Andrew Murray

Chapter 25 – Doing the Will of God Obtains the Promise

“Ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise.” Heb. 10: 36.

It was in a time of very severe trial that this Epistle was addressed to the Hebrews. It had been to them a bitter disappointment to see the nation rejecting their Messiah, and for that rejected of God. To have the temple, too, with its Divine ordinances of circumcision and sacrifice, set aside, was to many a mystery and a cause of deep sorrow. In reproach and the spoiling of their goods they had personally to endure the pain of persecution. The Epistle was written to comfort them by revealing the spiritual glory of Christ’s priesthood and the salvation He bestowed. And it pointed them to the Father, to prove that suffering had been the path of all God’s saints, and had always brought a great recompense of reward. It is in this connection that the words come: Ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise. The promise was sure and very precious; the suffering was needful, and would be very blessed. The one thing they needed was patience in bearing what God sent, and awaiting what God had promised. And in that time of patient waiting they needed just one thing — to see that they did the will of God. In a world of sorrow and trial the Christian has but this one thing to strive after: not only to bear, but to do the will of God; that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.

Doing the will of God is the path to the inheritance. The inheritance owes its Divine glory and blessedness to God having willed it. God’s will working in us can alone fit us for receiving and enjoying it. And God’s will can work in no other way in us as creatures endowed with intelligence and will and moral powers, than by our doing it. Not in any way as a matter of work or merit, but in the very nature and necessity of things the only way of our receiving the promise, which has been bestowed of grace, is by our doing the will. We have been looking at the will of God in various aspects — let us once again turn to this, one of the most elementary, and yet one of the deepest, truths connected with it.

Having done the will of God. It has been said the highest form of existence is the power of working. It is so in God. All His attributes could not make Him the glorious God He is, if they were all dormant, inactive powers. His love, for instance, would be a mere thought or sentiment, not in deed and truth. The highest form of human existence is even so the power of working; and, as a creature, the highest form of that power can be nothing other than working out the perfect will of God. God works to will and to do in us, and what He works in us we work out, doing what He wills and does in us. Such doing the will of God is the proof of our entire surrender to it, our being truly mastered and possessed by it. Such doing the will of God is what gives its strength to our inner man, refines and spiritualizes our whole being, and fits us for being here the abode of the Three-One God ( John 14: 15, 21, 23), and entering His abode hereafter (Matt. 7: 21). Such doing the will of God fits a Christian for receiving every promise.

It was in the time of suffering and trial that these believers were thus to do the will of God. The first concern of most Christians in trouble is to be delivered from it. This may not be the chief thing. The one great desire ought to be — in nothing to fail of knowing or doing the will of God. This is the secret of strength and true nobility in the Christian life. Some think that if under reproach or persecution or injustice, evil feelings are roused and given way to, there is some excuse for it — it cannot be judged too severely — the temptation was so great. God’s word teaches us differently. It regards the Christian so entirely as a man who has given up his own will to live wholly for God’s will, that it says to him, of all trial and temptation of whatever nature, seek one thing: not to sin against God. Be patient, and see that you do the will of God.

But is not this something beyond human power — in every trial ever to think first of God’s will, and do that? It is indeed something beyond human power, but not beyond the power of grace. It is just for this that our Lord Jesus came to earth, saying: I come to do Your will, O God! and went to the Cross with the cry: Not My will, but Yours be done. He lived as an example of how we ought to live. He died to set us free from the power of sin, and open the path, through death to sin and self, to a life for God and His will. He ascended to heaven to give His own Holy Spirit, that in His power we might, like Him, do the will of the Father.

Alas! that in the Church of Christ the truth should be so little known that to do the will of God is the first duty of the believer; and, as a consequence of this, that there is so little desire of the promise and the need of the Holy Spirit to teach us God’s will in daily life. And still further, so little faith in the power of the grace of Christ and His Spirit to fit us for the life of doing the will of God. Men have lost sight of the supernatural light that can reveal the will of God in its beauty and attractiveness, and make it a joy to do it; and of the supernatural obligation to live wholly and entirely for the will of that God who created us, and to whom Christ has brought us back; and of the supernatural power, corresponding to the light and the obligation, which brings a life in the will of God within our reach, because Christ’s strength is made perfect in our weakness.

Believer! whatever others say or do, take you the word in its simple Divine meaning: “You have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” Beseech God, by His Holy Spirit, in the renewing of the spirit of your mind, to show you how He would have you live wholly in His will. Yield yourself to that will in everything you know, and do it. Yield yourself to that will in all its Divine love and quickening power as it works in you and makes you partaker of its inmost nature. Pray, pray, pray, until you see increasingly how what Christ revealed in His life and death is the promise and pledge of what God will work in you, and how your abiding in Him and your oneness with Him, means nothing less than your being called to do the will of God as He did it.



Chapter 26 – God Himself Working His Will in Us

“Now the God of peace, make you perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be the glory for ever and ever.” Heb. 13: 20, 21.

