George Muller on Faith and Giving

From The Autobiography of George Muller:

"A brother with small earnings may ask, "Should I also give? My earnings are already so small that my family can barely make ends meet."
     My reply is, "have you ever considered that the very reason that your earnings remain so small may be because you spend everything on yourself? If God gave you more, you would only increase your own comfort instead of looking to see who is sick or who has no work at all that you might help them."
p195

The child of God must be willing to be a channel through which God's abundant blessings flow. The channel is narrow and shallow at first, yet some waters of God's bounty can pass through. If we cheerfully yield ourselves to this purpose, the channel becomes wider and deeper, allowing more of the bounty of God to pass through. We cannot limit the extent to which God may use us as instruments in communicating blessing if we are willing to yield ourselves to him and are careful to give Him all the glory."
p196

"May 26, 1851. The Christian should never worry about tomorrow or give sparingly because of a possible future need. Only the present moment is ours to serve the Lord, and tomorrow may never come."
p212

"The natural mind is prone to reason when we ought to believe, to be at work when we ought to be quiet, or to go our own way when we ought to steadily walk in God's ways. [ ... ] But each time we work a deliverance of our own, we find it more difficult to trust in God. At last we give way entirely to our natural reasoning, and unbelief prevails."
p220

George Muller on Stewardship

"The child of God has been bought with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. All that he possesses—his bodily strength, his mental strength, his ability of every kind, his trade or business, and his property—all belong to God. It is written, "Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

The proceeds of our calling are not our own in the sense of having freedom to spend them on the gratification of our pride or our love of pleasure. We have to stand before our Lord and Master as His stewards to seek His will concerning how He will have us use the proceeds of our calling."

p193, The Autobiography of George Muller

Verses quoted in his book, p194-5:

"The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully."
2 Cor 9:6

"One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered."
Proverbs 11:24-25

"Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you."
Luke 6:38

The Second Thing

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."
Matt 6:33

I've been reading the Autobiography of George Muller and in it he highlights two things regarding the verse above: pursuing the Kingdom of God and pursuing holiness. I don't know why, but I've always missed the second point. I've just had a real blind spot for it. But it's a really key factor in doing God's work here on Earth, a real motivator in the pursuit of holiness, and a promise for experiencing material provision as you go. Here's what George Muller said in his book:

"The great business which the disciple of the Lord Jesus has to be concerned about is to seek the Kingdom of God. I believe this means to seek the external and internal prosperity of the Church. If we seek to win souls for the Lord Jesus, we are seeking the external prosperity of the Kingdom of God. If we help our fellow-members in the Body grow in grace and truth or care for them in any way, we are seeking the internal prosperity of God.

In connection with this, we also have to seek His righteousness. This means to seek to be more and more like God—to seek to be inwardly conformed to the mind of God. If these two things are attended to diligently, we come to that precious promise: "And all these things [that is, food, clothing, or anything else you need in this present life] shall be added unto you."

Do you make it your primary business and your first great concern to seek the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness? Are the things of God, the honour of His name, the welfare of His Church, the conversion of sinners, and the profit of your own soul, your chief aim? Or does your business, your family, or your own temporal concerns primarily occupy your attention? Remember that the world will pass away, but the things of God will endure forever. I never knew a child of God who acted according to the above passage for whom the Lord did not fulfill His promise, "All these things shall be added unto you."

P191-2, The Autobiography of George Muller

Skilful Discipline

Over the last two and a half years I've managed to shed about two stone in weight and keep it off. Quite a beneficial exercise from a health and fitness point of view, but it was also really interesting as a lesson in discipline.

In many areas of life discipline seems to be one of the key ingredients for effectiveness and success. It's not the only thing you need, but it's massively important. If you want to persevere in daily prayer and bible reading, be good at your job, be a good husband, run a business or excel in an area of ministry, a lot of it does just come down to discipline. Which is in itself quite a skill.

Here are a few of my current observations on the nature of effective discipline:

1. You have to set yourself a goal. Long-term, mid-term and short-term help spur you on and track your progress. In particular, having daily and weekly goals really help you drive and achieve what you're aiming for overall. If you just have the big long-term vision without breaking it down into smaller steps, you don't notice your progress quite so much and tend to get easily discouraged. You get sort of lost in the journey there.

2. You have to really go for it. The end goal is something you have to really want. Anything you set out to achieve is likely to be quite difficult and challenging. Desire, passion and zeal are tools in your pocket that you have to have. Otherwise the discipline becomes cold, hard, bitter and lifeless, and you'll inevitably give up. The thing you're fighting for should be a source of joy. The joy and satisfaction you gain from being successful in your fight needs to outweigh the struggles and trials you face on the way.

3. You have to experiment, problem-solve and persevere. The initial methods you employ in your goal are going to need refining and perfecting. They might not be very effective at all to begin with. But you have to try for a period, then look back and analyse what did and didn't work. If you can figure out why something worked or why something failed, you can then take that information a create a more effective method. You repeat the process over and over until you home-in on something that really works for you. It's quite a time-consuming process, but one which can lead to long-term effectiveness. The hardest part is getting the momentum in the early phase without giving up. If you can persevere at the beginning, you're in good stead for long-term success.

4. I think the final lesson I've learnt thus far is that overall consistency is more effective than 'peaks and troughs'. For example, it's better to hit consistently at 80% capacity than attempt short bursts at the limit of what you can achieve. If you set out to run a marathon, you don't sprint out of the blocks like you're running the 100 metres. You'll knacker yourself out and collapse in a heap before the race has really begun. Instead, you have to pace yourself at a lower level which you can maintain. Your initial short term goals should be very achievable to ease you into the flow of things, like a good warm up. Then, as things progress and you acclimatise to the challenge, you can gradually increase the intensity.