Andrew Murray's Record of His Spiritual Life

One of the great Christian writers and spiritual leaders of modern times....


Andrew Murray was a man of such deep spiritual strength that people wanted to know his secret. How had God worked in his personal life? Although Andrew wrote books explaining how we need to live in Jesus, he refused to tell anyone about his own spiritual life. The famous Scottish preacher Alexander Whyte asked him for this information. Andrew's daughter pleaded. Others asked, too. But Andrew always shook his head "no." Jesus Christ should be exalted, not Andrew Murray.

But at a Keswick conference (Keswick was founded to encourage deeper spiritual life) so many people urged and pleaded that Andrew finally gave in and wrote a short testimony. It appeared in The Christian magazine on this day, August 25, 1895.

Andrew explained that as a young pastor he had been full of zeal and worked hard. He knew he was born again, but he felt that he was lacking power in his ministry. He longed for something better. An older missionary encouraged him with the words, "If God puts a desire in your heart he will fulfill it."
For years more, Andrew struggled. Looking back, he could say that he thought God was putting more and more of his Holy Spirit in him, but he did not see it at the time. Even when he wrote his book Abide in Me, he knew it was true, but had not experienced all that he wrote about. Yet, ten years after he began to really seek to be filled with Holy Spirit power, he could say that he had learned to abide in God's presence continually.

Why did he fail for many years? Why do we fail when we seek to live close to Christ?

"I will tell you where you probably fail," he wrote. "You have never yet heartily believed that He [God] is working out your salvation. Of course you believe that if a painter undertakes a picture, he must look to every shade and color and every touch upon the canvas...But you do not believe that the everlasting God is in the process of working out the image of His Son in you. As any sister here is doing a piece of ornamental or fancy work, following out the pattern in every detail, let her just think: 'Can God not work out in me the purpose of His love?' If that piece of work is to be perfect, every stitch must be in its place. So remember that not one minute of your life should be without God. We often want God to come in at a certain time, say in the morning. Then we are content to live two or three hours on our own, and then he can come in again. No! God must be every moment the worker in your soul."

"May he teach us our own nothingness and transform us into the image of His Son and help us to go out to be a blessing to our fellow men. Let us trust Him and praise Him in the midst of a consciousness of failure and of a remaining tendency to sin. Notwithstanding this, let us believe that our God loves to dwell in us, and let us hope without ceasing in His still more abundant grace."

Bibliography:

1. Goodhew, D. J. "Murrary, Andrew." Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals. IVP, 2003.
2. Meyer, F. B. Winter in South Africa. London: National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, 1914; source of the portrait.
3. Murray, Andrew. Abide in Christ; The True Vine; etc... Various editions.
4. Various encyclopedia and internet articles, such as "Andrew Murray, The Apostle Of Abiding Love" http://www.intouch.org/myintouch/mighty/ portraits/andrew_murray_213652.html

Read this article at - http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/andrew-murrays-record-of-his-spiritual-life-11630642.html

The Cross of Christ - Andrew Murray

I am crucified with Christ:  nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:  and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God,  who loved me, and gave Himself for me.  Galatians 2:20

The cross of Christ is His greatest glory.  Because He humbled Himself to the death of the cross, God has highly exalted Him (Phil 2:8-9).  The cross was the power that conquered Satan and sin.

The Christian shares with Christ in the cross.  The crucified Christ lives in him through the Holy Spirit, and the spirit of the cross inspires him.  He lives as one who has died with Christ.  As he realizes the power of Christ's crucifixion, he lives as one who has died to the world and to sin, and the power becomes a reality in his life.  It is as the Crucified One that Christ lives in him.

Our Lord said to His disciples, "Take up your cross and follow Me..." (Matt. 16:24).  Did they understand this?  They had seen men carrying a cross, and they knew it meant a painful death.  All His life, Christ bore His cross - the death sentence that He would die for the world.  Similarly, each Christian must bear his cross, acknowledge that he is worthy of death, and believe that he is crucified with Christ and that the Crucified One lives in him.  "Our old man was crucified with Him" (Rom. 6:6).  "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal. 5:24).  When we have accepted this life of the cross, we will be able to say with Paul, "But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal. 6:14).