In Hebrews we have three passages on the will of God. The first, 10: 7-10, spoke of that will, and Christ’s doing of it, as the cause of our redemption — the deep root in which our life stands. The second, 10-36, spoke of that will as done patiently by us, amid the trials of this earth. The third, our present text, shows us the wondrous bond of union between the two former: the same God who wrought out His will in Christ for our redemption, is working out that will in us too. What God did in Christ is the pledge of what He will do in us too. That Christ did the will of God secures our doing that will too. Listen to the wondrous teaching.

Now, the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep in the blood of the everlasting covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect to do His will. All that is said about the Lord Jesus refers to the previous teaching of the Epistle. It has taught us what the covenant was, what the blood of the covenant, what the exaltation to the throne of Christ as the Priest King, the Great Shepherd of the sheep. And now it says that the God of peace, who did it all, who gave Christ to do His will and die on the Cross, and then raised Him from the dead, that the same God will perfect us to do His will. As much as it was God who sent and enabled Christ to do His will, and through that perfected Him and perfected our salvation, it is God too who will perfect us in every good thing to do His will. God’s will being done in us is to God of the same interest as His will done in Christ; He cares for the one as much as the other. The same Omnipotence which created for Christ a body through the Virgin Mary, and empowered Christ — who could do nothing of Himself — to do that will, even to the agony of Gethsemane, and the surrender of His Spirit into His Father’s hand on Calvary, and then raised Him from the grave to His own right hand, the same Omnipotent God is working in you that you may do His will. Oh, for grace to believe this — the God who worked all in Christ, even to raising Him from the very dead, is working all in us!

You do not catch it yet. It looks altogether too impossible. The difference is too great. The difficulties in our sinful nature are too insuperable. Come and listen once again. Now, the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ — what now — do pause, and take in every word — make you perfect — in every good thing — to do His will! What more could one wish? [Note: The word ‘perfect’ here means to repair, to equip, to fit; God fits us for every good thing, and so enables us to do His will.]

And yet, to remove all doubt, there is more. There follows: working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ. The center words, to do His will, are welded fast between what precedes: God Himself make you perfect in every good thing, and what follows — working Himself in you that which is pleasing in His sight. How wonderful the connection between our doing and God’s working. He fits us in every good thing to do His will, so that the doing of it is really our work, and yet at the same time it is His own working in us. God fits us for the work, and then works it through us. And so all is of God!

The lessons for which we want to take these words into our heart, and which we want to ask God to teach us by the Holy Spirit, are three. The first is: The one object of the great redemption is to fit us to do God’s will here on earth. For that we were created; that was God’s image and likeness in us; that was our fitness for fellowship with God, and the participation in His rule of the world to which we were destined. To redeem and bring us back to this, God worked that stupendous miracle of power and of love; His Son becoming man, that as man He might show us how to do God’s will, and how by doing it sin could be atoned and conquered. For this Christ lives in heaven and in our hearts, that through Him God may work in us that which is well pleasing in His heart. What the sinner needs to know when he is called to repentance, what the believer needs to be continually reminded of and encouraged in, is this: to do God’s will is what I have been redeemed for. The entire failure of so much Christian life is simply owing to this, that the Church has not clearly and persistently preached the great message, that all God’s wondrous grace has this one object, to restore us to the original glory of our creation, and make it our life to do His will.

The second lesson is of no less importance — we can do God’s will because God Himself fits us for it, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight.

Alas! how little this is known or believed by believers. The call to do all God’s will is made of no effect by the terrible unbelief that says: It cannot be; I cannot do it. Men say that they believe that all the mysteries of redemption, up to Christ’s resurrection and exaltation to heaven were wrought “by the working of the strength of God’s might” (Eph. 1: 20). But they do not believe what Scripture affirms as distinctly (Eph. 1: 19), that the same exceeding greatness of His power works in them that believe. Let me implore every child of God who would live to do His will, to remember: the will of God is so holy and Divine no one can do it but God Himself. God has given you a renewed will, capable of knowing and desiring, and even delighting in, His will, but not of doing it in your own strength. The work of our will is to accept of His will as being indeed what He will work in you. This is indeed our highest glory, that God, who, according to His very nature, must work all in all, will work in us both to will and to do. He Himself fits us in every good thing to do His will, working Himself in us that which is pleasing in His sight.

The last lesson follows naturally: Our great need and our great duty, when we have accepted our calling to live only to do His will, is to bow before God in continual humility and dependence, asking to know fully our utter impotence, and seeking to trust confidently in His power working in us. And with this, to understand that His power cannot work freely and fully in us, except as He dwells in us. Jesus said: The Father abiding in Me does the works. It is “through Jesus Christ” that God works in us what is pleasing in His sight. That is, through Jesus Christ dwelling in the heart, by the power of the Holy Ghost, God by a continual secret, almighty operation, works out His will in us, by fitting us to do it. The one thing needful is: a simple, but unceasing and unlimited, faith in the indwelling Jesus. Lo, I come, He said. I delight to do Your will. That is not only for us, but in us. He is the Executor of the Father’s will, through whom it is all carried out. Oh! let us turn with a new consecration to do all God’s will, with a new faith to God who will work in us the fitness to do it, with a new devotion to Jesus Christ, through whom we the sinful, we the impotent, can indeed have grace to say also: I delight to do Your will, O my God.



