Life can be really hard and at times it feels like we’re not going to make it. But if we are crying out to God in faith, we must believe that He hears us and will keep us safe in the midst of our troubles.

Host: Kathy, we want to continue our discussions in Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray. The chapter we want to jump into today is called, “Kept by the Power of God,” and he begins this chapter with a passage. Why don't you take us into that?

Kathy: That's 1 Peter 1:3-5. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (NASB 1995) Wow.

Host: Yes. That passage is full of promises and full of hope. As we begin to look at this, Andrew Murray talks about the keeping power of God and he divides it into two ideas. One, that God keeps the inheritance that we have in heaven, but also that He keeps us for our inheritance. He brought out as well that we don't necessarily have so much trouble believing that we have this inheritance; what we struggle with is believing that He's keeping us for our inheritance. Unpack that if you would.

Kathy: He is preserving us not just for an inheritance in Heaven, but on Earth as well. For all the things that we have to go through. Mainly what I'm thinking about right now is the struggles and the failures. Feeling like we've blown it. Feeling like we don't even know who God is at times and feeling like we have failed so miserably that there's nothing left for us and based on our feelings we can think that the Lord has walked out on us. But the truth is, and this is my testimony, God is keeping me. He is a keeping God and He will keep you. He will preserve you if you keep an open and hungry heart.

Host: Now, wait a minute. Isn't that one of the mistakes that we make? To take grace so far that it eliminates any responsibility we have? But I think Andrew Murray talks about the fact that we have to be in the right position with God to be kept.

Kathy: There’s the divine side and there's the human side, but our part is that even through the struggles, even through the failures, even through the chaotic life that so many Christians live, we need to keep the cry in our hearts. Don't let go. All through the Psalms, David's cry was, “Oh, God preserve my life. Oh God, keep me on the path of your righteousness.” If we're hungry and we're asking, God will hear us. But when we quit asking, when we just totally collapse down into our mess, there's not a lot left for us. It's not as though God is going to turn on a spigot and just pour his power into our lives without us yearning for it. It's a relationship.

Host: And there's a meeting place there.

Kathy: Yeah. There is.

Host: One of the things you mentioned was that this keeping in our lives requires power. And one of Andrew Murray’s points was that yes this keeping requires power, but it's God's power.

Kathy: That's right. I think that some may have it in their minds that the keeping power of God means that whatever's happening that seems like evil or just seems like it's destroying their faith, God should take that away. But the power of God I believe is to take us through the trials not out of them. That's why it is so important to keep crying out to Him. That cry is faith. As painful as things may be, that cry is faith and God responds to faith. Don't quit believing that God is able. When everything has come apart at the seams, God is in control.

Host: Yes. He said in his third point that God’s keeping is continuous and that's really what you're talking about. We're going to have times where we feel very close to the Lord, where His presence is very real to us. We're going to have desert times. We’re going to have seasons of every type, but through it all His keeping power is there, and we have to keep sight of it.

Kathy: While Christ is being formed in us, there are going to be all kinds of things we go through. That is how Christ is formed in us. It is through the suffering, the sacrifice and the losses. I was thinking of a lady that I know who has gone through terrific trials where most of us would have withered under what she's going through and what keeps coming from her is faith and trust. That is God’s keeping power in her life taking her through.

Host: Yeah. God gives us people like that as testimonies. But to balance that out, Andrew Murray mentions how sometimes we can have faith that God will help us to fight a really huge battle but not have faith that God's going to keep us in the little things we go through or the “little sins” that we struggle with. No, God wants us to have victory through the little things too. And if we're willing to trust Him, He'll keep us through those too. Sometimes we just tend to think, “Well, God's not interested in these little problems I have.” But oh yes He is.

Kathy: Oh yeah, He is. He's intimately and intricately involved and interested in the struggles we go through.

Host: Yeah. You talked already about the fact that we are kept by faith and that God uses the things we go through to keep us humble and to remind us that we can do nothing without Him. But Andrew Murray ends this chapter on the point that faith is rest. That can very easily be misconstrued. What is he really talking about? What is the rest that he's referring to?

Kathy: In my life that has meant that I am not clawing my way up Mount Everest without the resources. I'm not clamoring and struggling to find God. It's not like that. I know that my Redeemer lives. I know this because of what the Word of God says, and I know this because He has heard the cry of my heart and answered. And I know this mostly because He has said who He is in His Word.
        Faith believes that. I'm resting in Him. Not in my ability to believe necessarily, but in Him. There's too much evidence. Not just historical evidence, but evidence in my own life and in the lives of so many people. If I really will open my eyes and look, there is too much evidence to deny who He is and what He's done. And I don't think anybody that's listening to this would deny who God is. But in Him, my faith has found a resting place.

