With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 150

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I do this, not because I'm a powerful prayer warrior, but because I'm not. Murray was. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

What a view is here opened up to us of the place the words of God in Christ are to have in our spiritual life, and especially in our prayer. In a man’s words he reveals himself. In his promises he gives himself away, he binds himself to the one who receives his promise.
In his commands he sets forth his will, seeks to make himself master of him whose obedience he claims, to guide and use him as if he were part of himself. It is through our words that spirit holds fellowship with spirit, that the spirit of one man passes over and transfers itself into another. It is through the words of a man, heard and accepted, and held fast and obeyed, that he can impart himself to another. But all this in a very relative and limited sense.
But when God, the infinite Being, in whom everything is life and power, spirit and truth, in the very deepest meaning of the words,—when God speaks forth Himself in His words, He does indeed give HIMSELF, His Love and His Life, His Will and His Power, to those who receive these words, in a reality passing comprehension. In every promise He puts Himself in our power to lay hold of and possess; in every command He puts Himself in our power for us to share with Him His Will, His Holiness, His Perfection. In God’s Word God gives us HIMSELF; His Word is nothing less than the Eternal Son, Christ Jesus. And so all Christ’s words are God’s words, full of a Divine quickening life and power. ‘The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.’

Sunspots 907

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Christianity: Heart, Mind, Soul and Strength has posted a word cloud, showing how often a word is used, based on use of words in Proverbs. There are (to me, anyway) some surprises.

Computing: Gizmodo reports that Russia is assessing fines on Internet companies, mostly for disagreeing with the Russian characterization of the war with Ukraine.

Environment: NPR reports that fires in California and elsewhere in the west make storms in other parts of the US worse.

Politics: A Conversation writer examines trends in crime in the US. Is crime rising? It's complicated.

Science: A Conversation writer discusses the presence of virus genes in the human genome. There are a lot of them.

The Scientist reports that scientists have been able to determine what words a subject is thinking of, by scanning the subject's brain, non-invasively, under experimental conditions.

The Scientist also reports that swarms of bees can produce a substantial electric charge.

Gizmodo says that if you live in Pennsylvania, or states near it, you have probably seen spotted lanternflies. They are easy to identify, and, as far as I'm concerned, rather pretty. They are also destructive pests, eating several kinds of trees. I have seen them in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Here's the Wikipedia article on the insect.

NPR reports on a study that indicates that a protective mutation helped people survive the black death. It is still found in human populations, and makes carriers more susceptible to auto-immune diseases.

Sports: A Conversation writer tells us that abuse by coaches, and people with similar positions, is not just individual bad behavior, but part of the whole atmosphere of sports.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 149

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here.  His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

‘If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’—John xv. 7.
The vital connection between the word and prayer is one of the simplest and earliest lessons of the Christian life. As that newly-converted heathen put it: I pray—I speak to my father; I read—my Father speaks to me. Before prayer, it is God’s word that prepares me for it by revealing what the Father has bid me ask. In prayer, it is God’s word strengthens me by giving my faith its warrant and its plea. And after prayer, it is God’s word that brings me the answer when I have prayed, for in it the Spirit gives me to hear the Father’s voice.
Prayer is not monologue but dialogue; God’s voice in response to mine in its most essential part. Listening to God’s voice is the secret of the assurance that He will listen to mine. ‘Incline thine ear, and hear;’ ‘Give ear to me;’ Hearken to my voice;’ are words which God speaks to man as well as man to God. His hearkening will depend on ours; the entrance His words find with me, will be the measure of the power of my words with Him. What God’s words are to me, is the test of what He Himself is to me, and so of the uprightness of my desire after Him in prayer. It is this connection between His word and our prayer that Jesus points to when He says, ‘If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’ The deep importance of this truth becomes clear if we notice the other expression of which this one has taken the place. More than once Jesus had said, “Abide in me and I in you.’ His abiding in us was the complement and the crown of our abiding in Him. But here, instead of ‘Ye in me and I in you,’ He says, ‘Ye in me and my words in you.’ His words abiding are the equivalent of Himself abiding.

