Sound Doctrine Church » Andrew Murray

Self and the Christian Life

thomas — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 04:45:58 +0000

Self is the power with which God has created and endowed every intelligent creature. Self is the very center of a created being. And why did God give the angels or man a self? The object of this self was that we might bring it as an empty vessel unto God; that He might put into it His life. God gave me the power of self-determination, that I might bring this self every day and say: “Oh, God, work in it; I offer it to thee.” God wanted a vessel into which He might pour out His divine fullness of beauty, wisdom and power; and so He created the world, the sun, and the moon, and the stars, the trees, and the flowers, and the grass, which all show forth the riches of His wisdom, and beauty, and goodness. But they do it without knowing what they do. Then God created the angels with a self and a will, to see whether they would come and voluntarily yield themselves to Him as vessels for Him to fill. But alas! they did not all do that. There was one at the head of a great company, and he began to look upon himself, and to think of the wonderful powers with which God had endowed him, and to delight in himself. He began to think: “Must such a being as I always remain dependent on God?” He exalted himself, pride asserted itself in separation from God, and that very moment he became, instead of an angel in Heaven, a devil in hell. Self turned to God is the glory of allowing the Creator to reveal Himself in us. Self turned away from God is the very darkness and fire of hell.
—Andrew Murray

The Change in the Life of Peter

thomas — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:53:32 +0000

When Christ warned Peter: “You will deny me,” and he insisted that he never would, he showed how little he understood what there was in himself. But when I read his epistle and hear him say: “If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.” (1 Pet. 4:14), then I say that it is not the old Peter, but that is the very Spirit of Christ breathing and speaking within him.

I read again how he says: “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” (1 Pet. 2:21). I understand what a change had come over Peter. Instead of denying Christ, he found joy and pleasure in having self denied and crucified and given up to the death. And therefore it is in the Acts we read that, when he was called before the Council, he could boldly say: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29), and that he could return with the other disciples and rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s name.

Dear friend, I beseech you, look at Peter utterly changed—the self-pleasing, the self-trusting, the self-seeking Peter, full of sin, continually getting into trouble, foolish and impetuous, but now filled with the Spirit and the life of Jesus. Christ had done it for him by the Holy Spirit.

—Andrew Murray

Love and Salvation

thomas — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 05:05:50 +0000

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of love. He cannot impart Christ’s life without imparting His love. Salvation is nothing but love conquering and entering into us; we have just as much of salvation as we have of love. Full salvation is perfect love.

No wonder that Christ said: “A new commandment I give unto you”; “This is my commandment”—the one all-inclusive commandment—“that ye love one another.” The branch is not only one with the vine, but with all its other branches; they drink one spirit, they form one body, they bear one fruit. Nothing can be more unnatural than that Christians should not love one another, even as Christ loved them. The life they received from their heavenly Vine is nothing but love. This is the one thing He asks above all others. “Hereby shall all men know that ye are my disciples . . . love one another.” As the special sort of vine is known by the fruit it bears, the nature of the heavenly Vine is to be judged of by the love His disciples have to one another.

—Andrew Murray

Unwearied Work

thomas — Mon, 30 May 2011 04:34:34 +0000

‘They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, which worketh for him that waiteth for Him.’—Isa. 40:31, 64:4

Here we have two texts in which the connection between waiting and working is made clear. In the first we see that waiting brings the needed strength for working—that it fits for joyful and unwearied work. ‘They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on eagles’ wings; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.’ Waiting on God has its value in this: it makes us strong in work for God. The second reveals the secret of this strength. ‘God worketh for Him that waiteth for Him.’ The waiting on God secures the working of God for us and in us, out of which our work must spring. The two passages teach the great lesson, that as waiting on God lies at the root of all true working for God, so working for God must be the fruit of all true waiting on Him. Our great need is to hold the two sides of the truth in perfect conjunction and harmony.

—Andrew Murray

God’s Strength

thomas — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:14:59 +0000

I have often been asked by young Christians: “Why is it that I fail so? I did so solemnly vow with my whole heart, and did desire to serve God. Why have I failed?”

To such I always give this answer: “My dear friend, you are trying to do in your own strength what Christ alone can do in you.”

And when they tell me: “I am sure I knew Christ alone could do it; I was not trusting in myself,” my answer is: “you were trusting in yourself, or you could not have failed. If you had trusted Christ, He could not fail.”

Oh, this perfecting in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit runs far deeper through us than we often know. Let us ask God to show us that it is only when we are brought to utter shame and emptiness that we will be prepared to receive the blessing that comes from on high.

—Andrew Murray

Life and Obedience

thomas — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 05:14:22 +0000

In Christ obedience was a life principle. Obedience with Him did not mean a single act of obedience now and then, not even a series of acts, but the spirit of His whole life. ‘I came, not to do My own will.’ ‘Lo, I come, to do Thy will, O God.’ He had come into the world for one purpose. He only lived to carry out God’s will. The one supreme, all-controlling power of His life was obedience.

He is willing to make it so in us. This was what He promised when He said, ‘Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother and sister and mother.’