Host: Yeah. I guess I want to close on this Kathy, because I know there are people listening who really struggle with, “That's great for you guys, but I don't see God keeping me. All I see is my failing and my stumbling and my going around the same mountain over and over.  Where is God? It doesn't feel like He's keeping me.”

Kathy: Keep asking. That's all I know to say is just keep asking because I know what it feels like to feel completely desolate, empty and hopeless. Keep asking and trusting Him. He is there. Even when my feelings are telling me something else or even my circumstances may be saying something completely different, God is there and He's real. When you pray, ask the Lord to lift the veil from your heart and from your mind, because our mind can become like sludge spiritually and it's terrible. But just ask for God to lift the veil. And if it doesn't happen in your timing just keep asking.

Host: Yeah, that's right. Keep knocking and He will come. But come to Him with a sincere heart and a humble heart. And it goes without saying, but we need to say it, if there are things in your life that you know aren't right, you need to get them right before the Lord.

Kathy: Get rid of the garbage in your life.

Host: Those things will get in the way of you walking and being kept by Him.

Kathy: That's right.

Host: Deal with them. It’s worth it.

In the 19th message of our "Unveiling Yahweh" series, we will be looking at the Purposes of the Lord.

When we ask God what His purpose is for our lives, we’re often thinking of one thing: ourselves. But God’s purposes go far beyond what we can see – they aim at glorifying His name and working good in our lives. In today’s sermon, Nate Danser helps unveil just how glorious God’s plans and purposes are for all of mankind.

As we gear up for our 25th Annual Conference, we wanted to give you a taste of the kind of preaching you’ll enjoy if you join us on April 25th and 26th. In this message from the 2016 Conference, Steve Gallagher describes three primary qualities that every true citizen of God’s kingdom possesses, and urges us to make sure that we can say we have these qualities.

**Get all the details about our Annual Conference at conference.purelifeministries.org**

Repentance is so vital to the Christian life, that there will be catastrophic consequences if we neglect it. Without repentance, there’s no forgiveness, no cleansing, no salvation, and no sanctification. That’s why—for those who need it—repentance must not be put off even one more day.  

In this episode:

- The importance of taking advantage of “Kairos” moments

- Why we cannot simply choose when we will repent

- Why putting off repentance is extremely dangerous

- What a person should do if they are in need of repentance

If genuine Christianity begins by completely relying upon God to save us, then we should never lose that sense of helplessness. That’s one of the secrets to a vibrant walk with God: a lifelong, continual reliance upon the power of the Holy Spirit.

Host: Kathy, we're going to continue our discussions in Andrew Murray’s Book entitled Absolute Surrender, and this chapter is entitled, “Having Begun in the Spirit.” He begins this chapter talking about what the great need of the Church is today. Talk a little bit about what we see in the Church and what he has to say about the need that he sees.

Kathy: I want to open up with this quote and it’s actually sort of a prayer. He says, “Oh, God, our spiritual life is not what it should be!” And then he goes on to talk about how our great need in the body of Christ is to understand our need for the Holy Spirit more than just there being a mental assent to it and that we just really come into the reality that we cannot live the Christian life apart from the Holy Spirit. And I was thinking about a conversation that I had with a pastor and his wife. This pastor has a huge church that is thriving outwardly. That pastor was saying that there's another church down the road and he knows that those people love God. They pray and they have the Holy Spirit, but that church’s congregation is only about two hundred people. And this pastor of the larger church is asking the question, how can that be? He's upset inside, because he knows that something's wrong in his church of thousands and yet, look at the numbers. But the church down the street with 200 people is thriving as far as heaven is concerned.

Host: Yeah, because it is thriving spiritually.

Kathy: Yes, because they're full of the Holy Spirit. But they're not attracting crowds because, to be honest, the majority of people are not interested in that. What the pastor with the thousands in his congregation has is a very seeker-friendly message. So, he has outward success he can point to. But where is the power of the Holy Spirit? And I think that you can use the same kind of analogy in our own lives.

