The total cost of all this ministry was estimated to be about 1.5 million pounds or about 7.5 million dollars. Remember this is money from the 1800's. Counting inflation, how many billions and/or trillions of dollar is that?
3 things stand out from this biography. First, George Muller was a man of prayer. He prayed regularly, earnestly, devotedly, amazingly. He completely entrusted his life and the lives of these thousands of orphans that were daily in his care to the Lord through prayer. He relied completely on donations for supplying the needs of the orphans - no endowment, no savings, no trust funds, no goverment subsidies...just God's provision through prayer - truly the best source of them all.
- Powerlessness always means prayerlessness. It is not necessary for us to be sinlessly perfect, or to be raised to a special dignity of privilege and endowment, in order to wield this wondrous weapon of power with God; but it is necessary that we be men and women of prayer - habitual, believing, importunate prayer.
Second, Muller was a man of God's Word. Mr. Muller had read the Bible through from end to end nearly 200 times! During the last 20 years of his life (from 73 to 93 years-old), he read it through 4-5 times a year! Isn't that amazing?!
- ...we should instinctively and habitually turn to the Bible...how few, even among believers, appreciate the privilege of access to the great Author of the universe through His Word!
- The most intimate knowledge of God is possible on one condition - that we search His Holy Scripturesm prayerfully and habitually, and translate what we there find, into obedience.
- Blessed are they who have thus learned to use the key which gives free access, not only to the King's treasuries, but to the King Himself!
Currently, I am reading through the Bible in a year. But this biography has inspired me to read it through twice next year. That's about 6-7 chapters a day which amounts to around 20 minutes. Surely, I can discipline myself to do that to gain intimate access to the King Himself!
Lastly, Muller had a complete dependence on the Lord for the finances of the orphans. He NEVER asked anyone for money. He never let financial needs be known to people. He always just prayed to God to supply the needs of the orphans. And when people gave money (unless it was completely anonymous), he would talk to the giver to make sure that the giving was done with the right heart attitude and that there was no impure motives or the possibility that the giver would later regret giving. Otherwise, he would simply refuse the gift. He was also incredibly frugal for himself and gave away much to the Lord's work.
- God estimates what we give by what we keep, for it is possible to bestow large sums and yet reserve so much larger amounts that no self-denial is possible. Such giving to the Lord costs us nothing.
- An anonymous giver wrote: 'It was my idea that when a man had sufficient for his own wants, he ought then to supply the wants of others, and consequently I never had sufficient. I now clearly see that God expects us to give of what we have and not of what we have not, and to leave the rest to Him.'
- [Muller in secret also gave tremendously to the orphans himself including]...a total of 81,490 pounds...This is a record of personal gifts to which we know no parallel. It reminds us of the career of John Wesley, whose simplicity and frugality of habits enabled him not only to limit his own expenditure to a very small sum, but whose Christian liberality and unselfishness prompted him to give all that he could thus save to purely benevolent objects.
- While he had but 30 pounds a year, he lived on 28 and gave away 40 shillings. Receiving twice as much the next year, he still kept his living expenses down to the 28 pounds and had 32 to bestow to the needy; and when the third year his income rose to 90 pounds, he spent no more than before and gave away 62. The fourth year brought 120, and he disbursed still but the same for his own needs, having 92 to spare...'My aim never was, how much could I obtain, but rather how much I could give.'
Who does that these days? Randy Alcorn does. He's the first person I had ever heard do that. Now I know that he's not the first person to ever do that.
George Muller lived an incredible life by God's marvelous grace. Here are some more choice gems:
- 'Let him deny himself and take up his cross.' Self denial is not cutting off an indulgence here and there, but laying the axe at the root of the tree of self, of which all indulgences are only greater or smaller branches. Self-righteousness and self-trust, self-seeking and self-pleasing, self-will, self-defence, self-glory - these are a few of the myriad branches of that deeply rooted tree. And what if one or more of these be cut off, if such lopping off of some few branches only throws back into others the self-life to develop more vigorously in them?
- And what is cross-breaing? We speak of our 'crosses' - but the word of God never uses that word in the plural, for there is but one cross - the cross on which the self-life is crucified, the cross of voluntary self-renunciation.
- Self-denial is not so much an impoverishment as a postponement: we make a sacrifice of present good for the sake of a future greater good.
And let me end with this last quote from Muller which is his prayer at the funeral of his first wife: Beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, I ask you to join with me in hearty praise and thanksgiving to my precious Lord for His lovingkindness in having taken my darling, beloved wife out of the pain and suffernig which she has endured, into His own presence; and as I rejoice in everything that is for her happiness, so I now rejoice as I realize how far happier she is, beholding her Lord whom she lvoed so well, than in any joy she has known or could know here. I ask you also to pray that the Lord will so enable me to have fellowship in her joy that my bereaved heart may be occuppied with her blessedness instead of my unspeakable loss.
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