Chapter 27 – Suffering According to the Will of God

“For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. If, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye shall take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. Because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow His steps.” 1 Pet. 2: 15, 20, 21.

“It is better, if the will of God so will, that ye suffer for well-doing, than for evil-doing. Because Christ also suffered for sins once.” 1 Pet. 3: 17, 18.

“Inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice. Wherefore, let them also that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator.” 1 Pet. 4: 13, 19.

Before Peter had received the Holy Spirit, he could not understand that suffering had to be borne as God’s will. When Christ spoke of His suffering, he reproved Him, and had to bear the rebuke: ‘Get thee behind Me, Satan.’ When his discipleship brought him into danger and suffering, he denied his Lord. He could not see that suffering was God’s will. With Pentecost everything was changed. He knew no fear. He rejoiced that he was counted worthy to suffer for His name. In his Epistle he ever connects Christ’s suffering for our sins with his example, calling us to suffer like Him. Through suffering to glory is the keynote of his exhortation to the saints. Let us listen to what he teaches us of the will of God in suffering.

The first lesson is: To regard all suffering as the will of God for us. “If the will of God will, that ye suffer for well-doing.” “They that suffer according to the will of God.” He is speaking of the suffering of injustice at the hands of our fellow-men. Very many, who think they are ready to endure trial that comes direct from God, find it very hard to bear unkind, or hard, or unjust treatment from men. And yet it is just here that Christ’s teaching and example, and all Scripture instruction, call upon us to accept and bow to the will of God. Whether it be in the most flagrant injustice, and the most terrible suffering — such as our Lord endured at the hands of Caiaphas and Pilate — or the smaller vexations that we meet with in daily life from enemies or friends, all suffering must be to us the will of God. Nothing can come to us without the will of God. What is done may be most contrary to the will of God, and the doer most guilty in His sight — that it is done to us, that we suffer by it, is God’s will. And the first duty of the child of God is — not to look at the man who does it, to seek to be avenged of him, or delivered from his hands, but — to recognize and bow beneath it as the Father’s will. That one thought — it is the Father’s will — changes our feelings towards it, enables us to accept it as a blessing, changes it from an evil into a good. In all suffering let the first thought be to see the Father’s hand, and count on the Father’s help. Then no circumstance whatever can for one moment take us out of the blessed will of God.

The second lesson is: Ever to suffer with well-doing. In all the three texts the word “well-doing ” occurs. If we suffer when we do wrong, and take it patiently, this is no glory. The one thing we are to care for is that, if we suffer, it is not to be for wrong-doing, but for well-doing. For it is better, if the will of God so will, that you suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. And also with well-doing, not allowing the suffering to call forth anything that is sinful. That must be our one desire in suffering. It is caused by sin, it is meant to take away sin — how terrible if I make it the occasion of more sin, and turn it to the very opposite of what God means it to be. But if we suffer when we do well, and take it patiently, this is acceptable with God — that so by well-doing we put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Men may learn from us what the power of Grace is, to soften and to strengthen; what the reality is of the heavenly life and joy that enables us to bear all loss; and what the blessing is of the service of the Divine Master, who can make His own path of suffering so attractive and so blessed to His followers. And it is in well-doing that we can commit our souls unto a faithful Creator.

Here is the third lesson: In suffering to commit our souls to God’s faithful keeping. What a precious privilege! Amid all the temptation suffering brings, God Himself offers to take charge of the keeping of our souls. Going down into the darkness of death, our Lord Jesus said: “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.” Into every dark cloud of suffering into which we enter, we may say this too. From all the strife of tongues and the pride of man, from all that there is in ourselves of the tendency to impatience or anger, to quick judgments or unloving dispositions, the faithful Creator can keep the soul committed to Him. He who sends the suffering as His will, has beforehand provided a place of safety, where the blessing of the suffering will assuredly be given. Let us say: “I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him.”

Then comes the last lesson: In all our suffering according to the will of God, Christ is our pattern and our strength. In all the three chapters, Christ suffering for our sake is connected with our suffering for His sake. “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example — that ye should follow His steps” (2: 2). “It is better that ye suffer for well-doing, because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous” (3: 17, 18). “Forasmuch as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves with the same mind. Insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice ye . . . because the Spirit of Glory and the Spirit of God resteth on you” (4: 1, 13, 14). The sufferings of believers are as indispensable as are those of Christ. They are to be borne in the same spirit. They are the means of fellowship with Him, and conformity to His image. Christ Jesus accepted and bore all suffering, of whatever nature, great or small, whether coming in the ordinary course of events or specially devised against Himself, as the will of God. He endured all, as the necessary result of sin, in submission to the will of the Father who sent it, as the school in which He was to prove that His will was one with the Father’s, and that the Father’s will was over all.

