Sacrifice and Giving
God is love. His whole being is nothing but a surrender of Himself in love to be the life of the creature and to make the creature participate in His holiness and blessedness. He blesses and serves all who live. His glory as God is that he puts all that He has at the disposal of His creatures.
Jesus Christ is the Son of God's love, the bearer, bringers, and the dispenser of the love. What God is as invisible in heaven, He was as visible on earth. He came, He lived, He suffered, and He died only to glorify the Father to let it be seen how glorious the Father in His love is. He came to show that in the Godhead there is no other purpose than to bless men and make them happy and to manifest the highest honor and blessedness of any being is to give and to sacrifice.
The Holy Spirit came as the Spirit of the Father and the Son to make us partakers of this divine nature. The Spirit sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts to secure the indwelling of the Son and His love to such an extent that Christ may be formed within us, and our whole inner man will bear the imprint of His likeness.
Hence, when any soul seeks and receives the fullness of the Spirit, is it not perfectly evident that he can enjoy this blessing only as he is prepared to give himself to a life in the service of love? The Spirit comes to expel the life of self and self-seeking. The fullness of the Spirit presupposes a willingness to consecrate ourselves to the blessing of others as the servants of all. The Spirit is the outflowing of the life of God. If we will only yield ourselves to Him, He will become the river of living water, flowing from the depths of our heart.
If you want the blessing increased begin to live only in order that the love of God may work through you. Love all around you with the love of God which is in you through the Spirit. Love the children of God cordially, even the weakest and most perverse. Exercise and exhibit your love in every possible way. Love the unsaved. Present yourself to the Spirit to love Him. Then love will constrain you to speak, to work, to give, and to pray.
If there is no open door for working, or if you have not the strength for it, the door of prayer is always open, and power can be obtained at the mercy seat. Embrace the whole world in your love, because Christ, who is in your heart, belongs also to the unsaved. The Spirit is the power of Christ for redeeming them. Like God and Jesus and the Spirit, live wholly to bless others. Then the blessing will stream forth and become overflowing.
~Andrew Murray~
(continued with#34 - "Let Jesus Christ Be Everything")
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