Praying For Our Students Kindergarten Through College Day 8 of 21

Praying For Our Students Kindergarten Through College
Day 8 of 21

Father, thank You for every step of progress in our schools and for those who work tirelessly towards improving them. We pray Proverbs 8:1-21 over our students.

We pray for every student in every public, private and home school. We pray for “Every student, every day – for a better tomorrow.” We ask that You would pour out a love for learning and a hunger for knowledge and that you would ignite their drive for academic success. Give them a deep desire to seek godly wisdom and its blessings.

 We ask that our students would treasure learning above silver or gold, as Your Word says. Let them value their education and be so motivated that they would let nothing stand in their way of graduating! May they be lifelong learners who excel in their respective fields.

We pray our classrooms would come alive with an excitement for learning, and that apathy, disinterest, discouragement, and all disruptions be removed, in Jesus’ name.

 Proverbs 8:18 says that with wisdom comes “riches and honor, enduring wealth and prosperity,” and we know the economic growth of our city and state is directly tied to a well-educated workforce.

We ask for fresh, innovative solutions from heaven at both the state and local level in how to raise our graduation rates! Please do an undeniable miracle: turn a school ranked near the bottom into one that leads the way for the nation. In Jesus’ name! Amen.

Praying For Our Students Kindergarten Through College Day 7 of 21

Praying For Our Students Kindergarten Through College
Day 7 of 21

Heavenly Father and Creator of all life, You have dreamed a unique dream for every student. Therefore, we cry out to You that the destinies of our children and young people will be preserved!

We pray for our future leaders. Raise young people with godly purpose and destiny to contend for the future of our nation! May many great young leaders, like Moses, Joseph, Joshua, Daniel, Ruth, and Esther, arise from our schools to bring justice and truth to every sector of society.

Raise those who will lead the way for righteousness in every mountain of influence – in government, in education, in media, in entertainment and the arts, in business and finance, in families and in the church.

May they, like David, fulfill the purpose of God in their generation. Like David, may they know their calling from a young age, so that no amount of family negativity or setbacks would discourage them from pursuing this.

Instill hope in these young people that You have a plan for them leading to life and fullness of joy, regardless of their past. Give this emerging generation a strong vision for the future and implant in their hearts an understanding of Your will for their lives.

Thank you that Your gifts and your callings are irrevocable. We ask You to resurrect dreams of those who have given up on their God-given dreams and breathe new life into their calling in You.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Praying For Our Students Kindergarten Through College Day 6 of 21

Praying For Our Students Kindergarten Through College
Day 6 of 21

Father God, Creator of all life, we come to You asking that You would pour out Your life-giving Spirit upon our schools. We take authority over the spirits of discouragement, defeat, death, and suicide. We declare, by faith, in Jesus’ name, that they have no place in the lives of our students. In Jesus’ name, Father God, break the power of this self-inflicted curse over those who fully expect to die at an early age! We ask that You would counter this lie with the TRUTH about the abundant life You offer us and that every student would find eternal life this year.

Help teachers to encourage their students and to be watchful of those who may be struggling academically or emotionally. May students and teachers in our schools experience the life of God, through the Holy Spirit and the Bible, in whole new ways that would transform them! Thank You that You are removing any veil over their minds and hearts that prevent them from seeing and receiving You and Your Truth.

We pray for healing for those grieving the loss of a loved one or traumatized by family conflict, exposure to media violence, bullying, gang activity, or the suicide of someone they know.

We pray for girls who have had an abortion and ask that You would be close to them. Please deliver them from the grip of the spirit of death and send someone who can minister to them.

We believe for a massive shift in the spiritual atmosphere over schools and our students’ homes. Wherever the thief has killed, stolen or destroyed, we ask that You would restore peace, joy and life.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Prayer For Our Students Kindergarten Through College Day 5 of 21

Prayer For Our Students Kindergarten Through College
Day 5 of 21

Jesus, You are the Way, the Truth and the Life, offering us eternal LIFE far better than we ever dreamed! You are the Light of the world – and even in the deepest darkness, “the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

We come into agreement with your Word that You are removing the veil of death and deception – a death shroud covering the minds of so many young people – and that the power of this death obsession is broken, according to Isaiah 25:7!

We make this faith declaration: delusion, rebellion and the strong anti-Christian mindset associated with this culture of death is removed from the youth. Untangle the web of confusion, manipulation, and deception we ask, and replace it with the clear truth of the gospel.

For those who are oppressed by the spirit of death and ensnared in the occult or witchcraft, we speak FREEDOM, DELIVERANCE AND LIFE. In the name of Jesus. Amen

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER By Andrew Murray Part 5 – Absolute Surrender - God Maintains Your Surrender

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER
By Andrew Murray

Part 5 – Absolute Surrender

God not only claims it, and works it, and accepts it when I bring it,
but God maintains it.

God Maintains Your Surrender

That is the great difficulty with many. People say: "I have often been
stirred at a meeting, or at a convention, and I have consecrated myself
to God, but it has passed away. I know it may last for a week or for a
month, but away it fades, and after a time it is all gone."

But listen! It is because you do not believe what I am now going to
tell you and remind you of. When God has begun the work of absolute
surrender in you, and when God has accepted your surrender, then God
holds Himself bound to care for it and to keep it. Will you believe that?

In this matter of surrender there are two: God and I--I a worm, God the
everlasting and omnipotent Jehovah. Worm, will you be afraid to trust
yourself to this mighty God now? God is willing. Do you not believe
that He can keep you continually, day by day, and moment by moment?

Moment by moment I'm kept in His love;
Moment by moment I've life from above.

If God allows the sun to shine upon you moment by moment, without
intermission, will not God let His life shine upon you every moment?
And why have you not experienced it? Because you have not trusted God
for it, and you do not surrender yourself absolutely to God in that
trust.

A life of absolute surrender has its difficulties. I do not deny that.
Yes, it has something far more than difficulties: it is a life that
with men is absolutely impossible. But by the grace of God, by the
power of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, it is a
life to which we are destined, and a life that is possible for us,
praise God! Let us believe that God will maintain it.

Some of you have read the words of that aged saint who, on his
ninetieth birthday, told of all God's goodness to him--I mean George
Muller. What did he say he believed to be the secret of his happiness,
and of all the blessing which God had given him? He said he believed
there were two reasons. The one was that he had been enabled by grace
to maintain a good conscience before God day by day; the other was,
that he was a lover of God's Word. Ah, yes, a good conscience is
complete obedience to God day by day, and fellowship with God every day
in His Word, and prayer--that is a life of absolute surrender.

Such a life has two sides--on the one side, absolute surrender to work
what God wants you to do; on the other side, to let God work what He
wants to do.

First, to do what God wants you to do.

