Devotional Time
Parts 5-7  of a 31 part series
Working For God
by Andrew Murray
V: To Each According To His Ability

The kingdom of heaven is as when a man, going into another country, called his own servants, and delivered them his goods.
And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each, according to his several abilities. Matt. 25:14.
In the parable of the talents we have a most instructive summary of our Lord's teaching in regard to the work He has given
to His servants to do. He tells us of His going to heaven and leaving His work on earth to the care of His Church; of His
giving every one something to do, however different the gifts might be; of His expecting to get back His money with interest;
of the failure of him who had received least; and of what it was that led to that terrible neglect.
He called his own servants and delivered unto them his goods, and went on his journey.' is literally what our Lord did. He
went to heaven, leaving His work with all His goods to the care of His Church. His goods were, the riches of His grace, the
spiritual blessings in heavenly places, His word and Spirit, with all the power of His life on the throne of God,--all these He
gave in trust to His servants, to be used by them in carrying out His work on earth. The work He had begun they were to
prosecute. As some rich merchant leaves Cape Town to reside in London, while his business is carried on by trustworthy
servants, our Lord took His people into partnership with Himself, and entrusted His work on earth entirely to their care.
Through their neglect it would suffer; their diligence would be His enrichment. Here we have the true root-principle of
Christian service; Christ has made Himself dependent for the extension of His kingdom on the faithfulness of His people.
Unto one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each, according to his several abilities. Though there was a
difference in the measure, every one received a portion of the master's goods. It is in connection with the service we are to
render to each other that we read of the grace given to each of us according to the measure of the gift of Christ.' This truth,
that every believer without exception has been set apart to take an active part in the work of winning the world for Christ,
has almost been lost from sight. Christ was first a son, then a servant. Every believer is first a child of God, then a servant.
It is the highest honor of a son to be a servant, to have the father's work entrusted to him. Neither the home nor the foreign
missionary work of the Church will ever be done right until every believer feels that the one object of his being in the world
is to work for the kingdom. The first duty of the servants in the parable was to spend their life in caring for their master's
interests.
After a long time the lord of those servants cometh and maketh a reckoning with them. Christ keeps watch over the work He
has left to be done on earth; His kingdom and glory depend upon it. He will not only hold reckoning when He comes again
to judge, but comes unceasingly to inquire of His servants as to their welfare and work. He comes to approve and
encourage, correct and warn. By His word and Spirit He asks us to say whether we are using our talents diligently, and, as
His devoted servants, living only and entirely for His work. Some He finds laboring diligently, and to them He frequently
says: Enter into the joy of thy Lord.' Others He sees discouraged, and them He inspires with new hope. Some He finds
working, in their own strength; these He reproves. Still others He finds sleeping or hiding their talent; to such His voice
speaks in solemn warning: from him that hath shall be taken away even that he hath. Christ's heart is in His work; every day
He watches over it with the most intense interest; let us not disappoint Him nor deceive ourselves.
'Lord, I was afraid and hid thy talent in the earth.' That the man of the one talent should have been the one to fail and to be
so severely punished is a lesson of deep solemnity. It calls the Church to beware lest, by neglecting to teach the feebler
ones, the one talent men, that their service, too, is needed, she allows them to let their gifts lie unused. In teaching the great
truth that every branch is to bear fruit, special stress must be laid on the danger of thinking that this can only be expected of
the strong and advanced Christian. When Truth reigns in a school, the most backward pupil has the same attention as the
more clever. Care must be taken that the feeblest Christians receive special training, so that they, too, may joyfully have
their share in the service of their Lord and all the blessedness it brings. If Christ's work is to be done, not one can be
missed.
'Lord, I knew that thou art a hard man, and I was afraid.' Wrong thoughts of God, looking upon His service as that of a hard
master, are one chief cause of failure in service. If the Church is indeed to care for the feeble ones, for the one talent
servants, who are apt to be discouraged by reason of their conscious weakness, we must teach them what God says of the
sufficiency of grace and the certainty of success. They must learn to believe that the power of the Holy Spirit within them
fits them for the work to which God has called them. They must learn to understand that God Himself will strengthen them
with might by His Spirit in the inner man. They must be taught that work is joy and health and strength. Unbelief lies at the
root of sloth. Faith opens the eyes to see the blessedness of God's service, the sufficiency of the strength provided, and the
rich reward. Let the Church awake to her calling to train the feeblest of her members to know that Christ counts upon every
redeemed one to live wholly for His work. This alone is true Christianity, is full salvation.