Christ is our pattern, because He is our life. In time of suffering proof is given that the Spirit of Glory and the Spirit of God rests upon us. Oh, that all believers, who desire to live wholly to the will of God, might understand how much depends upon their recognizing God’s will in all suffering, and bearing all according to the will of God! And might understand, too, how impossible it is to disconnect Christ’s sufferings for us from our’s for Him. He suffered for us as our Head, in whom we are made alive. We can only suffer for Him as He lives in us. The attempt to do or bear the will of God aright, as long as we are living on a different level from that on which Christ lived, must be failure. It is only where the whole-hearted surrender to live and die for the will of God as He did, possesses the soul that the mighty power of His Love, and Grace, and Spirit can do their wonders in the life.



Chapter 29 – Doing God’s Will, The Secret of Abiding

“If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” 1 John 2: 15, 17.

Here we have once again the contrast between the two great powers that contend for mastery over man. We saw, in Romans 12: 2, how the great danger that threatens the consecrated man, and makes a life in God’s will impossible, comes from the side of worldly conformity. And, in Galatians 1: 4, how the one great aim of God’s will in the death of Christ was to deliver us from this present evil world. The irreconcilable hostility of the two principles is brought out here with equal force. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Freedom from the love of the world, by the love of the Father utterly expelling it, is the law of the normal Christian life. And the exercise and discipline by which the true position is to be maintained, with the love of the Father and not the love of the world filling the heart and life, is the doing the will of God: “He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever ” — abides unchangeably in God and an unchangeable love.

What sacred associations there are connected with that word ‘abiding’! Abiding in Christ and in His love (John 15); abiding in the Son and in the Father (1 John 2: 24, 28); God and Christ, the truth and the anointing abiding in us (1 John 2: 14, 27; 3: 24). The chief thought is permanent, steadfast, immovable continuance in the place and the blessing secured to us in Christ and God. The great secret of the world is its transitoriness — it passes away with all its glory. And all who are of it partake of its vanity and uncertainty. And just as far as the Christian breathes its spirit, and allows its love a place in his heart, he loses the power of abiding. All failure in abiding, all lack of permanence and perseverance in the Christian life, can have no other cause than that the spirit and life of the world are robbing the soul of its real and only strength. The Word and Will of God are unchangeable and eternal: he that does the will of God abides forever. As a man does the will of God, and in doing appropriates it, feeds upon and assimilates it, its very essence enters into his being, and he becomes partaker of its Divine strength and unchangeableness. As the life of God is, so is His will, without variableness and shadow of turning. And as the will of God is taken up into the life of the believer, it also is changed into the likeness of theDivine life, and becomes freed from all the variableness and every shadow of turning which is the mark of this world. “This world passes away; he that does the will of God abides forever.”

“He that does the will of God.” It is by doing that the will of God enters into us, and communicates its own Divine unchangeableness. The revelation by the Spirit, the knowledge and contemplation of the love and adoration of the will of God — all these have their place and value. But it is not until we have really done, and are continually doing, the will of God, that it has really mastered us, conquered every enemy, and transformed us into the perfect likeness to itself. It is as the doing of the Father’s will becomes our meat, that is, the satisfaction of our soul’s hunger, and our nourishment, that God Himself becomes the strength of our life. It is only then that man is brought back to his original glory. He was created with a will, that into it he might receive the will of God, that God might work His will into him, and so man, in working that will out again, might become the partner and fellow-worker with God in all His works. Jesus Christ, as man, restored human nature to its ideal destiny, and proved what blessedness and glory it is to live only to do the will of God. And redeemed men receive the Spirit of Jesus Christ that they, even as He, might find their life in accepting and living and doing nothing but the will of God. As God’s will is the only power that upholds and secures the existence of the universe, so that will, done by the believer, is the one security that he never shall be moved. The whole of redemption, all that it reveals of pardoning and sanctifying and preserving grace, has this as its aim and its crown — that man should find his blessedness and his fellowship with God, his likeness to Him, in doing His will. “He that does the will of God abides forever.”

Blessed abiding! How often believers have mourned and wondered that there was so little abiding peace and joy in their life — that the abiding in Christ and His love was so fluctuating and uncertain. They knew not how near the answer lay as to the cause: “He that does the will of God abides forever.” They never noticed how distinctly our Lord had laid down this as the one condition of abiding in Him: “If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love, even as I kept the commandments of My Father, and abide in His love.” Could words make it plainer that obedience, doing His will, is the secret of abiding? And that if, instead of occupying ourselves with the abiding as the object of direct desire and faith and prayer, and effort, we were to give up ourselves wholly to keep the commandments and do the will, the abiding would come of itself, because it would be given us by a secret power from on High. He that does the will of God abides forever,” and will always and unceasingly abide.

