[Discipleship Counselors need to emphasize the believer’s union with Christ. This is an excerpt from The Secret of Christ our Life  by Andrew Murray. The Secret series, is ideal for client “homework.” – ed.]

A poor spiritual life results when a Christian thinks, “Christ for me” is enough… and does not know or even desire “Christ in me.”

The Twofold Life
“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
John 10:10

EVERYONE can understand the difference between life that is weak and sickly and life that has abundant vitality.
Thus St. Paul speaks of the Christian life of the Corinthians as not spiritual but carnal, as of young children in Christ incapable of assimilating strong meat or of understanding the deeper truths of the gospel (see 1 Corinthians 3 and Hebrews 5).

There are some, the majority of Christians, who never advance beyond first principles. They are dull of hearing and remain carnal Christians.
There are others again, a minority, who indeed show forth the abundant riches of grace.

All through the history of the church we find this difference. In our day, too, the number is small of those who seek to live wholly for God and, being spiritually minded, have large thoughts of the abundant life there is in Christ. These few witness to the glory of Christ as “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14); “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace” (1:16).

The preacher’s aim should be so to declare the fullness of God’s grace in Jesus Christ as to make Christians ashamed of the poverty of their spiritual life, and to encourage them to believe that “life abundant” in the fullness of the Spirit is for them.

Dear reader, ask yourself if you are living such an abundant life as Jesus came to bestow. Is it manifest in your love to the Savior and in the abundant fruit you bear to the glory of God in soul-winning?—for remember, “he who wins souls is wise” (Prov. 11:30).

If not, pray God to strengthen your faith so that He will be able to make all grace abound toward you that you, always having all sufficiency, may abound in every good work. Let Jesus be precious to you and daily communion with Him indispensable. He will teach you by His Holy Spirit to honor Him by an abundant life.
re-posted from CLC Publications. Find out more…

Excerpt taken from The Secret of Christ our Life  by Andrew Murray