From the book God's plans for you by Andrew Murray
(Previously published with the title: "How to work for God")
Eph 2:10 For we are God's own handiwork, His workmanship, recreated in Christ Jesus, born anew, that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us that we should walk in them. AMP
Heb 6:1 ...Not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works...(not inspired or approved by God, so, without life)
Heb 4:10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his (own) works...(and now only does good, of God, works).
WAITING AND WORKING
But they that wait upon the upon shall renew their strength.-Isaiah 40:31
Neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
-Isaiah 64:4
The relationship between waiting and working is made clear in the above verses. We see that waiting brings the needed strength for working-preparing us for joyful and unwearied work. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isa. 4O:31). Waiting on God has its value in this: it makes us strong to do His work, The second verse reveals the secret of this strength. "Neither hath the eye seen..what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him." The waiting on God secures the working of God for us and in us, out of which our work must spring. The two passages teach the great
GOD,S PLANS FOR YOU
lesson that waiting on God lies at the root of all true working for God. Our great need is to hold the two sides of this truth in perfect harmony. There are some who say they wait upon God, but they do not work for Him. There may be various reasons for this. They confuse true waiting on God (living in direct communication with Him)" with the lazy, helpless waiting that excuses itself from all work. Some wait on God as one of the highest exercises of the Christian life. Yet they have never understood that the root of all true waiting must be surrender and readiness to be completely equipped for God's use in serving men. Others are ready to work as well as wait, but are looking for some great inflow of the Spirit's power to enable them to do mighty works, while they forget that as believers they already have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them. They forget that more grace is given only to those who are faithful in the little (Luke 16:10), and that it is only in working that we can be taught by the Spirit how to do the greater works. A11 Christians need to learn that waiting has working for its objective. It is only in working that waiting can attain its full perfection and blessedness. It is as we elevate working for God to its true place, as the highest exercise of spiritual privilege and power, that the absolute need and the divine blessing of waiting on God can be fully known. On the other hand, there are many who work for God but know little of what it is to wait on Him. They have been led to take up Christian work under the impulse of natural or spiritual feeling or the urging of a pastor. However, they do so with very little sense of what a holy thing it is ,to work
WAITING AND WORKING
for God. They do not know that God's work can be done only in God's strength, by God Himself working in us. The Son of God could do nothing of Himself (John 8:28). The Father in Him did the work as He lived in continual dependence before Him. Many have never learned that the believer can do nothing unless God works in him. They do not understand that it is only in utter weakness that we depend upon Him, so that His power can rest on us. They have no conception of a continual waiting on God as being one of the first and essential conditions of successful work. Christ's church and the world are sufferers today, not only because so many of its members are not working for God, but also because so much working for God is done without waiting on God.
Waiting on God always: Ps 25:5 You are the God of -my salvation; On You I wait all the day (in continual communication).
So that I can be led by Your Spirit in everything that I do:
Rom 8:14 As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God (and can do what Jesus did, by the same Spirit).
Luke 4:18-19 The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To preach deliverance to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To preach the acceptable year of the LORD.
John 15:5 (Jesus) ...Without Me (MV Spirit) you can do nothing.
So Your Spirit can cause Your words to work in me so I do good works
1 Thes 2:13 ...The word of God, which also works mightily in you who believe, 2 Cor 9:8 And God is able to make all grace (His words made alive by His Spirit are His grace) abound toward You, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work.
GOD’S PLANS FON YOU
Let us pray as we proceed. in these meditations on working for God that the Holy Spirit will show us how sacred and urgent our calling is to work, and how absolute our dependence is upon God's strength to work in us. May we also learn how sure it is that those who wait on Him will renew their strength. Then we will find waiting on God and working for God to be inseparably one.
1. It is only as God works for me, and in me, that I can work for Him.
2. All His work for me is through His life in me.
3. He will most surely work, if I wait on Him.
4. AII His working for me, and my waiting on Him, has but one aim: to equip me for His work of saving men.
2 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (given by God's breath. the Holy Spirit), and is profitable for doctrine, for re-proof (the faith building proof of things not seen), for correction (and to conform us to Christ), for instruction in (and imparting of God's) righteousness,
17 So that the person of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The year of Jubilee - a time for people to be set free, in Christ
Leviticus 25:8-10 Count seven times seven years, a total of forty-nine years. Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, send a man to blow a trumpet throughout the whole land.
10 ln this way you shall set the fiftieth year apart and proclaim freedom to all the inhabitants of the land. During this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to the original owner or his descendants, and anyone who has been sold as a slave shall return to his family. TEV
Lev 25:11 That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you... NKJV
JUBILEE (McClintock and Strong Encyclopedia)
"According to ancient interpretation, the Hebrew word (translated Jubilee) is from a root, to liberate (that which is held captive)..."
JUBILEE ( lnternational Standard Bible Encyclopedia)
"The deepest meaning of it (the Jubilee Year) is to be found in the restoring of all that which in the course of time was perverted by man's sin. By the removing of all slavery to sin, in the establishing of the true liberty of the children of God, and in the delivering of the creation from the bondage of corruption it was subjected to on account of man's depravity" (reflected in these words of Jesus about His mission:)
Luke 4:18-19 (Jesus) The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are oppressed (depressed),
19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord (the time of jubilee, the time of God's liberation of those held in bondage to sin but are now acceptable. in Christ).
Eph 1:6 ...He made us accepted in the Beloved (we are made free, in Christ).
Are you free? Have you let God make you free? Free from what? Free from every compulsion, every addiction, every secret sin, every care or worry, every envy or jealousy, every self-image, every offense or ill will toward another. Are you free?
Luke 1:17 He will also go before Him (Christ) in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to become as children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord (ready for Christ's return when He comes to gather His saints to Him).
Behold He comes, riding on the clouds;
Shining like the Sun, at the trumpet's call;
So lift your voice, it's the year of Jubilee;
Out of Zion's hill (the true Church) salvation comes. (Song: "Days of Elijah")