It is to be feared that in the teaching of the Church of Christ, and in the life of the great majority of believers, the doing of the will of the Father has not that overwhelming prominence which it had in the life and teaching of Christ, as in the purpose of the Father. Any revival that is really to affect the spiritual life and elevate the standard of Christian living, must be a revival of holy living, with the vindication of God’s claim that every child of His should give Himself to do God’s will on earth as it is done in heaven. When once God’s claim is fully admitted, and, without any reservation, unconditionally accepted, light will be given as to the Divine guidance that will lead us to it, the Divine power which makes it possible, the Divine certainty that it shall be done. Everything depends upon the simple and whole-hearted acceptance of the great truth, that to be brought back to do the will of God is the one thing we have been redeemed for, and that doing that will is, on earth as in heaven, with us, as with our Lord Jesus, the one secret of abiding in the love of God.



Chapter 30 – Praying According to God’s Will

“And this is the boldness which we have toward Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of Him.” 1 John 5: 14-15.

God works out His will through the willing and doing of His people. He works in them, all unconsciously to them, to will and to do. While they study His will in His Word, and take it up into their wills and lives and work it out, He is all the while working it out through them. It is a heart and life filled with the love of God’s will that becomes the prepared instrument through which God can do His work.

It is with prayer as with work. As God has taken up into His eternal purpose the cooperation and the labor of His people, so their prayers also. These have their human origin in our desires as awakened by our need or by God’s promises, and are yet God’s own working in us. They cannot effect any change in the will of God, for they are God’s will realizing itself through us, and their first condition is that they must be according to God’s will. They may indeed, and do, effect a change to what appears to be God’s will, in what is His will for a time, or as a preliminary to something higher; their real power consists in their being according to God’s will, because God works out His will as much through our prayers as our works.

The question has often caused much difficulty: How can I know that my prayers are according to the will of God? The question lies at the very root of our prayer life, as well as of a life in the will of God. It is not easy to give an exhaustive answer. And yet it may be possible to give suggestions that will enable thoughtful Christians to find the answer that meets their own case. The Holy Spirit, where He is to reveal the will of God, where He is too to help us in prayer, must be our Teacher.

Let us, first of all, see that we understand the words, “According to His will,” correctly. Many connect them exclusively with “anything”: the thing asked must be according to His will. But there is something more important than this — not only the thing asked for, but the disposition and character of the asker must be according to God’s will. In this last lies the real secret of power in prayer. Two Christians both ask for something according to the will of God. He gives it to one and not to another. And why? Because the asking of the one was different from the other. We must connect the words, “According to His will,” with asking. That will include both that the thing asked and the spirit of the asking be in harmony with God’s will.

That the latter is of primary importance is evident from our Lord’s teaching of His disciples. He continually connected the answer to prayer with their state. They must forgive, they must be merciful, they must be humble, they must be believing, they must ask in His name, they must abide in Him in keeping His commandments, and His words abide in them; their life must be according to God’s will. If they loved Him, and kept His commandments, He would pray the Father for them. Only the man whose life and conduct, whose heart and disposition, is according to God’s will, can ask according to His will. So James speaks of the fervent, effectual prayer of the righteous man. And John says, “Whatever we ask we receive, because we kept His commandment.” It is the life that prays; the prayer has power according to the life; a life according to God’s will can ask according to God’s will.

One great reason of this is that the man who lives according to God’s will is able spiritually to discern what he may ask for. A Christian may take some promise of God’s word, say, for the conversion of sinners, and begin and pray for someone in the mere power of human love, and without seeking at all to be led by the Spirit into the faith that enables him to pray successfully. It is simply a matter of human will; I would like the conversion of this friend. God wills that all should be saved; I will ask it. While there is no thought of that abiding in Christ through obedience to which the promise of an answer has been given. This is not asking according to the will of God, in the deep consciousness of dependence on the Holy Spirit, in that true obedient abiding in Christ Jesus, which alone is truly asking in His Name. Doing is the only way to knowing the will of God, and therefore the only way of asking according to His will. As long as I only desire to know God’s will with regard to certain things I desire or need, I may find it difficult to know it. A life yielded to and molded by the will of God will know what and how to pray. A heart seeking to be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,” and striving fervently “to stand perfect and complete in all the will of God,” will be able joyfully to appropriate the promise, “This is the boldness we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”

Let us try and learn the lessons. Boldness in prayer comes from the assurance that both the spirit of asking and the thing we ask are according to the will of God. . . . In all our prayers that we have learned from His Word, let us take time to realize that they are indeed according to God’s loving, mighty will, and therefore sure to be heard. . . . Let us remember how essentially one our lives and our prayers are, and live wholly to do God’s will — that will ensure our praying according to His will. . . . Let us pray first and wait for the things that God has clearly revealed to be His will, things that concern His love and kingdom and glory — that will give us liberty with the lesser things that concern our interests. . . . Only the Holy Spirit in the spirit of prayer can lead us into the will of God, — as we wait on Him even in the things we know to be according to God’s will. He can give us Divine assurance in regard to things that no human reason could believe beforehand to be God’s will. . . . Let our first desire in regard to every petition ever be: Lord, teach me how to pray only according to Your will.