Give up yourselves absolutely to the will of God. You know something of
that will; not enough, far from all. But say absolutely to the Lord
God: "By Thy grace I desire to do Thy will in everything, every moment
of every day." Say: "Lord God, not a word upon my tongue but for Thy
glory, not a movement of my temper but for Thy glory, not an affection
of love or hate in my heart but for Thy glory, and according to Thy
blessed will."

Someone says: "Do you think that possible?"

I ask, What has God promised you, and what can God do to fill a vessel
absolutely surrendered to Him? Oh, God wants to bless you in a way
beyond what you expect. From the beginning, ear hath not heard, neither
hath the eye seen, what God hath prepared for them that wait for Him (1
Cor. 2:9). God has prepared unheard-of things, blessings much more
wonderful than you can imagine, more mighty than you can conceive. They
are divine blessings. Oh, say now:

"I give myself absolutely to God, to His will, to do only what God
wants."

It is God who will enable you to carry out the surrender.

And, on the other side, come and say: "I give myself absolutely to God,
to let Him work in me to will and to do of His good pleasure, as He has
promised to do."

Yes, the living God wants to work in His children in a way that we
cannot understand, but that God's Word has revealed, and He wants to
work in us every moment of the day. God is willing to maintain our
life. Only let our absolute surrender be one of simple, childlike, and
unbounded trust.

Prayer For Our Students Kindergarten Through College Day 4 of 21

Prayer For Our Students Kindergarten Through College

Day 4 of 21

Thank you, Lord, for your prophetic promise that we are on the verge of the greatest revival ever.  Our nation will see the glory of God and another Great Awakening! 

As we stand in faith before You for these promises, we obey Your command to pray fervently that You send workers into our schools and universities where the harvest is indeed plentiful! 

Thank You for every Christian student and teacher You have placed in our schools. We pray that You would stir them up and help them resolve that in the coming school year they will get to know You more deeply, walk more closely with You, and be examples of character and righteousness showing love and compassion to those around them.

 We fervently pray that You would awaken the “sleeping giant” of Your Church to become actively engaged in their local schools and our education system. Help us see this harvest field in our backyards and find meaningful ways to serve and reach our schools. 

We pray for young student evangelists on campus. We ask for you to remove the fear of their peers, compromise, and all intimidation from them. We pray that they would walk in an anointing to preach the Gospel with power, and we pray that they would see a flood of undeniable healings and miracles on campuses when they pray for others.

 Thank you for the Christian students who will step into leadership roles. We bless them and ask for a deep spiritual maturity, unshakeable courage, and the zeal of the Lord. Let them not be distracted from their high calling in You.

Please give the students a great hunger for Your Word! May thousands of Bible studies spring up on campuses across our nation, led by students who are wise beyond their years, faithful to the truth, and effective apologists for the gospel. Release the fivefold ministry (Eph. 4:11) in our schools, we pray. Amen.

Prayer For Our Students Kindergarten Through College Day 3 of 21

Prayer For Our Students Kindergarten Through College
Day 3 of 21

Father, we come to You on behalf of the broken-hearted, those young people and children who have been rejected, neglected, emotionally wounded, or physically or sexually abused.

So many young people in our schools are crushed by depression, tormented by suicidal thoughts, and facing poverty and broken homes. We bring all these before You knowing that You are close to them in a special way and that Your Father’s heart grieves for them.

We pray in particular for those who feel like outcasts – those who have been rejected by their family or friends, and those who are mocked or bullied at school.

Thank you that You will never leave them or forsake them. We ask that the comfort of the Holy Spirit would be so real to them and that You would break through the dark clouds and dispel the demonic powers that oppress them!

We pray for the thousands of teens and children suffering extreme mental anguish that drives them to intentionally harm themselves by cutting with blades, swallowing harmful substances or even burning themselves. Lord, we cry out to You for deliverance and deep healing for them.

We resist the spiritual root of rejection and self-hatred and the demonic lie that makes young people believe God is angry with them and has rejected them.

Let the orphan mentality and the belief that they are abandoned and alone in this world be dramatically changed by an encounter with someone who will love them unconditionally.

We declare this truth over them: that Your love is everlasting and that they are accepted in the Beloved. May they experience this reality and may the hearts of an entire young generation be healed as they discover You as their Father, welcoming the prodigal!

Please raise spiritual mothers and fathers who will love them, minister to them, disciple them, and help bring healing to them. In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

Prayer For Our Students Kindergarten Through College Day 2 of 21

Prayer For Our Students Kindergarten Through College
Day 2 of 21

 Heavenly Father, we pray for every student who feels hopeless, even suicidal. May the spirit of heaviness that weighs them down be dispelled now!

In Jesus’ name, we pray for students struggling with thoughts of suicide, depression, hopelessness and despair. Father, replace such ideas with convictions of love and care in the lives of our students. Lord, please break the power of the spirit of death and suicide and bring Life to them.

Lord, send someone to encourage them today and let them know how much You love them. Show Yourself as the God of HOPE. May each student overflow with hope by the Holy Spirit, according to the authority of Your Word.

We even ask that You would send heavenly angels to the desperate and
the hopeless to comfort them and bring them Your answers, even as You
did for Hagar, Elijah, and Gideon in their time of crises. Man’s solutions are
not enough. Help our students put their trust in You.

We thank you in advance for miraculous and measurable answers to our
prayers. Thank you for financial breakthroughs, for radical changes in
test scores in struggling schools that suddenly (and perhaps mysteriously)
improve, and for a reduction in suicides and drug use. Thank You for responding to the prayers and the cry of Your people.

In this season, please once again do undeniable miracles and restore life,
giving hope to staff, students, and families – especially those in desperate
circumstances.

In the face of troubling trends in our schools, we boldly declare, by faith,
that there is hope in a faithful God Who does above what we can ask or
think!

We affirm Your Word and agree with thousands of others praying today
that You have a future, a hope, and a plan to prosper every student in our schools and our city!

We know that there is a very real and invisible enemy of all our souls, but
especially targeted is the next generation. We pray that God would override his efforts and invite every student to know His love. Let the plans and
purposes of God be established in their lives, and let God’s reign, His
Kingdom, come to our students, in Jesus’ name.

Prayer For Our Schools Kindergarten Through College Day 1 of 20

Prayer For Our Schools Kindergarten Through College

Day 1 of 20

Father, we thank you for this incredible promise that You will bring refreshing to the driest places! Where it has been spiritually dry, we ask for streams of the Holy Spirit – the Water of Life – to now pour through our schools to cause our children to thrive and flourish like poplar trees by the riverside.

We ask for an unprecedented outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our schools and that You would flood the atmosphere of the classrooms with Your Holy presence!

In Jesus Name, Amen

Like Christ by Andrew Murray Lesson 6

Like Christ
by Andrew Murray

Lesson 6. Like Christ: Crucified With Him.