The link in a family is a common life shared by all and a family likeness. The bond between Christ and us is that He and we together do the will of God.

In Christ this obedience was a joy. ‘I delight to do Thy will, O God.’ ‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.’

Our food is refreshment and invigoration. The healthy man eats his bread with gladness. But food is more than enjoyment—it is the one necessary of life. And so, doing the will of God was the food that Christ hungered after and without which He could not live, the one thing that satisfied His hunger, the one thing that refreshed and strengthened Him and made Him glad.

—Andrew Murray

Hearing and Obedience

thomas — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 03:01:51 +0000

The power of faith and of obedience lies especially in unity with the living God Himself. There is but one Hebrew word for ‘obeying voice’ and ‘hearing voice:’ to hear aright prepares to obey. It is when I learn the will of God, not in the words of a man or a book, but from God Himself, when I hear the voice of God, that I shall surely believe what is promised and do what is commanded. The Holy Spirit is the voice of God: when we hear the living voice speak, obedience becomes easy. (Gen. 12:1,4; 31:13,16; Matt. 14:28; Luke 5:5; John 10:4,27) O let us then wait in silence upon God, and set our soul open before Him, that He may speak by His Spirit. When in our Bible-reading and praying we learn to wait more upon God, so that we can say: My God has spoken this to me, has given me this promise, has commanded this, then shall we also obey. ‘To listen to the voice’ earnestly, diligently, is the sure way to obedience.

—Andrew Murray

Prayer: A State of the Heart

thomas — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:19:49 +0000

Jesus, though He had all wisdom, only gave us a small number of moral teachings. This is because He knew that the desire of our hearts is focused on this world. Nothing can set us right but turning the desire of our hearts to God. Therefore He calls us to a total denial of ourselves and the life of this world. He calls us to a faith in Him as the one who gives a new birth and a new life. He teaches us every reason for renouncing ourselves and for loving our redemption as the greatest joy and desire of our heart.

We see that our will and our heart are everything. True religion is only the religion of the heart. We see that a spirit of longing after the life of this world made us the poor pilgrims on earth that we are. Only the spirit of prayer, or the longing desire of the heart after Christ and God and heaven, breaks our bondage and lifts us out of the miseries of time into the riches of eternity.

When the spirit of prayer is born in us, it is no longer confined to a certain hour but is the continual breathing of the heart after God. The spirit of prayer, as a state of the heart, becomes the governing principle of the soul’s life.

—Andrew Murray

Work and the Christian Life

thomas — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 01:27:00 +0000

Everything depends on our being right in Christ. If I want good apples, I must have a good apple tree. If I care for the health of the apple tree, the apple tree will give me good apples. And it is just so with our Christian life and work. If our life with Christ is right, all will come out right. Instruction and suggestion and help and training in the different departments of the work may be needed; all that has value. But in the long run, the greatest essential is to have the full life in Christ—in other words, to have Christ in us, working through us.

If only we knew, by the Holy Spirit, about our relationship to Jesus Christ, our work would be changed into the brightest and most heavenly thing on earth. Instead of there ever being soul-weariness or exhaustion, our work would be like a new experience, linking us to Jesus as nothing else can. For, is it not true that our work comes between us and Jesus? What folly! The very work that He has to do in me, and I for Him, I take up in such a way that it separates me from Christ. Many a laborer in the vineyard has complained that he has too much work, and not enough time for close communion with Jesus. He complains that his usual work weakens his inclination for prayer, and that his many conversations with men darken the spiritual life. Sad thought, that the bearing of fruit should separate the branch from the vine! That must be because we have looked on our work as something other than the branch bearing fruit. May God deliver us from every false thought about the Christian life.

—Andrew Murray

Working and Praying

thomas — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 05:24:55 +0000

We need prayer from a person for a person. Scripture and God’s spirit teach us to pray for all society, for the Church with which we are associated, for nations, and for special spheres of work. Most needful and blessed. But somehow more is needed—to take of those with whom we come into contact, one by one, and make them the subjects of our intercession. The larger supplications must have their place, but it is difficult to know when our prayers are answered. But nothing will bring God so near, will test and strengthen our faith, and make us know we are fellow workers with God, as when we receive an answer to our prayers for individuals. It will quicken in us the new and blessed consciousness that we indeed have power with God. Let every worker seek to exercise this grace of taking up and praying for individual souls.

Count upon an answer. He shall ask, and God will give him (the one who prays) life. The words follow on those in which John had spoken about the confidence we have of being heard, if we ask anything according to His will. There is often complaint made of not knowing God’s will. But here there is no difficulty. ‘He willeth that all men should be saved.’ If we rest our faith on this will of God, we shall grow strong and grasp the promise. ‘He should pray and God will give him life.’ The Holy Spirit will lead us, if we yield ourselves to be led by Him, to the souls God would have us take as our special care, and for which the grace of faith and persevering prayer will be given us. Let the wonderful promise: God will give him life, stir us and encourage us to our priestly ministry of personal and definite intercession, as one of the most blessed among the good works in which we can serve God and man. Praying and working are inseparable.

Let all who work learn to pray well. Let all who pray learn to work well.

—Andrew Murray