God’s will is at first a deep hidden mystery. He that lives to do that will as far as he knows it, may count upon being led deeper into it as the manifestation of a holy, mighty, infinite goodness. Let me give myself to it as to Infinite Love. God works out His will equally by the works and the prayers of His people. Yield yourself equally without reserve to that will in working as in praying, in praying as in working. The absolute joyful surrender of our life to that will, in full obedience and in perfect truth, gives boldness in doing and in asking. And this text, instead of being a stumbling-block, will give us new joy and confidence in prayer, because the prayer according to the will of God must prevail. 



Day 1 – The God of our Salvation

“My soul waiteth only upon God [marg: is silent unto God]; from Him cometh my salvation.” Ps. 62:1

If salvation indeed comes from God, and is entirely His work, just as creation was, it follows, as a matter of course, that our first and highest duty is to wait on Him to do the work that pleases Him. Waiting becomes then the only way to the experience of a full salvation, the only way, truly, to know God as the God of our salvation. All the difficulties that are brought forward as keeping us back from full salvation, have their cause in this one thing: the defective knowledge and practice of waiting upon God. All that the Church and its members need for the manifestation of the mighty power of God in the world, is the return to our true place, the place that belongs to us, both in creation and redemption, the place of absolute and unceasing dependence upon God. Let us strive to see what the elements are that make up this most blessed and needful waiting upon God: it may help us to discover the reasons why this grace is so little cultivated, and to feel how infinitely desirable it is that the Church, that we ourselves, should at any price learn its blessed secret.

The deep need for this waiting on God lies equally in the nature of man and the nature of God. God, as Creator, formed man, to be a vessel in which He could show forth His power and goodness. Man was not to have in himself a fountain of life, or strength, or happiness: the ever-living and only living One was each moment to be the Communicator to him of all that he needed. Man’s glory and blessedness was not to be independent, or dependent upon himself, but dependent on a God of such infinite riches and love. Man was to have the joy of receiving every moment out of the fulness of God. This was his blessedness as an unfallen creature.

When he fell from God, he was still more absolutely dependent on Him. There was not the slightest hope of his recovery out of his state of death, but in God, His power and mercy. It is God alone who began the work of redemption; it is God alone who continues and carries it on each moment in each individual believer. Even in the regenerate man there is no power of goodness in himself: he has and can have nothing that he does not each moment receive; and waiting on God is just as indispensable, and must be just as continuous and unbroken, as the breathing that maintains his natural life.

It is, then, because Christians do not know their relation to God of absolute poverty and helplessness, that they have no sense of the need of absolute and unceasing dependence, or the unspeakable blessedness of continual waiting on God. But when once a believer begins to see it, and consent to it, that he by the Holy Spirit must each moment receive what God each moment works, waiting on God becomes his brightest hope and joy. As he apprehends how God, as God, as Infinite Love, delights to impart His own nature to His child as fully as He can, how God is not weary of each moment keeping charge of his life and strength, he wonders that he ever thought otherwise of God than as a God to be waited on all the day. God unceasingly giving and working; His child unceasingly waiting and receiving: this is the blessed life.

“Truly my soul waiteth upon God; from Him cometh my salvation.” First we wait on God for salvation. Then we learn that salvation is only to bring us to God, and teach us to wait on Him. Then we find what is better still, that waiting on God is itself the highest salvation. It is the ascribing to Him the glory of being All; it is the experiencing that He is All to us.

May God teach us the blessedness of waiting on Him.

“My soul, wait thou only upon God!”



Day 2 – The Keynote of Life

I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord! Gen 49:18.

It is not easy to say exactly in what sense Jacob used these words, in the midst of his prophecies in regard to the future of his sons. But they do certainly dictate that both for himself and for them his expectation was from God alone. It was God’s salvation he waited for; a salvation which God had promised and which God Himself alone could work out. He knew himself and his sons to be under God’s charge. Jehovah the Everlasting God would show in them what His saving power is and does. The words point forward to that wonderful history of redemption which is not yet finished, and to the glorious future in eternity whither it is leading. They suggest to us how there is no salvation but God’s salvation, and how waiting on God for that, whether for our personal experience, or in wider circles, is our first duty, our true blessedness.

Let us think of ourselves, and the inconceivably glorious salvation God has wrought for us in Christ, and is now purposing to work out and to perfect in us by His Spirit. Let us meditate until we somewhat realize that every participation of this great salvation, from moment to moment, must be the work of God Himself. God cannot part with His grace, or goodness, or strength, as an external thing that He gives us, as He gives the raindrops from heaven. No; He can only give it, and we can only enjoy it, as He works it Himself directly and unceasingly. And the only reason that He does not work it more effectually and continuously is, that we do not let Him. We hinder Him either by our indifference or by our self-effort, so that He cannot do what He would.

What He asks of us, in the way of surrender, and obedience, and desire, and trust, is all comprised in this one word: waiting on Him, waiting for His salvation. It combines the deep sense of our entire helplessness of ourselves to work what is divinely good, and our perfect confidence that our God will work it all in His divine power.