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."—Gal. 2:20; 6:14.

Taking up the cross was always spoken of by Christ as the test of discipleship. On three different occasions (Matt. 10:38; 16:24; Luke 14:27) we find the words repeated, "If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me." While the Lord was still on His way to the cross, this expression—taking up the cross, was the most appropriate to indicate that conformity to Him to which the disciple is called.

See note.

Christians entirely miss the point of the Lord’s command when they refer the taking up of the cross only to the crosses or trials of life. It means much more. The cross means death. Taking up the cross means going out to die. It is just in the time of prosperity that we most need to bear the cross. Taking up the cross and following Him is nothing less than living every day with our own life and will given up to death.

But now that He has been crucified, the Holy Spirit gives another expression, in which our entire conformity to Christ is still more powerfully set forth,—the believing disciple is himself crucified with Christ. The cross is the chief mark of the Christian as of Christ: the crucified Christ and the crucified Christian belong to each other. One of the chief elements of likeness to Christ consists in being crucified with Him. Whoever wishes to be like Him must seek to understand the secret of fellowship with His cross.

At first sight the Christian who seeks conformity to Jesus is afraid of this truth: he shrinks from the painful suffering and death with which the thought of the cross is connected. As His spiritual discernment becomes clearer, however, this word becomes all his hope and joy, and he glories in the cross, because it makes him a partner in a death and victory that has already been
accomplished, and in which the deliverance from the powers of the flesh and of the world has been secured to him. To understand this we must notice carefully the language of Scripture.

"I am crucified with Christ," Paul says; "nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me"! Through faith in Christ we become partakers of Christ’s life. That life is a life that has passed through the death of the cross, and in which the power of that death is always working. When I receive that life, I receive at the same time the full power of the death on the cross working in me
in its never-ceasing energy. "I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me"; the life I now live is not my own life, but the life of the Crucified One, is the life of the cross. The being crucified is a thing past and done: "Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him;" "They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh;" "I glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world had been crucified unto me, and I unto the world." These texts all speak of something that has been done in Christ, and into which I am admitted by faith.

It is of great consequence to understand this, and to give bold utterance to the truth: I have been crucified with Christ; I have crucified the flesh. I thus learn how perfectly I share in the finished work of Christ. If I am crucified and dead with Him, then I am a partner in His life and victory. I learn to understand the position I must take to allow the power of that cross and that death to
manifest itself in mortifying or making dead the old man and the flesh, in destroying the body of sin (Rom. 6:6).

For there is still a great work for me to do. But that work is not to crucify myself: I have been crucified; the old man was crucified, so the Scripture speaks. But what I have to do is always to the regard and treat it as crucified, and not to suffer it to come down from the cross. I must maintain my crucifixion position; I must keep the flesh in the place of crucifixion. To realize the force of this I must notice an important distinction. I have been crucified and am dead: the old Adam was crucified, but is not yet dead. When I gave myself to my crucified Savior, sin and flesh and all, He took me wholly; I with my evil nature was taken up with Him in His crucifixion. But here a separation took place. In fellowship with Him I was freed from the life of the flesh; I myself died with Him; in the inmost center of my being I received new life: Christ lives in me. But the flesh, in
which I yet am, the old man that was crucified with Him, remained condemned to an accursed death, but is not yet dead. And now it is my calling, in fellowship with and in the strength of my Lord, to see that the old nature be kept nailed to the cross, until the time comes that it is entirely destroyed. All its desires and affections cry out, "Come down from the cross, save yourself and us." It is my duty to glory in the cross, and with my whole heart to maintain the dominion of the cross, and to set my seal to the sentence that has been pronounced, to make dead every uprising of sin, as already crucified, and so not to suffer it to have dominion. This is what Scripture means when it says, "If you through the spirit make to the deeds of the body die, you shall live" (Rom.8:13). "Make dead therefore your members which are upon the earth." Thus I continually and voluntarily acknowledge that in my flesh dwells no good thing; that my Lord is Christ the Crucified One; that I have been crucified and am dead in Him; that the flesh has been crucified and, though not yet dead, has been forever given over to the death of the cross. And so I live like Christ, in very deed crucified with Him.

In order to enter fully into the meaning and the power of this fellowship of the crucifixion of our Lord, two things are especially necessary to those who are Christ’s followers. The first is the clear consciousness of this their fellowship with the Crucified One through faith. At conversion they became partakers of it without fully understanding it. Many remain in ignorance all their life long through want of spiritual knowledge. Brother, pray that the Holy Spirit may reveal to you your union to the Crucified One. "I have been crucified with Christ;" "I glory in the cross of Christ, through which I have been crucified to the world." Take such words of Holy Scripture, and by prayer and meditation make them your own, with a heart that expects and asks the Holy Spirit to make them living and effectual within you. Look upon yourself in the light of God as what you really are, "crucified with Christ." Then you will find the grace for the second thing you need to enable you to live as a crucified one, in whom Christ lives. You will be able always to look upon and to treat the flesh and the world as nailed to the cross. The old nature seeks continually to assert itself, and to make you feel as if it is expecting too much that you should always live this
crucifixion life. Your only safety is in fellowship with Christ. "Through Him and His cross," says Paul, "I have been crucified to the world." In Him the crucifixion is an accomplished reality; in Him you have died, but also have been made alive: Christ lives in you. With this fellowship of His cross let it be with you, the deeper the better: it brings you into deeper communion with His life
and His love. To be crucified with Christ means freed from the power of sin: a redeemed one, a conqueror. Remember that the Holy Spirit has been specially provided to glorify Christ in you, to reveal within you, and make your very own all that is in Christ for you. Do not be satisfied, with so many others, only to know the cross in its power to atone: the glory of the cross is, that it was not only to Jesus, but is to us too, the path to life, but that each moment it can become to us the power that destroys sin and death, and keeps us in the power of the eternal life. Learn from your Savior the holy art of using it for this. Faith in the power of the cross and its victory will day by day make dead the deeds of the body, the lusts of the flesh. This faith will teach you to count the cross, with its continual death to self. all your glory. Because you regard the cross, not as one who
is still on the way to crucifixion, with the prospect of a painful death, but as one to whom the crucifixion is past, who already lives in Christ, and now only bears the cross as the blessed instrument through which the body of sin is done away (Rom. 6:6). The banner under which complete victory over sin and the world is to be won is the cross.