Sunspots 906

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Environment: Gizmodo discusses recycling. There isn't nearly as much of it as the labels on containers would imply.

CNN reports that the Mississippi River is very low. It's possible to walk (dry-footed) out to rock formations that are normally not visible, because they are under water.

Health: NPR contradicts some common misconceptions about how much water to drink.

Politics: A Christianity Today author argues that Herschel Walker has shown no sign of repentance, and he should have.

Science: The Scientist describes teaching an array of cells to play Pong, a simple video game.

The Scientist also discusses research on placing human nerve cells into rat brains. They functioned.

Phys.org reports on research into an insect pest. The pest was found to have incorporated several genes from a host plant into the insect's genome.

CNN reports on studies of two very hot exoplanets, in orbit around the same star.

Gizmodo reports that the attempt to change the trajectory of an asteroid worked -- it was changed

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 148

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here.  His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

NOTE
On a thoughtful comparison of what we mostly find in books or sermons on prayer, and the teaching of the Master, we shall find one great difference: the importance assigned to the answer to prayer is by no means the same. In the former we find a great deal on the blessing of prayer as a spiritual exercise even if there be no answer, and on the reasons why we should be content without it. God’s fellowship ought to be more to us than the gift we ask; God’s wisdom only knows what is best; God may bestow something better than what He withholds. Though this teaching looks very high and spiritual, it is remarkable that we find nothing of it with our Lord. The more carefully we gather together all He spoke on prayer, the clearer it becomes that He wished us to think of prayer simply as the means to an end, and that the answer was to be the proof that we and our prayer are acceptable to the Father in heaven. It is not that Christ would have us count the gifts of higher value than the fellowship and favour of the Father. By no means. But the Father means the answer to be the token of His favour and of the reality of our fellowship with Him. ‘To-day thy servant knoweth that I have found grace in thy sight, my lord, O king, in that the king hath fulfilled the request of his servant.’

A life marked by daily answer to prayer is the proof of our spiritual maturity; that we have indeed attained to the true abiding in Christ; that our will is truly at one with God’s will; that our faith has grown strong to see and take what God has prepared for us; that the Name of Christ and His nature have taken full possession of us; and that we have been found fit to take a place among those whom God admits to His counsels, and according to whose prayer He rules the world. These are they in whom something of man’s original dignity hath been restored, in whom, as they abide in Christ, His power as the all-prevailing Intercessor can manifest itself, in whom the glory of His Name is shown forth. Prayer is very blessed; the answer is more blessed still, as the response from the Father that our prayer, our faith, our will are indeed as He would wish them to be.

I make these remarks with the one desire of leading my readers themselves to put together all that Christ has said on prayer, and to yield themselves to the full impression of the truth that when prayer is what it should be, or rather when we are what we should be, abiding in Christ, the answer must be expected. It will bring us out from those refuges where we have comforted ourselves with unanswered prayer. It will discover to us the place of power to which Christ has appointed His Church, and which it so little occupies. It will reveal the terrible feebleness of our spiritual life as the cause of our not knowing to pray boldly in Christ’s Name. It will urge us mightily to rise to a life in the full union with Christ, and in the fulness of the Spirit, as the secret of effectual prayer. And it will so lead us on to realize our destiny: ‘At that day: Verily, verily, I say unto you, If ye shall ask anything of the Father, He will give it you in my Name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled.’ Prayer that is really, spiritually, in union with Jesus, is always answered.

Sunspots 905

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Environment: Gizmodo tells us that cacti in the US Southwest are in danger.

Humor: (or something) NPR reports on the largest pumpkin ever grown in the US.

Science: Gizmodo reports on a white paint that reflects almost all light, hence helps to keep houses, etc., cool.

Gizmodo also reports that early humans may have domesticated foxes.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 147

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here.  His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

Beloved Lord! do teach me to take this promise anew in all its simplicity, and to be sure that the only measure of Thy holy giving is our holy willing. Lord! Let each word of this Thy promise be anew made quick and powerful in my soul.