Host: Yeah, the great danger is that we try to do the right thing, but we try to do it in the flesh instead of doing it through the Holy Spirit. And we ask ourselves, “Why do I get so worn out? Why do I get frustrated? Why do we have strivings between each of us as individuals?” And what Andrew Murray brings out in this chapter that really jumped out to me is that when we find ourselves experiencing those things, it's evidence that we're doing things in the flesh, even though we're trying to do the right thing. There are many people of course in the church who have never been converted, so they don't have the Holy Spirit. But there are also a lot of people in the church that have been converted and have the Holy Spirit, but they're not walking in the Spirit.

Kathy: Right. So many of us lose sight of our servant-ness. I know I did when I was in the thick of things here at Pure Life, and it's very difficult to remember that you are supposed to be living and abiding in the power of the Holy Spirit, otherwise the day just kind of overtakes you. Andrew Murray said in this chapter, “Nothing will help you unless you come to understand that you must live every day under the power of the Holy Spirit.” And that is so true. So, the question is, “how do you do that?” That's what a devotional life is. And when I say devotional life, I don't mean necessarily opening your Bible and praying. I’m talking about being devoted to Christ and at the same time realizing your utter dependence on Him.

Host: Yeah one of the things Murray brings out is that, quite frankly, the way that God has always worked in people to accomplish that is by allowing them to fail.

Kathy: Right. I remember the day that I realized I could not serve God in the flesh. It's impossible. I threw my hands up in such frustration and such anguish of soul. I just felt like I was spiritually losing it. But that was actually probably the moment when I started to begin to get it.

Host: And wasn't that the beginning of glorious freedom?

Kathy: It has taken and is taking time, but yeah, I'm starting to really embrace and love the Lord for His immense patience with me. But also, how gentle and how kind He is to reveal Himself to me. I'm a vessel of His mercy. That's all I am and that's all I'm ever going to be. I'm never going to grow up into being this spiritual anything. I have nothing. I am nothing and I can do nothing, and I say it gladly now. And I think that is the freedom that comes from living in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Host: Yeah, Paul said, “I glory in my weaknesses.” Because really, we have no strength in the Lord until we understand our weaknesses. You described how we can get busy in ministry and the day overtakes us and usually we don't realize we've even got out of walking in the power of the Holy Spirit until maybe we run into the end of the track or we realize all of a sudden we're on the wrong track and we’re not where we were set out to go.

Kathy: Yeah, and there's a brick wall there and we wonder, how did that get there?

Host: Yeah, but man, I just want to repeat what you said earlier about how faithful God is to get our attention and say, “Hey, open your eyes and look around and see where you are.” And then what does He say? Does He say, “Well, here's 22 things you've got to do in order to get back to where you're supposed to be on the right track?” No, He says, “You just need to turn and ask for my Holy Spirit and I'll put you back on track.” He is faithful to do that too.

Kathy: Yeah, He so is. The amazing thing is that God is always calling. You have to really listen and when you cultivate that listening ear, you are just waiting before Him. That is very hard for Americans to do.

Host: You bet. We’re doers and producers.

Kathy: Yeah, and where we get off track is we think that doing means more to God than being. He’s not a production miser. He's not looking for you to make something. He wants you to become like Him.

Host: Yeah. And that's what's happening in so many of our churches. They've become producers and doers. That smaller church you mentioned, although I don't know them, if the power of God is there, I will just assume they spend more time sitting at the feet of Jesus. And that's where their power and strength is coming from.

Kathy: That's right. They understand their need and they know they need God's Holy Spirit. They’re not making programs. That's not what we need to be doing. We need to be becoming conformed to the image of Christ.

Host: Yeah. I read an article where they were asking why are the young people leaving the church? Is it because the church isn't cool enough? And of course, we see all the things going on in the church to make it cool for young people, and a young person responded, “We're not leaving the church because the church isn't cool. We're leaving the church because Jesus isn't there.”

Kathy: Yeah. They're not seeing the power of God.

Host: They need something real. They want something real.

Kathy: Yeah. If you're not seeking after a continual filling of His Holy Spirit and His power, you’ll end up defaulting to doing things in the flesh. There's no power there.

Host: There's no spiritual fruit.

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All quotations taken from Absolute Surrender By Andrew Murray, Public Domain

In the 18th message of our "Unveiling Yahweh" series, we will be looking at the Justice of the Lord.

If you follow the biblical narrative of one of Israel’s ancient enemies, Nineveh, you will discover the sobering truth that, although at one time they received great mercy from God, they chose to reject that mercy and were ultimately destroyed by Him.

