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!’

With Christ in the school of prayer, by Andrew Murray, 92

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. The previous post is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray continues his discussion, based on Mark 11:22-24:

And prayer needs fasting for its full growth: this is the second lesson. Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the invisible; fasting, the other, with which we let loose and cast away the visible. In nothing is man more closely connected with the world of sense than in his need of food, and his enjoyment of it. It was the fruit, good for food, with which man was tempted and fell in Paradise. It was with bread to be made of stones that Jesus, when an hungered, was tempted in the wilderness, and in fasting that He triumphed. The body has been redeemed to be a temple of the Holy Spirit; it is in body as well as spirit, it is very specially, Scripture says, in eating and drinking, we are to glorify God. It is to be feared that there are many Christians to whom this eating to the glory of God has not yet become a spiritual reality. And the first thought suggested by Jesus’ words in regard to fasting and prayer, is, that it is only in a life of moderation and temperance and self-denial that there will be the heart or the strength to pray much.

Thank you for reading.

The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11 by Thomas Watson. Excerpt 74

Watson continues to describe how a Christian grows:

He grows in the exercise of his grace; he hath not only oil in his lamp, but his lamp is also burning and shining. Grace is agile and dexterous. Christ’s vine do flourish; (Ca. 6. 11) hence we read of “a lively hope, (1 Pe. 1. 3) and “a ferverent love;” (1 Pe. 1. 22) here is the activity of grace. Indeed sometimes grace is a sleepy habit of the soul, like sap in the vine, not exerting its vigour, which may be occasioned through spiritual sloth, or by reason of falling into some sin; but this is only for a while: the spring of grace will come, “the flowers will appear, and the fig tree put forth her green figs.” The fresh gales of the Spirit do sweetly revive and refacilitate grace. The church of Christ, whose heart was a garden, and her graces as precious spices, prays for the heavenly breathings of the Spirit, that her sacred spices might flow out. (Ca. 6. 16)

A true Christian grows both in the kind and in the degree of grace. To his spiritual living he gets an augmentation, he adds to “faith, virtue: to virtue, knowledge: to knowledge, temperance,” &c. (2 Pe. 1. 5,6) Here is grace growing in its kind. And he goes on “from faith to faith;” (Ro. 1. 17) there is grace growing in the degree; “we are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, because your faith groweth exceedingly;” (2 Th. 1. 3) it increaseth over and above. And the apostle speaks of those spiritual plants which were laden with gospel-fruit. (Ph. 1. 11) A Christian is compared to the vine, (an emblem of fruitfulness) he must bear full clusters: we are bid to perfect that which is lacking in our faith. (1 Th. 3. 10) A Christian must never be so old as to be past bearing; he brings forth fruit in his old age. (Ps. 92. 14) An heaven-born plant is ever growing; he never thinks he grows enough; he is not content unless he add every day one cubit to his spiritual stature. We must not be content just with so much grace as will keep life and soul together, a drachm or two will not suffice, but we must be still increasing, “with the increase of God.” (Col. 2. 19) We had need renew our strength as the eagle. (Is. 40. 31) Our sins are renewed, our wants are renewed, our tentations are renewed, and shall not our strength be renewed? O be not content with the first embryo of grace; grace in its infancy and minority! You look for degrees of glory, be ye Christians of degrees. Though a believer should be contented with a modicum on his estate, yet not with a modicum in religion. A Christian of the right breed labours still to excel himself, and come nearer to that holiness in God, who is the original, the pattern, and prototype of all holiness.

Thomas Watson lived from 1620-1686, in England. He wrote several books which survive. This blog, God willing, will post excerpts from his The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11, over a number of weeks, on Sundays.

My source for the text is here, and I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this text (and many others) available. The previous excerpt is here.
  
Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it. (World English Bible, public domain.)  

Christians are expected to grow

1 Thessalonians 3:12a and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men

Matthew 7:19 Every tree that doesn’t grow good fruit is cut down, and thrown into the fire.

Mark 4:8 Others fell into the good ground, and yielded fruit, growing up and increasing. Some produced thirty times, some sixty times, and some one hundred times as much.”

Part of John 15:4 Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (Implies growth!)

2 Corinthians 10:15b having hope that as your faith grows, we will be abundantly enlarged by you in our sphere of influence,

Ephesians 4:11 He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers; 12 for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 15 but speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, Christ

2 Thessalonians 1:3 We are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers, even as it is appropriate, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of each and every one of you towards one another abounds;

Hebrews 5:13 For everyone who lives on milk is not experienced in the word of righteousness, for he is a baby. 14 But solid food is for those who are full grown, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.

1 Peter 2:1 Putting away therefore all wickedness, all deceit, hypocrisies, envies, and all evil speaking, 2 as newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word, that with it you may grow,

2 Peter 3:18a But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The scripture above is quoted from the World English Bible, public domain. There are probably other passages that encourage and expect growth in the Christian life.

Thanks for reading. I mistakenly posted part of my series on Divine Contentment on the 20th. God willing, that series will resume on March 31.

Plant growth: consider the lilies

"Consider the lilies how they grow: . . ." (Luke 12:27a, KJV)

Jesus apparently was teaching a lesson on trusting God for what we need. (See entire chapter.) So I am wresting scripture, or at least using it as it probably wasn't meant, but I have an excuse, namely that I'm not expounding on that Bible passage, but musing about a natural phenomenon. OK, sorry. Two more Bible references: Psalm 19 and Romans 1:20, where the Bible tells us that we can learn about God by observing nature.