Above all, remember what still remains the chief thing, It is Jesus, the living loving Savior, who Himself enables you to be like Him in all things. His sweet fellowship, His tender love, His heavenly power, make it a blessedness and joy to be like Him, the Crucified One, make the
crucifixion life a life of resurrection—joy and power. In Him the two are inseparably connected. In Him you have the strength to be always singing the triumphant song: God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

Precious Savior, I humbly ask You to show me the hidden glory of the fellowship of Your cross. The cross was my place, the place of death and curse. You became like us, and has been crucified with us. And now the cross is Your place, the place of blessing and life. And You call me to become like You, and as one who is crucified with You, to experience how entirely the cross has made me free from sin.

Lord, give me to know its full power. It is long time since I knew the power of the cross to redeem from the curse. But how long I struggled in vain as a redeemed one to overcome the power of sin, and to obey the Father as You have done! I could not break the power of sin. But now I see, this comes only when Your disciple yields himself entirely to be led by Your Holy Spirit into the fellowship of Your cross. There You give him to see how the cross has broken for ever the power of sin, and has made him free. There You, the Crucified One, live in him and impart to him Your own Spirit of whole-hearted self-sacrifice, in casting out and conquering sin. Oh. my Lord, teach me to understand this better. In this faith I say, "I have been crucified with Christ." Oh, You who loves, me to the death, not Your cross, but You the Crucified One, You are Him whom I seek, and in whom I hope. Take me, You Crucified One, and hold me fast, and teach me from moment to moment to look upon all that is of self as condemned, and only worthy to be crucified. Take me, and hold me, and teach me, from moment to moment, that in You I have all I need for a life of holiness and blessing. Amen.

Note.

"Jesus hath now many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of His cross. He hath many who desire His consolation, few His tribulation; many who are willing to share His table, few His fasting. All are willing to rejoice with Him, few will endure anything for Him. Many follow Jesus into the breaking of bread, but few to drink of the cup whereof He drank. Many glory in His miracles, few in the shame of His cross." - From Thomas à Kernpis, Of the Imitation of Christ, 2. 11. That the lovers of the Cross of Jesus are few.
To many it seems a hard speech, "Deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow Jesus." But it will be much harder to bear that other word, "Depart from me, ye cursed;" for only they who now hear and follow the word of the cross shall then have no fear of the word of condemnation. For the sign of the cross will be seen in the heaven when the Lord cometh to judgment, and all the servants of the cross, who in their lifetime have been conformed to Christ crucified, will then draw near to Christ their judge with great confidence. Why, then, dost thou fear to take up the cross which fitteth thee for the kingdom? In the cross is life, in the cross is salvation: the cross defends against all enemies: in the cross there is the infusion of all heavenly sweetness; in the cross is strength of mind, joy of spirit; the cross is the height of virtue and the perfection of sanctity. There is no happiness for the soul but in the cross. Take up, therefore, thy cross and follow Jesus, and thou shalt live forever.

"If thou bear the cross cheerfully, it will bear thee. If thou bear it unwillingly, thou makest for thyself a burden which still thou hast to bear. What saint was there ever who did not bear the cross? Even Christ must needs suffer. How then dost thou seek any other way than this, which is the royal way, the way of the sacred cross?

"He that willingly submits to the cross, to him its whole burden is changed into a sweet assurance of divine comfort. And the more the flesh is broken down by the cross, the more the spirit is strengthened by inward grace. It is not in man by nature, to bear the cross, to love the cross, to deny self, to bring the body into subjection, and willingly to endure suffering. If thou look to thyself, thou canst accomplish nothing of all this. But if thou trust in the Lord, strength shall be given thee from heaven, and the world and the flesh shall be made subject to thy rule. Set thyself, therefore, to bear manfully the cross of thy Lord, who out of love was crucified for thee.

"Know for certain thou oughtest to lead a dying life, for the more any man dieth unto himself, the more he liveth unto God. Surely, if there had been any better thing, and more profitable to man’s salvation, than bearing the cross, Christ would have showed it us by word and example. But now He calleth all who would follow Him plainly to do this one thing, daily to bear the cross." - From Thomas à Kempis, Of the Imitation of Christ, 2, 12. Of the Royal Way of the Sacred Cross.

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER By Andrew Murray Part 6– Absolute Surrender - God Blesses When You Surrender

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER
By Andrew Murray


Part 6– Absolute Surrender - God Blesses When You Surrender

God Blesses When You Surrender
This absolute surrender to God will wonderfully bless.

What Ahab said to his enemy, King Ben-hadad--"My lord, O king,
according to thy word I am yours, and all that I have"--shall we not say to our God and loving Father? If we do say it, God's blessing will come upon us. God wants us to be separate from the world; we are called to come out from the world that hates God. Come out for God, and say: "Lord, anything for You." If you say that with prayer, and speak that into God's ear, He will accept it, and He will teach you what it means.

I say again, God will bless you. You have been praying for blessing.
But do remember, there must be absolute surrender. At every tea-table
you see it. Why is tea poured into that cup? Because it is empty, and
given up for the tea. But put ink, or vinegar, or wine into it, and will they pour the tea into the vessel? And can God fill you, can God bless you if you are not absolutely surrendered to Him? He cannot. Let us believe God has wonderful blessings for us, if we will but stand up for God, and say, be it with a trembling will, yet with a believing heart:

"O God, I accept Thy demands. I am your and all that I have. Absolute
surrender is what my soul yields to You by divine grace."

You may not have such strong and clear feelings of deliverance as you
would desire to have, but humble yourselves in His sight, and acknowledge that you have grieved the Holy Spirit by your self-will, self-confidence, and self-effort. Bow humbly before him in the confession of that, and ask him to break the heart and to bring you into the dust before Him. Then, as you bow before Him, just accept God's teaching that in your flesh "there dwells no good thing" (Rom. 7:18), and that nothing will help you except another life which must come in. You must deny self once for all. Denying self must every moment be the power of your life, and then Christ will come in and take possession of you.
When was Peter delivered? When was the change accomplished? The change began with Peter weeping, and the Holy Spirit came down and filled his heart.

God the Father loves to give us the power of the Spirit. We have the
Spirit of God dwelling within us. We come to God confessing that, and
praising God for it, and yet confessing how we have grieved the Spirit.
And then we bow our knees to the Father to ask that He would strengthen
us with all might by the Spirit in the inner man, and that He would fill us with His mighty power. And as the Spirit reveals Christ to us, Christ comes to live in our hearts forever, and the self-life is cast out.

Let us bow before God in humility, and in that humility confess before Him the state of the whole Church. No words can tell the sad state of the Church of Christ on earth. I wish I had words to speak what I sometimes feel about it. Just think of the Christians around you. I do not speak of nominal Christians, or of professing Christians, but I speak of hundreds and thousands of honest, earnest Christians who are not living a life in the power of God or to His glory. So little power, so little devotion or consecration to God, so little perception of the truth that a Christian is a man utterly surrendered to God's will! Oh, we want to confess the sins of God's people around us, and to humble ourselves. We are members of that sickly body, and the sickliness of the body will hinder us, and break us down, unless we come to God, and in confession separate ourselves from partnership with worldliness, with coldness toward each other, unless we give up ourselves to be entirely and wholly for God.

