(A lesson from - A Study of the
Principles
of His Prayer-Life – George Mueller)
I know,
O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his
steps. (Jer. 10:23 NIV Emphasis added)
The steps of a good
man are ordered by the Lord. (Ps. 37:23)
If we live in the
Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. (Gal. 5:25)
For as many as are
led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. (Rom. 8:14)
Many sincere disciples
of Christ have neglected to enter into a Spirit-directed way of life. They tend
to plunge forward in willful decisions whenever the flesh desires to have its
own way. Emotional impulses end up swaying the issues. Because these Christians
rely on their own strength and wisdom, they end up separating themselves from
the power of Christ’s Spirit.
God will place
roadblocks in our course to expose a willful heart. His purpose is to reveal
how we have been walking in the strength of the flesh. Those who become
“worried and troubled about many things,” especially when their plans are not
working out as desired, should realize they are living in their own strength
rather than walking by the Spirit and depending upon our faithful God.
There is a Scripture
of deep meaning and great significance that we all need to understand: “He
guides the humble {or meek} in what is right and teaches them his way. All the
ways of the Lord are loving and faithful...” (Ps. 25:9 NIV) If we never come to
the childlike dependence that has no real trust in ourselves—where we have
no confidence in the flesh—we cannot expect to learn of the deeper things
of God. He actually hides His truth from the wise and prudent.
I thank You, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and
prudent and have revealed them to babes {those who live like dependent and
trusting little children}. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your
sight. (Matt. 11:25-26)
Has not God made
foolish the wisdom of this world?... But God has chosen the foolish things of
the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the
world to put to shame the things which are mighty…that no flesh should glory
in His presence. (1 Cor. 1:20, 27-29 Emphasis added)
Those who live by
their own wisdom and strength will naturally have the opportunity to accomplish
many things. But it is a human works that naturally glories in what it has
done. This is the work that will be burned in the testing fires of Judgment,
even when it was supposedly done for God. (1 Cor. 3:13-15) While these
self-exalting ways are highly esteemed among men, they remain an abomination in
the sight of God. (Luke 16:15)
When Jesus was
speaking these words, there were men who were ridiculing and scoffing at what
he said, as they still do today. Because these people compare themselves among
themselves to defend their position, Jesus said, “You are those who justify
yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.” In other words, you too
are in serious trouble if you are still resisting the words of Jesus and
looking to other people to help defend your position. Do not let anyone
lead you astray. Your eternity is at stake. Look to the word of God and
begin to depend on Him to open up the truth to your heart. While He hides the
truth to the wise and prudent, He will reveal it to those who come to Him as
dependent and trusting little children. (
Jesus said, “Take My
yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall
find rest unto {for} your souls.” (Matt. 11:29 KJV) The meekness that was in
Jesus refers to the way He lived in complete submission to His Father’s will.
As a meek person, Jesus permitted His Sovereign Father to remain in control of
all things. He lived “as one” in complete harmony with the will of His Father.
Those who will learn of Him and enter into the same kind of meekness, will also
be enabled to enter into complete harmony with God. It will enable them to find
a deep rest for their souls as they trust in their Sovereign God to work out
all things for their good according to His “good and acceptable and perfect
will.” (Rom. 12:2)
God guides His meek
children by swaying their judgment. To wait before Him, weighing candidly on
the scales the various factors of a proposed course, is a frame of mind that
permits the Spirit to tip the scales in a certain direction. God touches the
scales and makes the balance move according to His will. But our hand must be
off the scale. If we insist on interjecting our own will {self-will, the
essence of all sin}, we should not expect God to interpose with His divine
power and favor. The glory of God will not be seen when we insist on using our
own strength to accomplish our own plans. “ ‘Not by might nor by power {in the
flesh}, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.” (Zech. 4:6)
This does not imply
that we will not work. The children of God will always have either their minds
or their hands busy when they are living by the Spirit. But we must keep
attuned to the leading of the Spirit so that our labors will be a work of the
Spirit. He will provide the gifting, reveal the plans and motivate the service
when we are walking under His control and power. And He will do it in a way
that brings all glory to the Lord.