Why was that?

In today’s sermon, Dustin Renz speaks on the patience, justice and mercy of God as we examine the judgment of Nineveh recorded in Nahum 1.

‍

Repentance is so vital to the Christian life, that there will be catastrophic consequences if we neglect it. Without repentance, there’s no forgiveness, no cleansing, no salvation, and no sanctification. That’s why—for those who need it—repentance must not be put off even one more day. Don't miss the final episode in our series, “Rediscovering the Gift of Repentance.”

Resources

• The Walk of Repentance (Bible Study) By Steve Gallagher

God truly wants to deliver us from sin, but He will often patiently use our struggles and weakness to bring us to the end of ourselves, where we finally say from the heart, “Lord, I can't do this! Please save me!”

Host: Kathy, it's great to see you again. Thanks for coming in to talk with us.

Kathy: Thanks. It's wonderful to be here.

Host: Kathy, we're going to continue our discussions in Andrew Murray's wonderful book Absolute Surrender, and in today's chapter he starts out with this title, “O Wretched Man that I Am!” He takes that from Romans 7:24-25, and I'll just read that real quick. “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 7:24-25a, KJV)
       He talks about the reality in this chapter of what it means to come to the place where God can have true freedom to work in us, to move through us and for us to have freedom from our own wretchedness. And using Paul’s writing here, he divides the process of coming to that freedom into four stages for the man who comes to that place. A regenerate man, a weak man, a wretched man and a man on the border of complete liberty. Let's go through those one at a time. Let's look first at the regenerate man. I will just say I thought this was one of the most balanced and well written perspectives of what it means to be a regenerate man and why the regenerate man still struggles with being a wretched man.

Kathy: I want to read Romans 7:17. “Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” (KJV) Andrew Murray says here, “That is the language of a regenerate man, a man who knows that his heart and nature have been renewed, and that sin is now a power in him that is not himself.”

Host: Yeah, he talks about the regenerate man being one who has a desire to do the will of God. And I love the way he brought this out that if you have a sincere desire to do the will of God, then that is evidence that God has put something in you. I just find too many people stuck in that thing of, “Oh I've got sin in my life. I don't belong to God.” And I think the enemy uses that to keep us from moving and growing in our relationship with the Lord.

Kathy: Absolutely. He definitely capitalizes on it. That was my story for many, many years, that I was seeing what was wrong with me and thinking that because I wasn't doing better that there was something wrong with my relationship in Christ. And I learned—and we'll read through this—that I don't have the power to live the Christian life, I can't do this. That’s all part of God’s process that he takes us through. He doesn't rescue us from that. I know many Christians are in this phase of, “Why am I still struggling with this sin and why isn't there any deliverance?” Well, there is deliverance, but it's not going to come with the snap of a finger. The problem is so many of us want to get free so we'll feel better about ourselves spiritually. But that is not God’s end goal for us.

Host: Yeah, God's got something much more wonderful that He's bringing us to. Well, really, he begins to answer that very question when he talks about the weak man. He says, “Here is the great mistake made by many Christian people: they think that when there is a renewed will, it is enough; but that is not the case.” Talk a little bit about what he's saying there.

Kathy: Paul said, “I will to do what is good, but the power to perform, I don't find it.” This whole process of overcoming, of being delivered, of trusting in Christ is a lifelong process of finding out that we don't have what it takes to live the Christian life. We feel like we're insane half the time because we have the desire to do His will and love Him and serve Him and yet we've got this other thing going on that's constantly opposing that. That is difficult to work out in the brain, but it's a reality in the Christian life that I have been born again, I belong to God, but I cannot obey Him without coming to this place where I know I am a wretched, wretched man.

Host: And that really is his third point. Talk about what that means.

Kathy: The whole idea of, “I am a wretched man,” is coming to an end of self and it's a process again of realizing I have nothing good in myself. There is nothing to commend me to God. Nothing. And I'm not saved, cleaned up and born again because I did anything. It was total mercy that came to me and met me. And I think I learned this maybe ten years ago, I threw up my arms in the air in frustration and some amount of anger, just feeling the futility of trying to work out my salvation. But in the end, I believe I came to the point of saying I am a wretched woman. My heart is black. I can't do this. Lord, I cannot serve you. In my flesh, it's impossible for me to do this. And it was at that point things started to change for me.