How much Christian work is being done in the spirit of the flesh and in the power of self! How much work, day by day, in which human energy--our will and our thoughts about the work--is continually manifested, and in which there is but little of waiting upon God, and upon the power of the Holy Spirit! Let us make confession. But as we confess the state of the Church and the feebleness and sinfulness of work for God among us, let us come back to ourselves. Who is there who truly longs to be delivered from the power of the self-life, who truly acknowledges that it is the power of self and the flesh, and who is willing to cast all at the feet of Christ? There is deliverance.

I heard of one who had been an earnest Christian, and who spoke about
the "cruel" thought of separation and death. But you do not think that, do you? What are we to think of separation and death? This: death was the path to glory for Christ. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross. The cross was the birthplace of His everlasting glory. Do you love Christ? Do you long to be in Christ, and not like Him? Let death be to you the most desirable thing on earth--death to self, and fellowship with Christ. Separation--do you think it a hard thing to be called to be entirely free from the world, and by that separation to be united to God and His love, by separation to become prepared for living and walking with God every day? Surely one ought to say:

"Anything to bring me to separation, to death, for a life of full fellowship with God and Christ."

Come and cast this self-life and flesh-life at the feet of Jesus. Then trust Him. Do not worry yourselves with trying to understand all about it, but come in the living faith that Christ will come into you with the power of His death and the power of His life; and then the Holy Spirit will bring the whole Christ--Christ crucified and risen and living in glory--into your heart.

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER By Andrew Murray Part 4 – Absolute Surrender - God Accepts It

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER
By Andrew Murray


Part 4 – Absolute Surrender

God not only claims it and works it, but God accepts it when we bring it to Him.

God Accepts Your Surrender

God works it in the secret of our heart, God urges us by the hidden power of His Holy Spirit to come and speak it out, and we have to bring and to yield to Him that absolute surrender. But remember, when you come and bring God that absolute surrender, it may, as far as your feelings or your consciousness go, be a thing of great imperfection, and you may doubt and hesitate and say:

"Is it absolute?"

But, oh, remember there was once a man to whom Christ had said:

"If you canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark 9:23).

And his heart was afraid, and he cried out: "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24).

That was a faith that triumphed over the Devil, and the evil spirit was cast out. And if you come and say: "Lord, I yield myself in absolute surrender to my God," even though it be with a trembling heart and with the consciousness: "I do not feel the power, I do not feel the determination, I do not feel the assurance," it will succeed. Be not afraid, but come just as you are, and even in the midst of your trembling the power of the Holy Spirit will work.

Have you never yet learned the lesson that the Holy Spirit works with mighty power, while on the human side everything appears feeble? Look at the Lord Jesus Christ in Gethsemane. We read that He, "through the eternal Spirit" (Heb. 9:14), offered Himself a sacrifice unto God. The Almighty Spirit of God was enabling Him to do it. And yet what agony and fear and exceeding sorrow came over Him, and how He prayed! Externally, you can see no sign of the mighty power of the Spirit, but the Spirit of God was there. And even so, while you are feeble and fighting and trembling, in faith in the hidden work of God's Spirit do not fear, but yield yourself.

 And when you do yield yourself in absolute surrender, let it be in the faith that God does now accept of it. That is the great point, and that is what we so often miss--that believers should be thus occupied with God in this matter of surrender. I pray you, be occupied with God. We want to get help, every one of us, so that in our daily life God shall be clearer to us, God shall have the right place, and be "all in all." And if we are to have that through life, let us begin now and look away from ourselves, and look up to God. Let each believe--while I, a poor
worm on earth and a trembling child of God, full of failure and sin and fear, bow here, and no one knows what passes through my heart, and while I in simplicity say, O God, I accept Thy terms; I have pleaded for blessing on myself and others, I have accepted Thy terms of absolute surrender--while your heart says that in deep silence, remember there is a God present that takes note of it, and writes it down in His book, and there is a God present who at that very moment takes possession of you. You may not feel it, you may not realize it, but God takes possession if you will trust Him.

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER By Andrew Murray Part 3 – Absolute Surrender - God Accomplishes Your Surrender

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER
By Andrew Murray

Part 3 – Absolute Surrender

God not only claims it, but God will work it Himself.

God Accomplishes Your Surrender

I am sure there is many a heart that says: "Ah, but that absolute surrender implies so much!" Someone says: "Oh, I have passed through so much trial and suffering, and there is so much of the self-life still remaining, and I dare not face the entire giving of it up, because I know it will cause so much trouble and agony."

Alas! alas! that God's children have such thoughts of Him, such cruel thoughts. Oh, I come to you with a message, fearful and anxious one. God does not ask you to give the perfect surrender in your strength, or by the power of your will; God is willing to work it in you. Do we not read: "It is God that works in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13)? And that is what we should seek for--to go on our faces before God, until our hearts learn to believe that the everlasting God Himself will come in to turn out what is wrong, to conquer what is evil, and to work what is well-pleasing in His blessed sight. God Himself will work it in you.

Look at the men in the Old Testament, like Abraham. Do you think it was by accident that God found that man, the father of the faithful and the Friend of God, and that it was Abraham himself, apart from God, who had such faith and such obedience and such devotion? You know it is not so. God raised him up and prepared him as an instrument for His glory.

Did not God say to Pharaoh: "For this cause have I raised you up, for to show in you my power" (Ex. 9:16)?

And if God said that of him, will not God say it far more of every child of His?

Oh, I want to encourage you, and I want you to cast away every fear. Come with that feeble desire; and if there is the fear which says: "Oh, my desire is not strong enough, I am not willing for everything that may come, I do not feel bold enough to say I can conquer everything"--I
pray you, learn to know and trust your God now. Say: "My God, I am willing that You should make me willing." If there is anything holding you back, or any sacrifice you are afraid of making, come to God now, and prove how gracious your God is, and be not afraid that He will command from you what He will not bestow.

God comes and offers to work this absolute surrender in you. All these searchings and hungerings and longings that are in your heart, I tell you they are the drawings of the divine magnet, Christ Jesus. He lived a life of absolute surrender, He has possession of you; He is living in your heart by His Holy Spirit. You have hindered and hindered Him terribly, but He desires to help you to get hold of Him entirely. And He comes and draws you now by His message and words. Will you not come and trust God to work in you that absolute surrender to Himself? Yes, blessed be God, He can do it, and He will do it.