He {the Spirit} will
bring glory to me {the Son} by taking from what is mine and making it known to
you. (John 16:14)
We must not try to
modify God’s giftings and calling according to our own desires. “For the gifts
and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (
Those who live by
the Spirit know there is a need to wait and watch for God to begin moving the
cloud. By watching for God to move with His hand of providence, and by honestly
testing every potential course by the lessons provided in His Word, it is
possible to “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.” (Col. 4:12)
We should also note
that Satan will continue to tempt God’s children to follow the self-seeking and
self-directed ways of the world. He will even use his power to help them
build up a little kingdom and castle for themselves. Satan desires to have
us become independent and self-sufficient. It was in this sense that Satan came
to Jesus in His wilderness testing period to show Him all the kingdoms of this
world. The devil knew that if he could turn Jesus to a self-seeking and
self-directed form of life, where he could convince Jesus to use His power to
seek out the pleasures of this world, that he would also cause the Fall of the
Second Adam. But Jesus knew better than to start living for Himself in His own
strength. He knew, as the Son of Man, that He could not do anything out from
Himself without stepping into self-will and sin. He therefore rejected
Satan’s offer and spoke what each of us will need to say when we are tempted to
begin building a little kingdom of our own. “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is
written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”
(Luke 4:8)
I can of Myself do
nothing. As I hear {from the Spirit}, I judge {make decisions}; and My judgment
is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who
sent
A man can receive
nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. (John 3:27)
Nothing can prevent
God’s work from being accomplished when we are truly walking in the Spirit. It
is the self-directed way of life, which was fostered on the world by Satan,
that prevents God from carrying out His plans through His human children.
Man would have been permitted to share with God in His dominion over all things
if he had continued to live by the Spirit. As he walked by the Spirit, he would
have been enabled to discover God’s plans and pray according to God’s will. All
his prayers could then have been answered, thereby enabling him to carry out
God’s work in his appointed sphere of labor. But man separated himself from
the power of God and his dominion when he turned to self-will.
Even though man was
cut off from this Spirit-empowered way of life at the Fall, Christ is now able
to restore the form of life that Adam lost. The barrier has been removed. We
can now be filled and empowered with the Spirit of God. He is prepared to live
through us and walk in us as He walked in Jesus. “For ye are the temple of the
living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them…” (2 Cor.
6:16 KJV) If we will die to the fleshly ways of self-will and human effort,
so we may begin living under the control and power of the Holy Spirit, God will
manifest His divine life and works through our mortal bodies.
But we have this
treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and
not of us…always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus {a
complete dying to self-will}, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in
our body. (2 Cor. 4:7, 10)
By going back to
this ancient course of walking in the Spirit, God is then able to carry out
everything He planned to do through our lives. It is in this sense that we can
now have a form of dominion in our appointed sphere of work. New Testament
Christians, as they pray in harmony with the will of the Lord, are able to
carry out God’s plans. Mr. Muller became a living example of this God-planned
and God-empowered way of life.
This is what the
Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths {of a
Spirit-directed and Spirit-empowered way of life}, ask where the good way is,
and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will
not walk in it.’ ” (Jer. 6:16 NIV)
The reason why so
many people within the church have failed to find this deep rest for their
souls is because they are still living by their own will.
They have not yet ceased from their own works. Everyone who is living in a
self-originated form of life can expect to experience considerable unrest. We
must expect to be “worried and troubled” about many things when we are living
by our own wisdom and strength.
In contrast, those
who live by the Spirit do not experience these “worries.” They always
experience a deep rest within their soul because they are walking in the Spirit
and permitting God to work out His plans according to His perfect will. As they
listen for the guidance of the Spirit and pray in harmony with the Spirit, they
are empowered to accomplish the results that God intended.
When God is without
someone to stand in the gap and pray in harmony with His will, He is limited in
what He can accomplish in this fallen world. The only reason why God has not
done more, even after providing Christians with access to the power and
dominion that Christ now possesses, is because God has so few children who are
willing to die to self-will and live by His Spirit. A careful examination of
the church today would reveal how most of the people are still living for their
own purposes. They are directing their own steps in order to build up their own
little kingdoms and their own ministries. While they may devote some or even
most of their efforts to the work of the Lord, the work is still being done
according to their own will and wisdom. It has prevented God from manifesting
His power and glory through His people.