Host: You know, we talk about the wretched man, and I know when I first saw this verse, I'll just be honest, my reaction was, “Oh, great, I'm a wretch. I don't have to worry about changing.” That's a dangerous place to go.

Kathy: Yeah. That's very dangerous and I think a lot of people are in that. You can get to a point in your Christian journey where you get tired of fighting and what we've said up to this point isn't that you quit fighting against sin. The point is that you're not going to overcome in your flesh, but you have to keep doing battle. And this is the battle. You get tired of it. You want to say, “Okay well, Paul said it. I'm wretched. This is all you can expect from me, so plop down in my mire of self-pity and just give over to it.”

Host: Yeah. And they never move into Chapter 8 of Romans, which is the great hope. They've missed the great hope that's being offered to them by the revealing of their wretchedness.

Kathy: Right. And that is where you just keep plowing, you just keep going and you don't settle down into the wretched man place. That’s not where God's taking you to, He’s taking you past that.

Host: Yea. Andrew Murray refers to this man that has chosen not to make that mistake but has seen his wretchedness as the “almost delivered man.” Bring us the good news, because this is the glorious news of it all.

Kathy: I'm going to just read what he said. “The man has tried to obey the beautiful law of God. He has loved it. He has wept over his sin. He has tried to conquer. He has tried to overcome fault after fault, but every time he has ended in failure.” And another quote, “It is the man who is conscious of his own weakness as a believer who will learn that by the Holy Spirit he can live a holy life. This man is on the brink of that great deliverance.”
       It's the power of the Holy Spirit living in us. When you finally throw up your arms and say, “Lord, I am a wretched man. I'm weak. I can't do this. Please, help me!” In that cry, I don't know what the time frame is—for me it was a long time—but that cry invites the Holy Spirit and so the Holy Spirit starts to come. And that is when you are receiving the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t come by having somebody lay their hands on you every three months. It's not like that.

Host: It's walking in the Spirit.

Kathy: It is a constant cry inside and if you don't have that cry, ask for God to give that cry to you. Ask God to make it real to you that you have to have the Holy Spirit living in you. The more that you are walking in His Spirit, the less conscious you are of yourself altogether. You're not measuring yourself anymore by doing good or doing bad, you’re just flowing with the Lord and you’re in love with God. I think the main characteristic of walking in the Spirit is just loving the Lord. The Holy Spirit brings such a freedom inside.

Host: Yeah, Paul says in Romans 8:13 that what the Holy Spirit does is give the victory. “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” (Romans 8:13b, KJV) And it's the Holy Spirit who does it. He is helping me every day and that's the great victory.

Kathy: One other thing that Paul said in Romans 14:17 is that the Kingdom of God is joy in the Holy Spirit. That is true and until you've come into that fullness, you won't know what that joy really is. There are other maybe minor tones of joy, little joys, but that joy carries you through life. Through all the suffering, through all the ups and downs.

Host: Yeah. I know people will hear us talk about this and they'll say, “Man, I don't have that.” Well, neither do we. But God knows you don't have it. Cry out to God for it. He wants to do this in us. If you have a desire to do God's will and you find yourself continually failing, God is allowing that to bring you to the end of yourself so that you can be opened to the filling of His Holy Spirit. Don't fall into despair over your failure any more than the sense that God is using it to bring you to the end of yourself as you said.

Many people assume that when we preach the gospel, the first thing we should tell people is that God loves them. But New Testament preachers like Jesus and His apostles actually did something very different: They first told people about their need for repentance.

In this episode:

- A survey of repentance in the New Testament

- Why the message of repentance is actually a very loving message

- Why the message of repentance is as much for believers as unbelievers

In the 17th message of our "Unveiling Yahweh" series, we will be looking at the Day of the Lord.

Are you ready for the Day of the Lord? Descriptions of that day permeate the Bible. It is described in the prophetic books and is made most clear to us in the book of Revelation. In today’s sermon, Steve Gallagher surveys these passages and challenges us to be ready for Jesus’ appearing, which is much closer than we think!

The theme of this year's Annual Conference is "Watch and Pray." Steve and Kathy Gallagher join Nate Danser to talk about why this theme is of urgent importance for Christians.

**Get all the details about our Annual Conference at conference.purelifeministries.org**

Many people assume that when we preach the gospel, the first thing we should tell people is that God loves them. But New Testament preachers like Jesus and His apostles actually did something very different: They first told people about their need for repentance.

Resources

• The Walk of Repentance (Bible Study) By Steve Gallagher