Again, I say, let us meditate on the divine glory of the salvation God purposes working out in us, until we know the truths it implies. Our heart is the scene of a divine operation more wonderful than Creation. We can do as little towards the work as towards creating the world, except as God works in us to will and to do. God only asks of us to yield, to consent, to wait upon Him, and He will do it all. Let us meditate and be still, until we see how meet and right and blessed it is that God alone do all, and our soul will of itself sink down in deep humility to say: “I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord.” And the deep blessed background of all our praying and working will be: “Truly my soul waiteth upon God.”

The application of the truth to wider circles, to those we labor among or intercede for, to the Church of Christ around us, or throughout the world, is not difficult. There can be no good but what God works; to wait upon God, and have the heart filled with faith in His working, and in that faith to pray for His mighty power to come down, is our only wisdom. Oh for the eyes of our heart to be opened to see God working in ourselves and in others, and to see how blessed it is to worship and just to wait for His salvation!

Our private and public prayer are our chief expression of our relation to God: it is in them chiefly that our waiting upon God must be exercised. If our waiting begin by quieting the activities of nature, and being still before God; if it bows and seeks to see God in His universal and almighty operation, alone able and always ready to work all good; if it yields itself to Him in the assurance that He is working and will work in us; if it maintains the place of humility and stillness, and surrenders until God’s Spirit has quickened the faith that He will perfect His work: it will indeed become the strength and the joy of the soul. Life will become one deep blessed cry: “I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord.”

“My soul, wait thou only upon God”



Day 3 – The True Place of the Creature

“These wait all upon Thee; That Thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That Thou givest unto them, they gather: Thou openest Thine hand, they are satisfied with good.” Ps.104:27-28

This Psalm, in praise of the Creator, has been speaking of the birds and the beasts of the forest; of the young lions, and man going forth to his work; of the great sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. And it sums up the whole relation of all creation to its Creator, and its continuous and universal dependence upon Him in the one word: “These all wait upon Thee.” Just as much as it was God’s work to create, it is His work to maintain. As little as the creature could create itself, it is it left to provide for itself. The whole creation is ruled by the one unalterable law of –– waiting upon God!

The word is the simple expression of that for the sake of which alone the creature was brought into existence, the very groundwork of its constitution. The one object for which God gave life to creatures was that in them He might prove and show forth His wisdom, power, and goodness, in His being each moment their life and happiness, and pouring forth unto them, according to their capacity, the riches of His goodness and power. And just as this is the very place and nature of God, to be unceasingly the supplier of every want in the creature, so the very place and nature of the creature is nothing hut this – to wait upon God and receive from Him what He alone can give, what He delights to give.

If we are in this little book at all to apprehend what waiting on God is to be to the believer, to practice it and to experience its blessedness, it is of consequence that we begin at the very beginning, and see the deep reasonableness of the call that comes to us. We shall understand how the duty is no arbitrary command. We shall see how it is not only rendered necessary by our sin and helplessness. It is simply and truly our restoration to our original destiny and our highest nobility, to our true place and glory as creatures blessedly dependent on the All-Glorious God.

If once our eyes are opened to this precious truth, all Nature will become a preacher, reminding us of the, relationship which, founded in creation, is now taken in grace. As we read this Psalm, and learn to look upon all life in Nature as continually maintained by God Himself, waiting on God will be seen to be the very necessity of our being. As we think of the young lions and the ravens crying to Him, of the birds and the fishes and every insect waiting on Him, till He give them their meat in due season, we shall see that it is the very nature and glory of God that He is a God who is to be waited on. Every thought of what Nature is, and what God is, will give new force to the call: “Wait thou only upon God.”

“These all wait upon Thee, that thou mayest give.” It is God who giveth all: let this faith enter deeply into our hearts. Ere yet we fully understand all that is implied in our waiting upon God, and ere we have even been able to cultivate the habit, let the truth enter our souls: waiting on God, unceasing and entire dependence upon Him, is, in heaven and earth, the one only true religion, the one unalterable and all-comprehensive expression for the true relationship to the ever-blessed one in whom we live.

Let us resolve at once that it shall be the one characteristic of our life and worship, a continual, humble, truthful waiting upon God. We may rest assured that He who made us for Himself, that He might give Himself to us and in us, that He will never disappoint us. In waiting on Him we shall find rest and joy and strength, and the supply of every need.

“My soul, wait thou only upon God.”



Day 4 – For Supplies

“The Lord upholdeth all that fall, And raiseth up all those that be bowed down. The eyes of all wait upon Thee; And Thou givest them their meat in due season.” Ps 145:14-15

PSALM 104 is a Psalm of Creation, and the words, “These all wait upon Thee,” were used with reference to the animal creation. Here we have a Psalm of the Kingdom, and “The eyes of all wait upon Thee” appears specially to point to the needs of God’s saints, of all that fall and them that be bowed down. What the universe and the animal creation do unconsciously, God’s people are to do intelligently and voluntarily. Man is to be the interpreter of Nature. He is to prove that there is nothing more noble or more blessed in the exercise of our free will than to use it in waiting upon God.