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER By Andrew Murray Part 2 – Absolute Surrender - God Expects Your Surrender

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER
By Andrew Murray

Part 2 – Absolute Surrender

God Expects Your Surrender -

Yes, it has its foundation in the very nature of God. God cannot do
otherwise. Who is God? He is the Fountain of life, the only Source of
existence and power and goodness, and throughout the universe there is
nothing good but what God works. God has created the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the flowers, and the trees, and the grass; and are
they not all absolutely surrendered to God? Do they not allow God to
work in them just what He pleases? When God clothes the lily with its
beauty, is it not yielded up, surrendered, given over to God as He
works in its beauty? And God's redeemed children, oh, can you think
that God can work His work if there is only half or a part of them
surrendered? God cannot do it. God is life, and love, and blessing, and
power, and infinite beauty, and God delights to communicate Himself to
every child who is prepared to receive Him; but ah! this one lack of
absolute surrender is just the thing that hinders God. And now He
comes, and as God, He claims it.

You know in daily life what absolute surrender is. You know that
everything has to be given up to its special, definite object and
service. I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely
surrendered to the one work of writing, and that pen must be absolutely
surrendered to my hand if I am to write properly with it. If another
holds it partly, I cannot write properly. This coat is absolutely given
up to me to cover my body. This building is entirely given up to
religious services. And now, do you expect that in your immortal being,
in the divine nature that you have received by regeneration, God can
work His work, every day and every hour, unless you are entirely given
up to Him? God cannot. The Temple of Solomon was absolutely surrendered to God when it was dedicated to Him. And every one of us is a temple of God, in which God will dwell and work mightily on one condition- -absolute surrender to Him. God claims it, God is worthy of it, and without it God cannot work His blessed work in us.

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER By Andrew Murray Part 1 – Absolute Surrender

ABSOLUTE SURRENDER
By Andrew Murray


Part 1 – Absolute Surrender

"And Ben-hadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria, and warred against it. And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel into the city, and said unto him, Thus saith Ben-hadad, Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine. And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am your and all that I have" (1 Ki. 20:1-4).

What Ben Hadad asked was absolute surrender; and what Ahab gave was what was asked of him--absolute surrender. I want to use these words: "My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am yours, and all that I have," as the words of absolute surrender with which every child of God ought to yield himself to his Father. We have heard it before, but we need to hear it very definitely--the condition of God's blessing is absolute surrender of all into His hands. Praise God! If our hearts are willing for that, there is no end to what God will do for us, and to the blessing God will bestow.

 Absolute surrender--let me tell you where I got those words. I used them myself often, and you have heard them numberless times. But in Scotland once I was in a company where we were talking about the condition of Christ's Church, and what the great need of the Church and of believers is; and there was in our company a godly worker who has much to do in training workers, and I asked him what he would say was the great need of the Church, and the message that ought to be preached. He answered very quietly and simply and determinedly:

"Absolute surrender to God is the one thing."

The words struck me as never before. And that man began to tell how, in the workers with whom he had to deal, he finds that if they are sound on that point, even though they be backward, they are willing to be taught and helped, and they always improve; whereas others who are not sound there very often go back and leave the work. The condition for obtaining God's full blessing is absolute surrender to Him.

And now, I desire by God's grace to give to you this message--that your God in Heaven answers the prayers which you have offered for blessing on yourselves and for blessing on those around you by this one demand: Are you willing to surrender yourselves absolutely into His hands? What is our answer to be? God knows there are hundreds of hearts who have said it, and there are hundreds more who long to say it but hardly dare to do so. And there are hearts who have said it, but who have yet miserably failed, and who feel themselves condemned because they did not find the secret of the power to live that life. May God have a word for all! Let me say, first of all, that God claims it from us.

Like Christ by Andrew Murray Lesson 5

Like Christ

by Andrew Murray

Lesson 5. Like Christ: In Suffering Wrong.

For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. 1 Peter 2:19, 20

It is in connection with a very everyday matter that Peter gave voice to those weighty words concerning Christ as our Surety and Example. He is writing to servants, who at that time were mostly slaves. He teaches them "to be subject with all fear," not only to the good and gentle, but also to the difficult. For, he writes, if any one does wrong and is punished for it, to bear it patiently is no special grace. No; but if one does well, and suffers for it, and takes it patiently, this is acceptable with God; such bearing of wrong is Christ-like. In bearing our sins as Surety, Christ suffered wrong from man; after His example we must be ready to suffer wrongfully too.

There is almost nothing harder to bear than injustice from our fellow-men. It is not only the pain: there is the feeling of humiliation and injustice, and the consciousness of our rights that asserts itself. In what our fellow-creatures do to us, it is not easy at once to recognize the will of God, who thus allows us to be tried, to see if we have truly taken Christ as our example. Let us study that example. From Him we may learn what it was that gave Him the power to bear injuries patiently.

Christ believed in suffering as the will of God. He had found it in Scripture that the servant of God should suffer. He had made Himself familiar with the thought, so that when suffering came, it did not take Him by surprise. He expected it. He knew that this way He must be perfected; and so His first thought was not how to be delivered from it, but how to glorify God in it. This enabled Him to bear the greatest injustice quietly. He saw God’s hand in it.

Christian! would you have strength to suffer wrong in the spirit in which Christ did? Accustom yourself in everything, that happens, to recognize the hand and will of God. This lesson is of more consequence than you think. Whether it be some great wrong that is done you, or some little offense that you meet in daily life, before you fix your thoughts on the person who did it, first be still, and remember, God allows me to come into this trouble to see if I shall glorify Him in it. This trial, be it the greatest or least, is allowed by God, and is His will concerning, me. Let us first recognize and submit to God’s will in it. Then in the rest of soul which this grieves, I shall receive wisdom to know how to behave in it. With my eye turned from man to God, suffering wrong is not so hard as it seems.

Christ also believed that God would care for His rights and honor. There is an innate sense of right within us that comes from God. But he who lives in the visible, wants his honor to be vindicated at once here below. He who lives in the eternal, and as seeing the Invisible, is satisfied to leave the vindication of his rights and honor in God’s hands; he knows that they are safe with Him. It was like this with the Lord Jesus. Peter writes, "He committed Himself to Him that judges righteously." It was a settled thing between the Father and the Son, that the Son was not to care for His own honor, but only for the Father’s. The Father would care for the Son’s honor. Let the Christian just follow Christ’s example in this, it will give him such rest and peace. Give your right and your honor into God’s keeping. Meet every offense that man commits against you with the firm trust that God will watch over and care for you. Commit it to Him who judges righteously.

Further, Christ believed in the power of suffering love. We all admit that there is no power like that of love. Through it Christ overcomes the enmity of the world. Every other victory gives only a forced submission: love alone gives the true victory over an enemy, by converting him into a friend. We all acknowledge the truth of this as a principle, but we shrink from the application. Christ believed it, and acted accordingly. He said too, I shall have my revenge: but His revenue was that of love, bringing enemies as friends to His feet. He believed that by silence and submission, and suffering and bearing wrong, He would win the cause, because this way love would have its triumph.