VI: Life And Work

'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to accomplish His work. I must work the works of Him that sent Me. I
have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work Thou gavest Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me with
Thyself.'-- John 5:34, 9:4, 17:4.
'Work is the highest form of existence.' The highest manifestation of the Divine Being is in His work. Read carefully again
the words of our Blessed Lord at the head of the chapter, and see what Divine glory there is in His work. In His work Christ
showed forth His own glory and that of the Father. It was because of the work He had done, and because in it He had
glorified the Father, that He claimed to share the glory of the Father in heaven. The greater works He was to do in answer to
the prayer of the disciples, was that the Father might be glorified in the Son. Work is indeed the highest form of existence,
the highest manifestation of the Divine glory in the Father and in His Son.
What is true of God is true of His creature. Life is movement, is action, and reveals itself in what it accomplishes. The
bodily life, the intellectual, the moral, the spiritual life--individual, social, national life--each of these is judged of by its
work. The character and quality of the work depends on the life: as the life, so the work. And, on the other hand the life
depends on the work; without this there can be no full development and manifestation and perfecting of the life: as the work,
so the life.
This is especially true of the spiritual life--the life of the Spirit in us. There may be a great deal of religious work with its
external activities, the outcome of human will and effort, with but little true worth and power, because the Divine life is
feeble. When the believer does not know that Christ is living in him, does not know the Spirit and power of God working in
him, there may be much earnestness and diligence, with little that lasts for eternity. There may, on the contrary, be much
external weakness and apparent failure, and yet results that prove that the life is indeed of God.
The work depends upon the life. And the life depends on the work for its growth and perfection. All life has a destiny; it
cannot accomplish its purpose without work; life is perfected by work. The highest manifestation of its hidden nature and
power comes out in its work. And so work is the great factor by which the hidden beauty and the Divine possibilities of the
Christian life are brought out. Not only for the sake of what it accomplishes through the believer as God's instrument, but
what it effects on himself, work must in the child of God take the same place it has in God Himself. As in the Father and the
Son, so with the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, work is the highest manifestation of life.
Work must be restored to its right place in God's scheme of the Christian life as in very deed the highest form of existence.
To be the intelligent willing channel of the power of God, to be capable of working the very work of God, to be animated by
the Divine Spirit of love, and in that to be allowed to work life and blessing to men; it is this gives nobility to life, because
it is for this we are created in the image of God. As God never for a moment ceases to work His work of love and blessing
in us and through us, so our working out what He works in us is our highest proof of being created anew in His likeness.
If God's purpose with the perfection of the individual believer, with the appointment of His Church as the body of Christ to
carry on His work of winning back a rebellious world to His allegiance and love is to be carried out, working for God must
have much greater prominence given to it as the true glory of our Christian calling. Every believer must be taught that, as
work is the only perfect manifestation, and therefore the perfection of life in God and throughout the world, so our work is
to be our highest glory. Shall it be so in our lives?
If this is to come, we must remember two things. The one is that it can only come by beginning to work. Those who have
not had their attention specially directed to it cannot realize how great the temptation is to make work a matter of thought
and prayer and purpose, without its really being done. It is easier to bear than to think, easier to think than to speak, easier
to speak than to act. We may listen and accept and admire God's will, and in our prayer profess our willingness to do,--and
yet not actually do. Let us, with such measure of grace as we have, and much prayer for more, take up our calling as God's
working men, and do good hard work for Him. Doing is the best teacher. If you want to know how to do a thing, begin and
do it.
Then you will feel the need of the second thing I wish to mention, and be made capable of understanding it,--that there is
sufficient grace in Christ for all the work you have to do. You will see with ever-increasing gladness how He the Head
works all in you the member, and how work for God may become your closest and fullest fellowship with Christ, your
highest participation in the power of His risen and glorified life.
 
1. Life and work: beware of separating them. The more work you have, the more your work appears a failure. The more
unfit you feel for work, take all the more time and care to have your inner life renewed in close fellowship with God.
2. Christ liveth in me--is the secret of joy and hope, and also of power for work. Care for the life, the life will care for the
work. 'Be filled with the Spirit.'

