Do you desire in this time of discouragement to return to the true life according to the promise? My counsel is: if you know that you have given yourself to God with a perfect heart, then rest in silence before Him and hold fast your integrity. Do this, and you will know God.
If you are sure that you have set yourself before God as an empty, purified vessel, then continue to regard yourself so and keep silent before Him. If you have believed that God has received you to fill you as a purified vessel - purified through Jesus Christ and by your entire surrender to Him - then abide in this attitude day by day. You may expect the blessing to grow and begin to flow. "He that believeth shall not be ashamed" (Isaiah 28:16).
Persevere In Self Denial
In your surrender you have said in truth and uprightness that you are prepared to sacrifice and forsake all in order to win this pearl of the Kingdom of heaven. This consecration was acceptable to God. But you have not yet fully understood the importance of the words you have used. The Lord has still much to teach you concerning what the individual self is, how deeply rooted it is in your nature, and how utterly corrupt as well as deeply hidden it is.
Be willing to make room for the Spirit by a constant, daily denial of the self-life. You may be sue that He will always be willing to come and fill the empty place. You have forsaken and sacrificed everything as far as you know, but keep your mind open to the teaching of the Spirit. He will lead you farther on and let you see that when the sacrifice of everything becomes the rule in His Church, then the blessing will again break forth like an overflowing stream.
It is surprising how sometimes a very little thing may hinder the continuance in the increase of the blessing. It may, for example, be a little disagreement between friends, where they are not willing to forgive and forbear at once according to the law of Christ. Or it may be some unobserved yielding to oversensitiveness or to ambition which is not prepared to take the lowest place. Or it may be the possession or use of earthly property as if it were our own.
It may also be in connection with things that are lawful and in themselves innocent, which however, do not harmonize with us in our profession of being led by the Spirit of God. For here, like the Lord Jesus in His poverty, we are bound to show that the heavenly portion we possess is itself sufficient to satisfy all our desires. Or it may be in connection with doubtful things, in which we give way too easily to the lust of the flesh.
Christian, do you really desire to enjoy the full measure of the blessing of the Spirit? Then, before temptation comes, train yourself to understand the fundamental law of the imitation of Jesus and of full discipleship and forsake all. Allow yourself also to be strengthened and drawn into the observance of it by the sure promise of the "hundredfold in this life." A full blessing will be given you, a measure shaken together and running over.
~Andrew Murray~
(continued with # 33 - "Sacrifice and Giving")
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