And this is what He desires of us too. In our sinful nature there is more faith in might and right than in the heavenly power of love. But he who would be like Christ must follow Him in this also, that He seeks to conquer evil with good. The more another does him wrong, the more he feels called to love him. Even if it be needed for the public welfare that justice should punish the offender, he takes care that there be in it nothing of personal feeling; as far as he is concerned, he forgives and loves.

Ah, what a difference it would make in Christendom and in our churches, if Christ’s example were followed! If each one who was reviled, "reviled not again if each one who suffered, threatened not,but committed himself to Him that judges righteously." Fellow-Christians, this is literally what the Father would have us do. Let us read and read again the words of Peter, until our soul be filled with the thought, "If, when you do good, and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God." [*See Note.]

In ordinary Christian life, where we mostly seek to fulfill our calling as redeemed ones in our own strength, such a conformity to the Lord’s image is an impossibility. But in a life of full surrender, where we have given all into His hands, in the faith that He will work all in us, there the glorious expectation is awakened, that the imitation of Christ in this is indeed within our reach. For the command to suffer like Christ has come in connection with the teaching, "Christ also suffered for us, so that we, being dead to sins, might live unto righteousness."

Beloved fellow-Christian! Would you not love to be like Jesus, and in bearing injuries act as He Himself would have acted in your place? Is it not a glorious prospect in everything, even in this too,to be conformed to Him? For our strength it is too high; in His strength it is possible. Only surrender yourself day by day to Him to be in all things just what He would have you to be. Believe that He lives in heaven to be the life and the strength of each one who seeks to walk in His footsteps. Yield yourself to be one with the suffering, crucified Christ, that you may understand what it is to be dead to sins, and to live unto righteousness. And it will be your joyful experience what wonderful power there is in Jesus’ death, not only to atone for sin, but to break its power; and in His resurrection, to make you live unto righteousness. You shall find it equally blessed to follow fully the footsteps of the suffering Saviour, as it has been to trust fully and only in that suffering for atonement and redemption. Christ will be as precious as your Example as He has ever been as your Surety. Because He took your sufferings upon Himself, you will lovingly take His sufferings upon yourself. And bearing wrong will become a glorious part of the fellowship with His-holy sufferings; a glorious mark of being conformed to His most holy likeness; a most blessed fruit of the true life of faith.

O Lord my God, I have heard Your precious word: If any man endure grief, suffering wrongfully, and take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. This is indeed a sacrifice that is well-pleasing to You, a work that Your own grace alone has done, a fruit of the suffering of Your beloved Son, of the example He left, and the power He gives in virtue of His having destroyed the power of sin.

O my Father, teach me and all Your children to aim at nothing less than complete conformity to Your dear Son in this trait of His blessed image. Lord my God, I would now, once for all, give up the keeping of my honor and my rights into Your hands, never more again myself to take charge of them. You will care for them most perfectly. May my only care be the honor and the rights of my Lord!

I specially beseech You to fill me with faith in the conquering power of suffering love. Give me to apprehend fully how the suffering Lamb of God teaches us that patience and silence and suffering avail more with God, and therefore with man too, than might or right. O my Father, I must, I would walk in the footsteps of my Lord Jesus. Let Your Holy Spirit, and the light of Your love and presence, be my guide and strength. Amen.

Note.

"What is it thou sayest, my son? Cease from complaining, when thou considerest my passion, and the sufferings of my other saints. Do not say, "To suffer this from such a one, it is more than I can or may do. He has done me great wrong, and accused me of things I never thought of. Of another I might bear it, if I thought I deserved it, but not from him!" Such thoughts are very foolish: instead of thinking of patience in suffering, or of Him by whom it will be crowded, we only are occupied with the injury done to us, and the person who has done it. No, he deserves not the name of patient who is only willing to suffer as much as he thinks proper, and from whom he pleases. The truly patient man asks not from whom he suffers, his superior, his equal, or his inferior; whether from a good and holy man, or one who is perverse and unworthy. But from whomsoever, how much soever, or how often soever wrong is done him, he accepts it all as from the hand of God, and counts it gain. For with God it is impossible that anything suffered for His sake should pass without its reward.

"O Lord, let that become possible to me by Thy grace, which by nature seems impossible. Grant that the suffering wrong may by Thy love be made pleasant to me. To suffer for Thy sake is most healthful to my soul." - From Thomas à Kempis, Of the Imitation of Christ, 3. 19, That the suffering of wrong is the proof of true patience.

Like Christ by Andrew Murray Lesson 4.

Like Christ
by Andrew Murray

Lesson 4. Like Christ: Our Head.

"For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps: who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, might live for  righteousness. By whose stripes we were healed”—1 Pet. 2:21, 24

The call to follow Christ’s example, and to walk in His footsteps, is so high that there is every reason to ask wondering, How can it be expected of sinful men that they should walk like the Son of God? The answer that most people give is practically, that it cannot really be expected: the command sets before us an ideal, beautiful but unattainable. [*See Note.]

The answer Scripture gives is different. It points us to the wonderful relationship in which we stand to Christ. Because our union to Him sets in operation within us a heavenly life with all its powers, therefore the claim may be made in downright earnest that we should live as Christ did. The realization of this relationship between Christ and His people is necessary for every one who is in earnest in following Christ’s example.

And what is now this relationship? It is threefold. Peter speaks in this passage of Christ as our Surety, our Example, and our Head.

Christ is our Surety. "Christ suffered for us",—"Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree." As Surety, Christ suffered and died in our stead. He bore our sin, and broke at once its curse and power. As Surety, He did what we could not do, what we now need not do.

Christ is also our Example too. In one sense His work is unique; in another we have to follow Him in it; we must do as He did, live and suffer like Him. "Christ suffered for us, leaving us an Example" that we should follow in His footsteps. His suffering as my Surety calls me to a suffering like His as my Example. But is this reasonable? In His suffering as Surety He had the power of the Divine nature, and how can I be expected in the weakness of the flesh to suffer as He did? Is there not an impassable gulf between these two things which Peter unites so closely, the suffering as Surety and the suffering, as Example? No, there is a blessed third aspect of Christ’s work, which bridges that gulf, which is the connecting link between Christ as Surety and Christ as Example, which makes it possible for us in very deed to take the Surety as Example, and live and suffer and die like Him.