Thou sayest: Abide in me! O my Master, my Life, my All, I do abide in Thee. Give Thou me to grow up into all Thy fulness. It is not the effort of faith, seeking to cling to Thee, nor even the rest of faith, trusting Thee to keep me; it is not the obedience of the will, nor the keeping the commandments; but it is Thyself living in me and in the Father, that alone can satisfy me. It is Thy self, my Lord, no longer before me and above me, but one with me, and abiding in me; it is this I need, it is this I seek. It is this I trust Thee for. Thou sayest: Ask whatsoever ye will! Lord! I know that the life of full, deep abiding will so renew and sanctify and strengthen the will that I shall have the light and the liberty to ask great things. Lord! let my will, dead in Thy death, living in Thy life, be bold and large in its petitions. Thou sayest: It shall be done. 

O Thou who art the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, give me in Thyself the joyous confidence that Thou wilt make this word yet more wonderfully true to me than ever, because it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love Him. Amen.

Sunspots 904

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Computing: Gizmodo reports that Google has a tool that helps you keep your identity from prying eyes.

Environment: Gizmodo reports that leasing off-shore areas to wind power devices gives us more energy than leasing the same areas to oil and gas extraction, and such leasing also yields more taxes.

FiveThirtyEight on the Waffle House storm index -- it's real.

Health: Gizmodo reports on a large study that indicates that coffee (including decaf) is good for you.

Politics: (or something) NPR explains gaslighting,

Science: Gizmodo reports on a company that is using taxpayer dollars to attempt to bring mammoths, tasmanian tigers, and maybe the dodo back from extinction. There are lots of questions about such a project!

Gizmodo tells us that there is an ongoing debate about whether are frozen lakes on Mars.

The Scientist, and other outlets, reports that Svante Pääbo has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the DNA of early humanoids.

Sports:

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 146

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here.  His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

But let us not be discouraged. The abiding of the branch in the Vine is a life of neverceasing growth. The abiding, as the Master meant it, is within our reach, for He lives to give it us. Let us but be ready to count all things loss, and to say, ‘Not as though I had already attained; I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended of Christ Jesus.’ Let us not be so much occupied with the abiding, as with Him to whom the abiding links us, and His fulness. Let it be Him, the whole Christ, in His obedience and humiliation, in His exaltation and power, in whom our soul moves and acts; He Himself will fulfil His promise in us.

And then as we abide, and grow evermore into the full abiding, let us exercise our right, the will to enter into all God’s will. Obeying what that will commands, let us claim what it promises. Let us yield to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, to show each of us, according to his growth and measure, what the will of God is which we may claim in prayer. And let us rest content with nothing less than the personal experience of what Jesus gave when He said, ‘If ye abide in me, ask whatsoever ye will, it shall be done unto you.’ ‘LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY!’

Sunspots 903

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Computing: Gizmodo on how malware can be hidden in graphics files.

Environment: The Conversation on the costs of desalinating water. There are less expensive ways to obtain fresh water.

ABC News, and other outlets, report that Spain has granted personhood status (!) to a pollution-endangered lagoon.

NPR reports that newly hatched puffins get confused by our lights, as opposed to the moon. So Icelanders catch confused puffins and throw them off of a cliff, into the ocean, which saves lots of puffin lives.

Finances: (or something) Gizmodo reports on a study indicating that a 4-day work week is beneficial.

Science: A Conversation writer discusses the Mandela Effect -- where many people "remember" something that isn't, or wasn't, so.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading. 

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 145

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here.  His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

It was after Jesus had spoken of our [union] thus through the Holy Spirit knowing that He is in the Father, and even so we in Him and He in us, that He said, 'Abide in me, and I in you.'

Accept, consent to receive that Divine life of union with myself, in virtue of which, as you abide in me, I also abide in you, even as I abide in the Father. So that your life is mine and mine is yours.’ This is the true abiding, the occupying of the position in which Christ can come and abide; so abiding in Him that the soul has come away from self to find that He has taken the place and become our life. It is the becoming as little children who have no care, and find their happiness in trusting and obeying the love that has done all for them.

