Soul Nourishment First - George Muller

[Jim Watt]

“*TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES*

*Jim & Marie Watt*

*Tel: 253-517-9195 - Email: jmbetter at gmail.com*

*Web: www.2rbetter.org*

January 24, 2012


 *WEEK 53 - DEC 30-31 - JOSHUA & MATTHEW*


 *DEC. 30. Joshua 1:8-9 (1:1-9) GOD’S COMMISSION TO JOSHUA. ** “This Book
of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it
day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is
written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you
will have good success. **9** Have I not commanded you? Be strong and
courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your
God is with you wherever you go” **(*ESV). The whole Bible, especially the
New Testament according to Hebrews 8:6, is today involved in this. Man
shall not live be bread alone, but by *every* word that proceeds out of the
mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). In Acts 20, the Old Testament according to
Paul’s revelation of the 27 mysteries of God, was committed to the Ephesian
believers. If the Old Testament contains types and shadows, and yet is
called the word of God’s grace; how much more is the New Covenant? *
Meditation* was one of the 3 key conditions that brought to Joshua God’s
two promises. *Hallowed be your :name!*


 *DEC 31. Matthew 6:33 (6:19-34) ALWAYS KEEP GOD FIRST. “But seek you first
his :kingdom, and :righteousness; and all these things shall be added to
you.” *“God, I’m going to put you *first* and keep you *first* every hour
of every day of my life. I’m going to study and *meditate* constantly in
your word, and do exactly what it tells me to do, trusting completely in
you to supply every one of my needs.” This is a quotation from “Trust God
for Your Finances”, by Jack Hartman. The principles for success outlined in
this book are illustrated by finances, but could easily be illustrated by
any other fifty needs. *Your :kingdom come!*


 *NOTE: *Ivan Panin’s Bible Numeric “Outlined Interlinear New Testament” is
about to be published. The Printers have put it into a format that makes *
meditation* much easier.

These brief “Through the Bible in a Year” daily devotional readings are
also conducive to *meditation*. Let us start our day off with these brief
readings, and then pick up from above the New Testament readings.


 George Muller lived the first 20 years of his life in a most ungodly
manner. Then following his conversion for next 10 years he did better, but
not too profitably.


 When he was 30, he ran across a biography on the life of George
Whitefield, which majored on “*Bible Meditation*”. George Muller
immediately incorporated this into his daily devotions. It transformed his
life. Because God is no respecter of persons, it can do the same for you
and me. Following is his testimony when he was 36, which even is an
improvement on George Whitefield.


 *SOUL NOURISHMENT FIRST - George Muller (p. 152, his autobiography)*


 *It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have
not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more
clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I
ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first
thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how
I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state,
and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth
before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to
relieve the distresses, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it
becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord,
and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all
this might not be attended to in a right spirit. Before this time my
practice has been, at least for ten years previously, as a habitual thing,
to give myself to prayer after having dressed myself in the morning. Now I
saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the
reading of the Word of God, and to meditate on it, that thus my heart might
be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by
means of the Word of God, while meditating on it, my heart be brought into
experimental communion with the Lord.*


 *I began therefore to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning
early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few
words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on
the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse to get blessing out
of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word, not for the
sake of preaching on what I*

*meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The
result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few
minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to
intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were,
give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately
more or less into prayer. When thus I have been for a while making
confession or intercession or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on
to the next words or verse, turning all as I go into prayer for myself or
others, as the Word may lead to it, but still continually keeping before me
that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of
this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving,
supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner
man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened, and that
by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy
state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that
which, either very soon after or at a later time, I have found to become
food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public
ministry of the word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit
of my own inner man.*


 *With this mode I have likewise combined the being out in the open air for
an hour, and hour and a half, or two hours, before breakfast, walking about
in the fields. In the summer sitting for a little on the stiles, if I find
it too much to walk all the time. I find it very beneficial to my health to
walk thus for meditation before breakfast, and am now so in the habit of
using the time for that purpose, that when I get into the open air, I
generally take out a New Testament of good size type, which I carry with me
for that purpose, besides my Bible; and I find that I can profitably spend
my time in the open air, which formerly was not the case for want of habit.
I used to consider the time spent in walking a loss, but now I find it very
profitable, not only to my body, but also to my soul. The walking out
before breakfast is, of course, not necessarily connected with this matter,
and everyone has to judge according to his strength and other
circumstances. The difference, then between my former practice and my
present one is this: formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as
possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or
almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer,
except when I felt my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I
read the Word of God for food, or for refreshment, or for a revival and
renewal of my inner man, before I gave myself to prayer. But what was the
result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half hour, or even one hour
on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort,
encouragement, humbling of soul, etc., and often after having suffered much
from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or quarter of an hour, or
even half an hour, I only then began really to pray. I scarcely ever suffer
now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought
into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father and to my
Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it) about the things that He has
brought before me in His precious Word. It often now astonished me that I
did not sooner see this point. In no book did I ever read about it. No
public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse
with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And, yet now, since God has
taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first
thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is, to obtain food for
his inner man. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of
time except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in
the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for
that, as everyone must allow. Now, what is the food for the inner man? Not
prayer, but the Word of God; and here again, not the simple reading of the
Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs
through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and
applying it to our hearts. When we pray, we speak to God. Now, prayer, in
order to be continued for any length of time in any other than a formal
manner, requires, generally speaking a measure of strength or godly desire,
and the season, therefore, when this exercise of the soul can be most
effectively performed is after the inner man has been nourished by
meditation on the Word of God, where we find our Father speaking to us, to
encourage us, to comfort us, to instruct us, to humble us, to reprove us.
We may therefore profitably meditate, with God’s blessing, though we are
ever so weak spiritually; no, the weaker we are, the more we need
meditationfor the strengthening of our inner man. Thus there is far
less to be feared
from wandering of mind than if we give ourselves to prayer without having
had time previously for meditation. I dwell so particularly on this point
because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of
having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech
all my fellow believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God, I
ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to
pass in peace through deeper trials, in various ways, than I had ever had
before; and after having now about fourteen years tried this way, I can
most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. In addition to this I generally
read, after family prayer, larger portions of the Word of God, when I still
pursue my practice of reading regularly onward in the Holy Scriptures,
sometimes in the New Testament and sometimes in the Old, and for more than
twenty-six years I have proved the blessedness of it. I*

*take also, either then or at other parts of the day, time more especially
for prayer.*


 *How different, when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the
morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service,
the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon me.*


 *May 9th, 1841.*



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