ray Comfort

We receive according to our faith

This is the principle which underlies the whole gospel system, that we receive according to the reckoning of our faith. Faith will lay all the ghosts that will rise in the cemetery of your soul, and the spirit of doubt will bring them up from the grave to haunt you as long as you continue to question. The only way you can ever die is by surrendering yourself to Christ and then reckoning yourself dead with Him.

You surrender yourself to Christ to be crucified with Him, and to have all your old life pass out, and hencefort to live as one born from heaven and animated by Him alone. Suddenly some of your old traits of evil reappear, old thoughts, evil tendencies assert themselves and say loudly and clamorously, "We are not dead." Now if you recognize these things, fear them and obey them, you are sure to give them life and they will control you and drag you back into your former state.

But if you refuse to recognize them, and say, "These are Satan's lies, I am dead indeed unto sin: these do not belong to me, but are the children of the devil: I therefore repudiate them and rise above them," God will detach you from them and make them utterly dead. You will find they were no part of you,but simply temptations which Satan tried to throw over you, and to weave around you that which seemed part of yourself...

A. B. Simpson

The Intercessor

Jeremiah interceded for the people, but we have not to seek far before we discover the reason why he did it. God gave the weeping prophet to His sinful people in order that they might not be left as sheep without a shepherd. whenever you meet with a man who interceds for his fellow men and makes this the main business of his life, you see in him one of the most precious gifts of God's grace to the age in which he lives.

It is God who writes intercession upon men's hearts. All true prayer comes from Him, but especially that least selfish and most Christlike form of prayer called intercession, when the suppliant forgets all about himself and his own needs--and all his pleadings, his tears and his arguments are on behalf of others. Such men are the most precious gift from Heaven.

Charles Spurgeon

Secrets of victory

The true test of christian character does not consist in the inability to fall, but in the quick agony of repentance, and in the immediate restoration to the ways which have been left. Directly you are concious of sin, turn it over to your compassionate Lord. do not wait for the fever of passion to subside, or for the agony of your shame to die down, but there and then, in the croud or on the street, lift up your heart and ask Him to touch you with that finger before which uncleanness cannot abide, ask him to wash you as He did the feet of the disciples, soiled by jealousy and strife for mastery; ask Him to return your soul to the place it occupied before it fell.

It is this instant repentance which marks one out as a true child of God. Since sin is no longer his element and sphere, if he falls into it, he strives to escape from it as soon as possible (1 john 3:9). An old divine says, "A sheep and a sow may fall, each, into the same quagmire; but the sow will wallow in it, whilst the sheep will bleat piteously until she is extricated and cleansed." Such is the difference between the ungodly and the children of God...

F. B. Meyer

Revivals begin with yourself

One reason why revivals are not more extensive and more permanent is that they do not begin right. In goods made according to a pattern, no pains are spared to have a perfect pattern. The preachers and workers in a revival will to a great extent, shape the experience of the converts. If the workers are cold and formal, the converts will be weak and unstable.

Pharisees do not make converts like themselves. They have their faults doubled in intensity. This is what our savior said -- "You compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves" (Matt. 23:15)

If you would have a revival, begin with yourselves. Stir up yourselves to take hold of God. You cannot impart to others what you do not have. If you would communicate spiritual life, you must have spiritual life, and you need to have it more abundantly.

Prayers from the dead will not raise the dead. No church is fit to labor for souls that is not enjoying a revival. Consecrate yourselves anew to God. Do not be afraid to break down and get blessed before the world.

B. T. Roberts