To those who thus abide, the promise comes as their rightful heritage: Ask whatsoever ye will. It cannot be otherwise. Christ has got full possession of them. Christ dwells in their love, their will, their life. Not only has their will been given up; Christ has entered it, and dwells and breathes in it by His Spirit. He whom the Father always hears, prays in them; they pray in Him: what they ask shall be done unto them. Beloved fellow-believer! let us confess that it is because we do not abide in Christ as He would have us, that the Church is so impotent in presence of the infidelity and worldliness and heathendom, in the midst of which the Lord is able to make her more than conqueror. Let us believe that He means what He promises, and accept the condemnation the confession implies.

Sunspots 902

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Christianity: Christianity Today tells us about Samaritan's Purse, Operation Christmas Child, and Franklin Graham.

Computing: (and ethics) The Conversation reports on experiments that indicate that people are more likely to cheat others on-line when they use a laptop computer, compared to smartphone users.

Environment: NPR has posted a map showing when peak fall color is most likely to occur in all of the contiguous US.

Gizmodo reports on how many kinds of toilet paper are harmful to the environment.

Finances: An Indian man is now the second richest person on the planet, according to NPR.

Science: A Conversation writer describes several tons of waste that humans have left on Mars.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 144

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here.  His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

There must surely be something in our abiding in Christ and Christ in us, which ... [has not yet been] experienced.

It is so. Faith and obedience are but the pathway of blessing. Before giving us the parable of the vine and the branches, Jesus had very distinctly told what the full blessing is to which faith and obedience are to lead. Three times over He had said, ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments,’ and spoken of the threefold blessing with which He would crown such obedient love. The Holy Spirit would come from the Father; the Son would manifest Himself; the Father and the Son would come and make their abode. It is as our faith grows into obedience, and in obedience and love our whole being goes out and clings itself to Christ, that our inner life becomes opened up, and the capacity is formed within of receiving the life, the spirit, of the glorified Jesus, as a distinct and conscious union with Christ and with the Father. The word is fulfilled in us: ‘In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and ye in me, and I in you.’ We understand how, just as Christ is in God, and God in Christ, one together not only in will and in love, but in identity of nature and life, because they exist in each other, so we are in Christ and Christ in us, in union not only of will and love, but of life and nature too.

Sunspots 901

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Christianity: Christianity Today tells us about the faith of the late Queen Elizabeth.

Computing: NPR explains why social media is likely to polarize our opinions more and more.

Finances: A Conversation writer gives some tips on evaluating charities before contributing to them.

Science: A Conversation writer discusses the ability of ants to walk straight up a wall.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 143

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here.  His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

And yet it is as if there is something wanting. The will and the heart are on Christ’s side; he obeys and he loves his Lord. But still, why is it that the fleshly nature has yet so much power, that the spontaneous motions and emotions of the inmost being are not what they should be? The will does not approve or allow, but here is a region beyond control of the will. And why also, even when there is not so much of positive commission to condemn, why so much of omission, the deficiency of that beauty of holiness, that zeal of love, that conformity to Jesus and His death, in which the life of self is lost, and which is surely implied in the abiding, as the Master meant it? There must surely be something in our abiding in Christ and Christ in us, which he has not yet experienced.

Sunspots 900

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

The Arts: A Christianity Today writer on Tolkien's world, and ours.

Christianity: A Christianity Today writer on how corporate worship may bond us together in ways we don't realize.

Christianity Today has posted links to several articles on the late Mickail Gorbachev.

Politics:  A Conversation writer says that Iran is winning the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Gizmodo notes that former President Trump has incriminated himself on his own social media platform.

Science: Gizmodo on 7 animals that use tools.

A web page that tells us that fruit flies have been important in Nobel-prize-winning research.

A writer for The Conversation points out that over half of human fertilized eggs die before the woman knows that she is pregnant, but that laws protecting human embryos don't take this into account.