VII: The Father Abiding In Me Doeth The Work

'Jesus answered them, My Father worketh even until now, and I work.'--John 5:17-20.
'Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak I speak not of Myself: but the Father
abiding in Me doeth the work.'--John 14:10.
Jesus Christ became man that He might show us what a true man is, how God meant to live and work in man, and how man
may find his life and do his work in God. In words like those above, our Lord opens up the inner mystery of His life, and
discovers to us the nature and the deepest secret of His working. He did not come to the world to work instead of the
Father; the Father was ever working--'worketh even until now.' Christ's work was the fruit, the earthly reflection of the
Heavenly Father working. And it was not as if Christ merely saw and copied what the Father willed or did: 'the Father
abiding in Me doeth the work.' Christ did all His work in the power of the Father dwelling and working in Him. So complete
and real was His dependence on the Father, that, in expounding it to the Jews, He used the strong expressions (v. 19, 30)
John 5:19, 30: 'The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing'; 'I can do nothing of Myself.' As
literally as what He said is true of us, 'Apart from Me ye can do nothing,' is it true of Him too. 'The Father abiding in Me
doeth the work.'
Jesus Christ became man that He might show us what true man is, what the true relation between man and God, what the
true way of serving God and doing His work. When we are made new creatures in Christ Jesus, the life we receive is the
very life that was and is in Christ, and it is only by studying His life on earth that we know how we are to live. 'As I live
because of the Father, so he that eateth Me shall live because of Me.' His dependence on the Father is the law of our
dependence on Him and on the Father through Him.
Christ counted it no humiliation to be able to do nothing of Himself, to be always and absolutely dependent on the Father.
He counted it His highest glory, because so all His works were the works of the all glorious God in Him. When shall we
understand that to wait on God, to bow before Him in perfect helplessness, and let Him work all in us, is our true nobility,
and the secret of the highest activity? This alone is the true Son-life, the true life of every child of God. As this life is
known and maintained, the power for work will grow, because the soul is in the attitude in which God can work in us, as the
God who 'worketh for him that waiteth on Him.' It is the ignorance or neglect of the great truths, that there can be no true
work for God but as God works it in us, and that God cannot work in us fully but as we live in absolute dependence on
Him, that is the explanation of the universal complaint of so much Christian activity with so little real result. The revival
which many are longing and praying for must begin with this: the return of Christian ministers and workers to their true place
before God--in Christ and like Christ, one of complete dependence and continual waiting on God to work in them.
Let me invite all workers, young and old, successful or disappointed, full of hope or full of fear, to come and learn from our
Lord Jesus the secret of true work for God. 'My Father worketh, and I work;' 'The Father abiding in Me doeth the works.'
Divine Fatherhood means that God is all, and gives all, and works all. Divine Sonship means continual dependence on the
Father, and the reception, moment by moment, of all the strength needed for His Work. Try to grasp the great truth that
because 'it is God who worketh all in all,' your one need is, in deep humility and weakness, to wait for and to trust in His
working. Learn from this that God can only work in us as He dwells in us. 'The Father abiding in Me doeth the works.'
Cultivate the holy sense of God's continual nearness and presence, of your being His temple, and of His dwelling in you.
Offer yourself for Him to work in you all His good pleasure. You will find that work, instead of being a hindrance, can
become your greatest incentive to a life of fellowship and childlike dependence.
At first it may appear as if the waiting for God to work will keep you back from your work. It may indeed--but only to bring
the greater blessing, when you have learned the lesson of faith, that counts on His working even when you do not feel it.
You may have to do your work in weakness and fear and much trembling. You will know that it is all, that the excellence of
the power may be of God and not of us. As you know yourself better and God better, you will be content that it should ever
be--His strength made perfect in our weakness.
 
1. 'The Father abiding in Me doeth the work.' There is the same law for the Head and the member, for Christ and the
believer. 'It is the same God that worketh all in all.'
2. The Father not only worked in the Son when He was on earth, but now, too, that He is in heaven. It is as we believe in
Christ in the Father's working in Him, that we shall do the greater works. See John 14:10-12.
3. It is as the indwelling God, the Father abiding in us, that God works in us. Let the life of God in the soul be clear, the
work will be sure.
4. Pray much for grace to say, in the name of Jesus, 'The Father abiding in me doeth the work.'