If an army has been sent out to march into an enemy’s country, and tidings are received that it is not advancing, the question is at once asked, what may be the cause of delay. The answer will very often be: “Waiting for supplies.” All the stores of provisions or clothing or ammunition have not arrived; without these it dare not proceed. It is no otherwise in the Christian life: day by day, at every step, we need our supplies from above. And there is nothing so needful as to cultivate that spirit of dependence on God and of confidence in Him, which refuses to go on without the needed supply of grace and strength.

If the question be asked, whether this be anything different from what we do when we pray, the answer is, that there may be much praying with but very little waiting on God. In praying we are often occupied with ourselves, with our own needs, and our own efforts in the presentation of them. In waiting upon God, the first thought is of the God upon whom we wait. We enter His presence, and feel we need just to be quiet, so that He, as God, can overshadow us with Himself. God longs to reveal Himself, to fill us with Himself. Waiting on God gives Him time in His own way and divine power to come to us.

It is specially at the time of prayer that we ought to set ourselves to cultivate this spirit.

Before you pray, bow quietly before God, just t remember and realize who He is, how near He is, how certainly He can and will help. Just be still before Him, and allow His Holy Spirit to waken and stir up in your soul the child-like disposition of absolute dependence and confident expectation. Wait upon God as a Living Being, as the Living God, who notices you, and is just longing to fill you with His salvation. Wait on God till you know you have met Him; prayer will then be come so different.

And when you are praying, let there be intervals of silence, reverent stillness of soul, in which you yield yourself to God, in case He may have aught He wishes to teach you or to work in you. Waiting on Him will become the most blessed part of prayer, and the blessing thus obtained will be doubly precious as the fruit or such fellowship with the Holy One, God has so ordained it, in harmony with His holy nature, and with ours, that waiting on Him should be the honor we give Him. Let us bring Him the service gladly and truthfully; He will reward it abundantly.

“The eyes of all wait upon Thee, and Thou givest them their meat in due season.” Dear soul, God provides in Nature for the creatures He has made: how much more will He provide in Grace for those He has redeemed. Learn to say of every want, and every failure, and every lack of needful grace: I have waited too little upon God, or He would have given me in due season all I needed. And say then too,

“My soul, wait thou only upon God!”



Day 5 – For Instruction

“Shew me thy ways, O Lord; Teach me Thy paths. Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me; For Thou art the God of my salvation; On Thee do I wait all the day.” Ps. 25:4-5

I spoke of an army on the point of entering an enemy’s territories. Answering the question as to the cause of delay: “Waiting for supplies.” The answer might also have been: “Waiting for instructions,” or “Waiting for orders.” If the last despatch had not been received, with the final orders of the commander-in-chief, the army dared not move. Even so in the Christian life: as deep as the need of waiting for supplies, is that of waiting for instructions.

See how beautiful this comes out in Ps. 25. The writer knew and loved God’s law exceedingly, and meditated in that law day and night. But he knew that this was not enough. He knew that for the right spiritual apprehension of the truth, and for the right personal application of it to his own peculiar circumstances, he needed a direct divine teaching.

The psalm has at all times been a very peculiar one, because of its reiterated expression of the felt need of the Divine teaching, and of the childlike confidence that that teaching would be given. Study the psalm until your heart is filled with the two thoughts – the absolute need, the absolute certainty of divine guidance. And with these how entirely it is in this connection that he speaks, “On Thee do I wait all the day.” Waiting for guidance, waiting for instruction, all the day, is a very blessed part of waiting upon God.

The Father in heaven is so interested in His child, and so longs to have his life at every step in His will and His love, that He is willing to keep his guidance entirely in His own hand. He knows so well that we are unable to do what is really holy and heavenly, except as He works it in us, that He means His very demands to become promises of what He will do, in watching over and leading us all the day. Not only in special difficulties and times of perplexity, but in the common course of everyday life, we may count upon Him to teach us His war, and show us His path.

And what is needed in us to receive this guidance? One thing: waiting for instructions, waiting on God. “On Thee do I wait all the day.” We want in our times of prayer to give clear expression to our sense of need, and our faith in His help. We want definitely to become conscious of our ignorance as to what God’s war may be, and the need of the Divine light shining within us, if our way is to be as of the sun, shining more and more unto the perfect day. And we want to wait quietly before God in prayer, until the deep, restful assurance fills us: It will be given – “the meek will He guide in the way.”

“On Thee do I wait all the day.” The special surrender to the Divine guidance in our seasons of prayer must cultivate, and be followed up by, the habitual looking upwards “all the day.” As simple as it is, to one who has eyes, to walk all the day in the light of the sun, so simple and delightful can it become to a soul practiced in waiting on God, to walk all the day in the enjoyment of God’s light and leading. What is needed to help us to such a life is just one thing: the real knowledge and faith of God as the one only source of wisdom and goodness, as ever ready, and longing much to be to us all that we can possibly require – yes! this is the one thing we need. If we but saw our God in His love, if we but believed that He waits to be gracious, that He waits to be our life and to work all in us, – how this waiting on God would become our highest joy, the natural and spontaneous response of our hearts to His great love and glory!

“My soul, wait thou only upon God!”