Another writer for The Conversation discusses what we know about fish sleep.

Sports: FiveThirtyEight tells us which of the big universities are football schools, and which are basketball schools.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 142

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here.  His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

In the growing life of abiding in Christ, the first stage is that of faith. As the believer sees that, with all his feebleness, the command is really meant for him, his great aim is simply to believe that, as he knows he is in Christ, so now, notwithstanding unfaithfulness and failure, abiding in Christ is his immediate duty, and a blessing within his reach. He is specially occupied with the love, and power, and faithfulness of the Saviour: he feels his one need to be believing.

It is not long before he sees something more is needed. Obedience and faith must go together. Not as if to the faith he has the obedience must be added, but faith must be made manifest in obedience. Faith is obedience at home and looking to the Master: obedience is faith going out to do His will. He sees how he has been more occupied with the privilege and the blessings of this abiding than with its duties and its fruit. There has been much of self and of self-will that has been unnoticed or tolerated: the peace which, as a young and feeble disciple, he could enjoy in believing goes from him; it is in practical obedience that the abiding must be maintained: ‘If ye keep my commands, ye shall abide in my love.’ As before his great aim was through the mind, and the truth it took hold of, to let the heart rest on Christ and His promises; so now, in this stage, he chief effort is to get his will united with the will of his Lord, and the heart and the life brought entirely under His rule.

Sunspots 899

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

The Arts: Gizmodo  describes 13 streaming services, ranging from free to ad-supported to paying, that you have probably never heard of.

Tor.com has published an article on Galadriel, as Tolkien portrayed her. (Note that the article isn't based on the upcoming Rings of Power video series.)

Christianity: (or something) A Conversation writer discusses the role of dragons in religions.

A Christianity Today writer writes about the possibility of having artificial intelligences as worship leaders and preachers.

Health: NPR on how sweat that smells stinky protects us.

Politics: FiveThirtyEight reports on Republican election deniers who won their elections.

Science: (or something) CNet tells us about things that make us more attractive to mosquitoes.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading. 

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 141

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here.  His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24. 

‘If ye abide in me.’ As a Christian grows in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, he is often surprised to find how the words of God grow too, in the new and deeper meaning with which they come to him. He can look back to the day when some word of God was opened up to him and he rejoiced in the blessing he had found in it. After a time some deeper experience gave it a new meaning, and it was as if he never had seen what it contained. And yet once again, as he advanced in the Christian life, the same word stood before him again as a great mystery, until anew the Holy Spirit led him still deeper into its Divine fulness. One of these ever-growing, never-exhausted words, opening up to us step by step the fulness of the Divine life, is the Master’s precious ‘Abide in me.’ As the union of the branch with the vine is one of growth, never-ceasing growth and increase, so our abiding in Christ is a life process in which the Divine life takes ever fuller and more complete possession of us. The young and feeble believer may be really abiding in Christ up to the measure of his light; it is he who reaches onward to the full abiding in the sense in which the Master understood the words, who inherits all the promises connected with it.

Sunspots 898

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*: 

Christianity: Christianity Today reports on the openness to women in various leadership roles, in Protestant churches.

Education: A Conversation article on violence against teachers by students. About 10% of teachers have been so attacked.

A Conversation writer discusses some ways that the Metaverse (the author doesn't know how to define or describe it) is helping college education.

Finances: NPR reports on how prisoners earn income behind bars, and what the income is.

Science: The Scientist on the energetics of chewing, (It takes a lot of energy.) and the possible relationship to humanoid evolution.

NPR reports that a company is planning to bring back the Tasmanian "tiger," which has been extinct for over 80 years. There are questions about trying to do this.

NPR also reports on some interesting (and possibly dangerous to humans) behavior by orcas/aka killer whales.

A Conversation writer discusses his own research, which indicates that dolphins use "signature whistles -- brief sequences of noise that the animals emit," which are not copies of those emitted by other dolphins, to identify other dolphins.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.