and glory. "That God may be all in all." This is such a noble, glorious,
holy aim that Christ said, "For this I will give my life. For this I will
give my all, even to the death of the cross. For this I will give myself."
If it was worth that to Christ, is it worth less to you? If one had asked
Jesus of Nazareth, "What is it Thou hast a body for; what is to Thee the
highest use of the body?" He would have said, "The use and the glory of my
body is that I can give it a sacrifice to God. That is every thing." What
is the use of having a mind; and what is the use of having money; and what
is the use of having children? That I can give them to God; for God must be
all in all in everything. I pray God that He may give us such a sight of
His kingdom, and His glory, that everything else may disappear. Then, if
you had ten thousand lives, you would say, "This is the beauty and the
worth of life, 'that God may be all in all' to me, and that I may prove to
men that God is more than everything, that life is only worth living as it
is given to God to fill." Do let us sacrifice everything for His kingdom
and glory. Begin to live day by day with the prayer, "My God, I am given up
to Thee. Be Thou my all in all." You say, "Am I able to realize that?" Yes,
in this way: Let the Holy Spirit dwell in you; let the Holy Spirit burn in
you as a fire, and burn in you with unutterable groanings, crying unto
God, Himself to reveal His presence and His will in you. In the eighth of
Romans, Paul spoke about the groanings of the whole creation. And what is
the whole creation groaning for? For the redemption, the glorious liberty
of the children of God. And I am persuaded that was what Paul meant when he
spoke of the groanings of the Holy Spirit--the unutterable groanings
for the coming time of glory when God should be all in all. Christians,
sacrifice your time; sacrifice your interests; sacrifice your heart's best
powers in praying, and desiring, and crying that "God may be all in all."
And lastly: if God is to be all in all, wait continually on Him all the
day. My first point had reference to giving God His place; but I want to
bring this out more pointedly in conclusion. Wait continually on God all
the day. If you are to do that, you must live always in His presence. That
is what we have been redeemed for. Do we not read in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, "Let us draw near within the veil, through the blood, where the
high priest is?" The holy place in which we are to live in the heavens is
the immediate presence of God. The abiding presence of God is certainly the
heritage of every child of God, as that the sun shines. The Father never
hides His face from His child. Sin hides it, and unbelief hides it, but the
Father lets His love shine all the day on the face of His children. The sun
is shining day and night. Your sun shall never go down. Begin to seek for
this. Come and live in the presence of God. There is indeed an abiding
place in His presence, in the secret of His pavilion, of which some one has
sung very beautifully:
With me, wheresoe'er I wander,
That great Presence goes;
That unutterable gladness,
Undisturbed repose.
Everywhere, the blessed stillness
Of that Holy Place;
Stillness of the love that worships,
Dumb before His face.
This is the portion of those to whom the prayer is granted--"One thing have
I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after; that I may dwell all my
days in the house of the Lord; to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to
inquire in His temple." "In the secret of His pavilion He hideth me." God
Himself will take you up, and will keep you there, so that all your work
shall be done in God. Beloved, wait continually upon God. You can not do
this unless you are in His presence. You must live in His presence. Then
the blessed habit of waiting upon God will be learned. The real difficulty
of getting to the point of real waiting upon God, is because most
Christians have not sought to realize the nearness of God, and to give God
the first place. But let us strive after this, let us trust God to give it
to us by His grace, let us wait on God all the day. "My eyes," says one,
"are ever towards Thee." Wait upon God for guidance, and God, if you wait
much upon Him, will lead you up into new power for His service, into new
gladness in His fellowship. He will lead you out into a larger trust in
Him; He will prepare you to expect new things from Him. Beloved, there
is no knowing what God will do for a man who is utterly given up to Him.
Praise His name! Let each one of us say, "May my life be to live and die,
to labor and to pray continually for this one thing: that in me, and around
me, and in the church; that throughout the world '_God may be all in
all_.'" A little seed is the beginning of a great tree. A mustard seed
becomes a tree in which the birds of the air can nestle. That great day of
which the text speaks, when Christ Himself shall be subject to the Father,
and deliver up the Kingdom to the Father, and God shall be all in all--that
is the great tree of the Kingdom of God reaching its perfect consummation
and glory. Oh, let us take the seed of that glory into our hearts, and let
us bow in lowly surrender and submission, and say, "Amen, Lord; this be my
one thought. This be my life--to speak and to work, to pray and to exist
only that others may be brought to know Him too. This be my life--to yield
myself to the unutterable yearnings of the Holy Spirit, that I may not
rest, but ever keep my eye on that day--the day of glory, when in very deed
God shall be all in all."
God help every one of us. God help us all to yield ourselves to Him, and to
Christ, and to make it our every-day life; for His name's sake. Amen.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Master's Indwelling, by Andrew Murray