Christ is also our Head. In this His Suretyship and His Example have their root and unity. Christ is the second Adam. As a believer I am spiritually one with Him. In this union He lives in me, and imparts to me the power of His finished work, the power of His sufferings and death and resurrection. It is on this ground we are taught in Romans 6 and elsewhere that the Christian is indeed dead to sin and alive to God. The very life that Christ lives, the life that passed through death, and the power of that death, work in the believer, so that he is dead, and has risen again with Christ. It is this thought Peter gives utterance to when he says: "Who Himself bore our sins in His own body upon the tree," not alone that we through His death might receive forgiveness, but "that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness." As we have part in the spiritual death of the first Adam, having really died to God in him, so we have part in the second Adam, having really died to sin in Him, and in Him being made alive again to God. Christ is not only our Surety who lived and died for us, our Example who showed us how to live and die, but also our Head, with whom we are one, in whose death we have died, with whose life we now live. This gives us the power to follow our Surety as our Example: Christ being our Head is the bond that makes the believing on the Surety and the following of the Example inseparably one.

These three are one. The three truths may not be separated from each other. And yet this happens but too often. There are some who wish to follow Christ’s Example without faith in His atonement. They seek within themselves the power to live like Him: their efforts must be vain. There are others who hold fast to the Suretyship but neglect the Example. They believe in redemption through the blood of the cross, but neglect the footsteps of Him who bore it. Faith in the atonement is indeed the foundation of the building, but it is not all. Theirs too is a deficient Christianity, with no true view of sanctification, because they do not see how, along with faith on Christ’s atonement, following His Example is indispensably necessary.

There are still others who have received these two truths,—Christ as Surety and Christ as Example, —and yet want something. They feel constrained to follow Christ as Example in what He did as Surety, but want the power. They do not rightly understand how this following His Example can really be attained. What they need is, the clear insight as to what Scripture teaches of Christ as Head. Because the Surety is not some one outside of me, but One in whom I am, and who is in me, therefore it is that I can become like Him. His very life lives in me. He lives Himself in me, whom He bought with His blood. To follow His footsteps is a duty, because it is a possibility, the natural result of the wonderful union between Head and members. it is only when this is understood rightly that the blessed truth of Christ’s Example will take its right place. If Jesus Himself through his life union will work in me the life likeness, then my duty becomes plain, but glorious. I have, on the one side, to gaze on His Example so as to know and follow it. On the other, to abide in Him, and open my heart to the blessed workings of His life in me. As surely as He conquered sin and its
curse for me, will He conquer it in its power in me. What He began by His death for me, He will perfect by His life in me. Because my Surety is also my Head, His Example must and will be the rule of my life.

There is a saying of Augustine that is often quoted: "Lord I give what You commanded, and command what You will" This holds good here. If the Lord, who lives in me, gives what He requires of me, then no requirement can be too high. Then I have the courage to gaze upon His holy Example in all its height and breadth, and to accept of it as the law of my conduct. It is no longer merely a command telling what I must be, but a promise of what I shall be. There is nothing that weakens the power of Christ’s Example so much as the thought that we cannot really walk like Him. Do not listen to such thoughts. The perfect likeness in heaven is begun on earth, can grow with each day, and become more visible as life goes on. As certain and mighty as the work of surety which Christ, your Head, completed once for all, is the renewal after His own Image, which He is still working out. Let this double blessing make the cross doubly precious: Our
Head suffered as a Surety, that in union with us he might bear sin for us. Our Head offered as an Example, that He might show us what the path is in which, in union with Himself, He would lead us to victory and to glory. The suffering Christ is our Head, our Surety, and our Example.

And so the great lesson I have to learn is the wonderful truth that it is just in that mysterious path of suffering, in which He worked out our atonement and redemption, that we are to follow His footsteps, and that the full experience of that redemption depends upon the personal fellowship in
that suffering. "Christ suffered for us, leaving us an Example." May the Holy Spirit reveal to me what this means.

Precious Savior! how shall I thank You for the work that You have done as Surety? Standing in the place of me a guilty sinner, You have borne my sins in Your body on the cross. That cross was my due. You took it, and was made like me, that the cross might be changed into a place of blessing and life.

And now You called me to the place of crucifixion as the place of blessing and life, where I may be made like You, and may find in You power to suffer and to cease from sin. As my Head, You were my Surety to suffer and die with me; as my Head, You are my Example that I might suffer and die with You.

Precious Savior! I confess that I have too little understood this. Your Suretyship was more to me than Your Example. I rejoiced greatly that You have borne the cross for me, but too little that I like You and with You might also bear the cross, The atonement of the cross was more precious to me than the fellowship of the cross; the hope in Your redemption more precious than the personal fellowship with Yourself.

Forgive me this, dear Lord, and teach me to find my happiness in union with You, my Head, not more in Your Suretyship than in Your Example. And grant, that in my meditations as to how I am to follow You, my faith may become stronger and brighter: Jesus is my Example because He is
my life. I must and can be like Him, because I am one with Him. Grant this, my blessed Lord, for Your love’s sake. Amen.

Note.

"Thomas à Kempis has said, "All men wish to be with Christ, and to belong to His people; but few  are really willing to follow the life of Christ." There are many who imagine that to imitate Jesus  Christ is a specially advanced state in the Christian life, to which only a few elect can attain: they think that one can be a real Christian if he only confesses his weakness and sin, and holds fast to  the Word and Sacrament, without attaining any real confirm to the  life of Christ; they even count it pride and fanaticism if one venture to say that conformity to the likeness of Jesus Christ is an indispensable sign of the true Christian. And yet our Lord says to all without exception: "He that does not take his cross, and follow after me, is not worthy of me;" He mentions expressly the most difficult thing in His life—the cross, that which includes all else. And Peter writes not to some, but to the whole Church: Christ has left us an Example that we should follow His footsteps. It is a sad sign that these unmistakeable commands have been so darkened in our modern Christianity, that our leading ministers and church members have quietly, as by common consent, agreed to rob these words of their sting. A false dogmatic must bear no small share of the blame. To defend the Divinity of our Saviour against unbelief, men have presented and defended His Divine nature with such exclusiveness, that it became impossible to form any real living conception of His humanity.

It is not enough that we admit that Christ was a true man; no one can form any true idea of this humanity who is ever afraid to lose the true Christ, if he does not every moment ascribe to Him Divine power and omniscience. For, of a truth, if Christ’s suffering and cross be only and altogether something supernatural, we must cease to speak of the imitation of Christ in any true or real sense of the word. Oh, the gulf of separation which comes between the life of Christ and the life of Christians, when the relation between them is only an external one! And how slow and slothful the Church of our day is to apply the great and distinct rule so clearly laid down in the life of Christ, to the filling of these gulfs and the correcting of the disorders of our modern life. The Church of Christ will not be brought again out of its confusions until the faithful actual imitation
of her Lord and Head again become the banner round which she rallies His disciples." - From M. Diemer, Een nieuw boek over de navolging van Jesus Christus (A new book on the imitation of
Jesus Christ).