This is a deep spiritual truth.  Think and pray over it, and the Holy Spirit will teach you.  Let the disposition of Christ on the cross, His humility, His sacrifice of all worldly honor, His spirit of self-denial, take possession of you.  The power of His death will work in you, you will become like Him in His death, and you will "know Him and the power of His resurrection" (Phil. 3:10).  Take time, dear reader, so that Christ through His Spirit may reveal Himself as the Crucified One.

Waiting on God Continually

By Andrew Murray

Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually. Hosea 12:6

Continuity is one of the essential elements of life. Interrupt it for a single hour in a man, and it is lost; he is dead. Continuity, unbroken and ceaseless, is essential to a healthy Christian life. God wants me to be, and God waits to make me; I want to be, and I wait on Him to make me, every moment, what He expects of me – what is well pleasing in His sight. If waiting on God is the essence of true faith, the maintenance of the spirit of entire dependence must be continuous. The call of God, ”wait on thy God continually,” must be accepted and obeyed. Although there may be times of special waiting, the disposition and habit of soul must be there unchangeably and uninterrupted.

This continual waiting is indeed a necessity. To those who are content with a feeble Christian life, it appears to be a luxury beyond what is essential to be a good Christian. But, all who are praying the prayer, ”Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be made! Keep me as near to You as it is possible for me to be! Fill me as full of Your love as You are willing to do!” feel at once that it is something that must be had. They feel that there can be no unbroken fellowship with God, no full abiding in Christ, no maintaining of victory over sin and readiness for service, without waiting continually on the Lord.

The continual waiting is a possibility. Many think that with the duties of life it is out of the question. They cannot always be thinking of it. Even when they wish to, they forget. They do not understand that it is a matter of the heart and that what the heart is full of, occupies it, even when the thoughts are otherwise engaged. A father’s heart may be continuously filled with intense love and longing for a sick wife or child at a distance, even though pressing business requires all his thoughts. When the heart has learned how entirely powerless it is for one moment to keep itself or bring forth any good, when it has learned how surely and truly God will keep it, when it has, in despair of itself, accepted God’s promise to do for it the impossible, it learns to rest in God. In the midst of occupations and temptations, it can wait continually.

This waiting is a promise. God’s commands are enablings. Gospel precepts are all promises, a revelation of what our God will do for us. When you first begin waiting on God, it is with frequent intermission and failure. But, do believe God is watching over you in love and secretly strengthening you in it. There are times when waiting appears like just losing time, but it is not so. Waiting, even in darkness, is unconscious advance, because it is God you have to do with, and He is working in you. God, who calls you to wait on Him, sees your feeble efforts and works it in you. Your spiritual life is in no respect your own work; as little as you begin it, can you continue it. It is God’s Spirit who has begun the work in you of waiting upon God. He will enable you to wait continually.

Waiting continually will be met and rewarded by God Himself working continually. We are coming to the end of our lessons. I hope that you and I might learn one thing: God must, God will work continually. He ever does work continually, but the experience of it is hindered by unbelief. But, He, who by His Spirit teaches you to wait continually, will bring you also to experience how, as the Everlasting One, His work is never ceasing. In the love and the life and the work of God, there can be no break, no interruption.

Do not limit God in this by your thoughts of what may be expected. Do fix your eyes upon this one truth: in His very nature, God, as the only Giver of life, cannot do anything other than work in His child every moment. Do not look only at the one side: ”If I wait continually, God will work continually.” No, look at the other side. Place God first and say, ”God works continually; every moment I may wait on Him continually.” Take time until the vision of your God working continually, without one moment’s intermission, fills your being. Your waiting continually will then come of itself. Full of trust and joy, the holy habit of the soul will be: ”on thee do I wait all the day” (Ps. 25:5). The Holy Spirit will keep you ever waiting.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!

Andrew Murray on the Necessity and Blessing of Humility

Best viewed in full screen.  An old Russian Proverb says that, "Beware of asking the Lord for humility, because it comes with many humiliations".  Praise God for our humiliations that draw us closer to Him.  Amen?