The steps of a good
man are ordered by the Lord. (Ps. 37:23)
The effective, fervent
prayer of a righteous man {those who are led by the Spirit in all matters}
avails much. (
Again, we can
identify the humble and submissive children of God by the peace and joy that is
always rising out of their heart. They naturally reveal Christ’s Kingdom-life
in everything they do. “For the
When we are seeking
only to know and to do what God has planned to do through our lives, hindrances
will give us no anxiety. In fact, to Mr. Muller, obstacles
tended to bring a kind of pleasure because each of these obstacles provided a
new opportunity for God to manifest His power and glory. Since he lived for the
sole purpose of revealing God’s glory through his prayers, every difficulty
became an opportunity. He had learned this rare lesson: “I had a secret satisfaction
in the greatness of the difficulties which were in the way. So, far from being
cast down on account of them, they delighted my soul; for I only desired to do
the will of the Lord in this matter.” And because it was God’s will, and he was
living and praying in harmony with that will, he knew that failure was
impossible.
Since God’s work
will eventually be accomplished when it is being carried out through the
prayers of His yielded and faithful children, there can never be a reason to be
“worried and troubled” about anything. Here is revealed another secret to
serving the Lord in the Sabbath-rest of God. (Heb. 4:9-10) Those who are able
to truly cease from their own works and rest in the Lord, will always find that
it settles a thousand difficult and perplexing questions. There is never a
reason for difficulties to cast us down when we are living by the Spirit. There
should be nothing that causes unrest, for, in answer to prayer, every obstacle
will eventually be removed by God’s power in His perfect timing. (Phil. 4:6-7)
If, on the other
hand, the course is not God’s plan at all, but only the fruit of self-will; or
if some secret, selfish, and subtle pride is seeking a work that looks for
honor from men, then we should expect God to chasten us, leaving our soul in a
barren and dry land.
There are many
Christian ministries now being motivated by the pride of life. There is a
tendency to look at what others are doing and then, through envy, entering into
a form of worldly competition. And wherever this envy and self-seeking exists,
there you will find strife and other worldly means used to accomplish goals.
The organization ends up being run like a business that is in competition with
other members of Christ’s body. Truly, “This wisdom does not descend from above,
but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, every
evil thing are there.” (
Mr. Muller rightly
judged that difficulties would naturally upset and annoy him when he was
walking in the strength of the flesh. Because he would not like these things,
he would begin to strive to overcome the obstacle through his own carnal
efforts. He knew it would even lead to running roughshod over others when they
attempted to interfere with his plans.
George Muller,
however, truly learned to walk by the Spirit. He understood the importance of
depending on God to open all doors. The more he failed in his own strength, the
more he realized that God was waiting on him to become more dependent. And if
he would not have learned to wait on the Lord, the Lord could not have worked
through him in the powerful way that He did.
Therefore the Lord
will wait, that He may be gracious to you; and therefore He will be exalted {as
the One who actually accomplishes the work}, that He may have mercy on you. For
the Lord is a God of justice {who always acts according to His spiritual laws};
Blessed are all those who wait for Him. (Isa. 30:18)
The true work of God’s
kingdom, which always results in God receiving the glory, is accomplished
through dependent faith. “According to your faith will it be
done to you.” (Matt. 9:29) These discriminations of truth only need to be
stated to any spiritual mind to have their wisdom at once apparent. God had a
purpose for establishing this eternal form of life. He planned for everyone to
live by childlike dependence upon Him, so that He would naturally receive all
the glory in His eternal kingdom.
In contrast, Satan
has led people to seek out their own glory. He has therefore fostered a value
system on this world that promotes self-sufficiency and self-exaltation. It
leads to a competitive way of life that seeks to be better than others. It is a
form of life that is diametrically opposed to the one found in God’s eternal
kingdom.
