Holiest of All by Andrew Murray

442 Jibe fboliedt of BU
lost the life of paradise and of God. God's great work is to
restore that life. In the Old Testament He showed this in a case
like that of Isaac, by proving that the new race He was going
to prepare must have a life from Himself, a life born of one
as good as dead. Isaac's life was to be in a special sense a Godgiven
life. In the New Testament He showed it by the miraculous
birth of Jesus Christ : God's mighty power revealing the
divine life in the babe of Bethlehem. What God would teach
us is : the new life must come from God ;
His mighty power
must alone and directly work it, or all is vain. It is for this our
faith must trust
Him.
Just as really as the life of Adam, the life of Isaac, the life
of Christ, was the
immediate work of God's almighty power, is
the divine life in our souls His work. And it is not only His
work in its beginning, as if He bestowed upon us a life that we
had to keep in safety, and to nourish and bring to perfection.
No, as the tree grows every day on that root from which it
sprang, so our spiritual life must every day stand and grow in
God and Christ. One great cause of the weakness of the
spiritual life
and efforts, is
of earnest Christians, notwithstanding their prayers
that they seek to do the work that God alone can
do. They know not that God, whose Spirit dwells in us, will
maintain our life in a divine power, working in us that which is
pleasing in His sight. If they knew this aright, they would see
that their one duty was in utter helplessness, in deep humility and
dependence, to wait upon God and to trust and count upon Him
to do His blessed work.
It is this Sarah teaches us. She knew what God had promised.
For twenty-five long years her heart yearned for the
son of whom God had spoken. At times her faith was sorely
tried, but she ever came back to this one thing : He is faithful