First, what is a plant? Well, that's a good question. The Wikipedia says that, in the strict sense, plants are green organisms that carry out photosynthesis, and are multicellular. Unlike animal cells, which are generally flexible, plant cells have cell walls. As a result, the total plant is relatively inflexible, and cannot catch their food. They must make it, because they can't go after it. Plants have cellulose in their cell walls. There are some exceptions. A few plants can't carry on photosynthesis. This one can't:




(You can learn more about this plant by clicking on the photo as a link.) This plant is a close relative of plants that can carry out photosynthesis. It is multicellular. It even has flowers. But it has no chlorophyll, and doesn't carry on photosynthesis.

Fungi, and non-green algae, and bacteria, are not plants, to biologists of the 21st century. They used to be classified as such, but things have changed.

What is growth? Let's say that it means getting larger, and/or becoming more mature.

When animals grow, they basically add more cells. The cells do get larger, of course. If they didn't, every generation of cells would be half as large as the previous one, and soon the cells would be too small to function. But I grew by adding more cells, more or less all over my body, until I reached adult size. Plants do the same thing. They add more cells. But many plants do so in a somewhat different way. There are specialized tissues, called meristematic tissues, or meristem, where new plant cells are made, by cell division. For example, there is a cylinder of meristematic cells, between the bark and the wood of most trees, which is responsible for production of a new layer of wood each year. It is also responsible for production of a new layer of bark. That cylinder is called the vascular cambium. It divides, leaving new wood cells just inside the cylinder, and new bark cells just outside it. The vascular cambium makes its own new cells, too, and the cylinder expands, staying just outside the wood.

Buds have meristematic tissue in them. Some buds develop into flowers, some into leaves and twigs. Both types do so as their meristematic tissue produces more cells, which, after they have been split off, differentiate to take up their adult functions.

Animals have stem cells, of which plant meristematic cells are one type, but, generally, animals are more complex than plants, and animal cells, which lack a rigid cell wall, are more able to move and stretch out than plant cells, so it is more difficult to recognize animal stem cells.

We need to grow, too, as individuals and personalities. We don't do so in tiny compartments -- cells. We do so as a whole.

Oliver Wendell Holmes put it this way:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

- from "The Chambered Nautilus," Chapter four of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (public domain).

Thanks for reading!

George MacDonald on being taken in

There is this difference between the growth of some human beings and that of others: in the one case it is a continuous dying, in the other a continuous resurrection. One of the latter sort comes at length to know at once whether a thing is true the moment it comes before him; one of the former class grows more and more afraid of being taken in, so afraid of it that he takes himself in altogether, and comes at length to believe in nothing but his dinner: to be sure of a thing with him is to have it between his teeth.
George MacDonald, The Princess and Curdie, 1883, Public Domain, Chapter 2. (Available from Project Gutenberg)

The Princess and Curdie is a pretty good story, as story, but MacDonald's writing is also full of gems like the above, which stand alone.

Thanks for reading. Read MacDonald.

Buds: a promise of new things, part 1

The word, bud, including variations, occurs 11 times in the King James Version of the Bible. In the English Standard Version, it occurs in 8 verses, but the search I used returned only bud, not budded, or other variants.

Here are all of these passages, combined, as they are in the ESV:
Genesis 40:9 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me, 10 and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and the clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.”

Exodus 9:29 Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the Lord. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord's. 30 But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the Lord God.” 31 (The flax and the barley were struck down, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud.

Numbers 17:6 Moses spoke to the people of Israel. And all their chiefs gave him staffs, one for each chief, according to their fathers' houses, twelve staffs. And the staff of Aaron was among their staffs. 7 And Moses deposited the staffs before the Lord in the tent of the testimony.
8 On the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony, and behold, the staff of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds.

Job 14:7 “For there is hope for a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease.
8 Though its root grow old in the earth,
and its stump die in the soil,
9 yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put out branches like a young plant.

Job 38:25 “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain
and a way for the thunderbolt,
26 to bring rain on a land where no man is,
on the desert in which there is no man,
27 to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
and to make the ground sprout with grass? [The NIV also uses sprout. The KJV uses bud. Where the ESV and the KJV use the same word, I didn't check the NIV.]

Psalm 132:13 For the Lord has chosen Zion;
he has desired it for his dwelling place:
14 “This is my resting place forever;
here I will dwell, for I have desired it.
15 I will abundantly bless her provisions;
I will satisfy her poor with bread.
16 Her priests I will clothe with salvation,
and her saints will shout for joy.
17 There I will make a horn to sprout for David;
I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. [The NIV uses grow. The KJV uses bud.]

Song of Solomon 6:11 I went down to the nut orchard
to look at the blossoms of the valley,
to see whether the vines had budded,
whether the pomegranates were in bloom.

Song of Solomon 7:12 let us go out early to the vineyards
and see whether the vines have budded,
whether the grape blossoms have opened
and the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give you my love.

Isaiah 55:10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. [The NIV uses bud, as does the KJV.]

Isaiah 61:11 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations. [The NIV uses bud, as does the KJV.]

Ezekiel 7:10 “Behold, the day! Behold, it comes! Your doom has come; the rod has blossomed; pride has budded.

Ezekiel 16:7 I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare. [The NIV also uses plant. The KJV uses bud.]

Ezekiel 29:21 “On that day I will cause a horn to spring up for the house of Israel, and I will open your lips among them. Then they will know that I am the Lord.” [The NIV also uses horn. The KJV uses bud.]

Hosea 8:7 For they sow the wind,
and they shall reap the whirlwind.
The standing grain has no heads;
it shall yield no flour;
if it were to yield,
strangers would devour it. [The NIV uses head. The KJV uses buds.]

Hebrews 9:3 Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, 4 having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron's staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. 5 Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

There are, thus, at least 15 such passages.

A later post deals with the botany of buds.

Thanks for reading.