And He sat down,
called the twelve, and said to them, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall
be last of all and servant of all.” Mark 9:35
Assuredly, I say to
you, unless you are converted and become as {dependent and trusting} little
children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 18:3)
Let nothing be done
through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem
others better than himself. (Phil. 2:3)
We say again, a
believing child of God may safely gauge the measure of his surrender to the
sovereign will of God, or his lack of surrender, by the measure of impatience
that he feels when he finds obstacles in the way. For, in proportion as
self-will and self-glory has sway over him, he will become disturbed and
annoyed by whatever seems to oppose or hinder his plans. And instead of turning
to God in faith and quietly leaving all such hindrances and obstacles to the
divine power of the Lord, to deal with them as He pleases in His own way and
time, the willful individual becomes impatient in the energy of the flesh. He
will therefore tend to revert to worldly means to remove the obstacles by using
his own scheming and struggling. You will even find him at times going beyond
the clear light of truth, even stretching truth, and trying to justify what he
does as being needful to accomplish God’s work.
If, like Jesus, we
will learn to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit to work out all things in
our life according to God’s will and providence, always responding to the
leading of His Spirit, we shall begin to see His hand move. We can also expect
the Spirit to continually manifest God’s Kingdom-life within our soul. His
indwelling presence is what will enable us to find lasting peace and joy in the
Holy Spirit. “For the
There is never a
reason to be dismayed when Satan acts as a hinderer. (1 Thess. 2:18) God
permits these obstacles to delay for a time, in order to test and stretch our
patience and faith. If we will continue to trust in the Lord, we can be like
Caleb. Because he “followed the Lord fully,” not even the giants of Anak with
their walled cities and chariots of iron had any terrors for him.
The Spirit of Christ
is “the Man with the sword in His hand.” (Josh. 5:13) He has come to take
complete control of every situation. But we cannot meet with Him until we have
entered into the Sabbath-rest of God, where everyone ceases from his or her own
works. We need to enter that holy ground where we come into complete harmony
with His life and works.
God never gives His
sons their own power to accomplish their own plans.
The power always remains with the Spirit of God. And this power can only be
used when we are doing the work that He has planned to do through us. We are
therefore expected to yield our life to the Spirit and enter into God’s
preordained will. (Eph. 2:10)
No single subject
seems to be less understood than the work of the Holy Spirit. Long ago, the
renowned John Owen (1616-1683) suggested that the practical test for the
soundness of faith during the current gospel age is the willingness of the
church to be dependent on the Holy Spirit. And if this is the case, the
great apostasy must be upon us because there is a shameful indifference to the
leading and empowerment of the Holy Spirit in all matters of Christian life.
To every believer
who would listen to him, Mr. Muller tried to help them understand the perfect
trustworthiness of God. Whenever he experienced a true need in his service to
God, help was always given; and it never came too late. When a believer trusts
in God’s promises and remains in the path of duty, he can depend on God to
remain perfectly faithful.
Even the delay of an
answer to our prayers has a purpose. God often permits us to call on Him
without responding for a period of time. He does this to both test our faith
and our persistence. By teaching us to patiently depend on Him for everything,
He is able to bring us into that place where we never lack anything. (
Even when the Spirit
provides a new direction and the way seems beset with difficulty, there is
never any risk of failure. Of course, each new advance requires a separate and
special authority from Him. Like
If the work is going
to be God’s work, let Him control it. If we permit our own flesh to become
involved, and we begin to plan the work, we will inevitably find ourselves
stumbling along a rocky path. But when we walk in the light of His will, and we
are doing His works through the Spirit, it will become obvious how He is doing
the work. (John 3:21) He will remove every obstacle in His perfect timing.
I will go before you
and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of
bronze and cut the bars of iron. (Isa. 45:2)
The most important
thing in our life is to enter into God’s plans and begin working through His
Spirit. In fact, nothing else really matters. There
is no other way to produce lasting fruit. Therefore, whether there is an expansion
or contraction in our work, let it be at God’s bidding. He knows what He is
doing. And then, regardless of what God has chosen to do through our
ministries, it will be of equal satisfaction.
The Lord will guide
you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones;
You shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do
not fail. (Isa. 58:11)