Enjoy this wonderful excerpt from Crossway’s beautiful reprint of C.H. Spurgeon’s classic devotional ‘The Chequebook of Faith.’ Here is a devotional great for family or personal worship. Spurgeon was unmatched in his beautiful expressions of gospel truth. In this work, he masterfully feeds his readers, setting their faith firmly on a different promise each day of the year.

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” John 15:7

Of necessity we must be in Christ to live for him. And we must abide in him to be able to claim the largesse of this promise from him. To abide in Jesus is never to leave him for another love, or another object, but to remain in living, loving, conscious, willing union with him. The branch is not only always near the stem, but always receiving life and fruitfulness from it. All true believers abide in Christ in a sense. But there is a higher meaning, and this we must know before we can gain unlimited power at the throne. “Ask whatever you wish” is for Enochs who walk with God (Gen 5:24), for Johns who recline at the Lord’s side (John 13:23), for those whose union with Christ leads to constant communion.

The heart must remain in love. The mind must be rooted in faith. The hope must be cemented to the Word. The whole person must be joined to the Lord. Otherwise it would be dangerous to trust us with power in prayer. The carte blanche can only be given to one whose very life can be summed up as: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20. Oh, you who break your fellowship, what power you lose.
If you would be mighty in your pleadings before God, the Lord himself must abide in you, and you in him.

The Promises of God, Feb 23