He begins to see what he needs. First of all to have a deeper sense of his own spiritual ignorance, of the utter impotence and the great danger of all the mere mind-knowledge with its beautiful images and impressions. Then to bow in great stillness of soul before God, renouncing his own wisdom as utterly as his own righteousness, and to ask that the consciousness of the divine indwelling of the Spirit may be given by the Father himself. He learns that in every act of prayer or communion with God’s Word, in every desire or resolve in connection with divine things, his first duty is to wait in humble dependence upon God, to have the activity of nature restrained and mortified, and the heart trained into the habit of faith that the Spirit will teach and work.
As he gradually realizes that the Holy Spirit is indeed within him, he bows with a deeper reverence and fear, but also with a fuller dependence and assurance before the Father who gives the Spirit. And he learns what at first he did not understand, that so far from the Spirit being a power in us that we can use or call up, his presence makes us more absolutely and necessarily dependent on the Father. Just as our Lord, who had received the Spirit without measure, did not dare to speak a word or do a work without the Father giving it him each moment, so the true faith of the Spirit’s indwelling bends us in the most absolute weakness to the footstool of God’s throne.
When God made man, it was that he might live in man, imparting by his personal presence all the goodness he was capable of, and working himself in his will and affections what man was to do and to be. Pentecost restored what Paradise lost. The believer yields himself trustfully to what God would have him be, because he now knows that the Spirit, who knows the things of God, reveals and works in him the things that are freely given us of God.
(Excerpted from The Coming Revival, by Andrew Murray , pg. 39)
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Andrew Murray (1828 - 1917)
Brother Andrew Murray was a well-known writer/preacher in South Africa who ministered amongst the Dutch Reformed churches. His writings now are widely accepted by modern evangelicals and he is published more than ever in his life-time.Some of his better known books titles are: "Abide In Christ", "Absolute Surrender," and "Humility." His burden for the body of Christ were teachings on the abiding Spirit of Christ in the believer, the life of faith with God daily, and the life of intercession and prayer in the Church.
Andrew Murray was possibly the strongest spokesman of the Philadelphian age to expound the Body's necessity to abide in Christ, like the Apostle John before him.
Murray was born into a family of four children in the then remote Graaff-Reinet region (near the Cape) of South Africa. Educated in Scotland, which was followed by theological studies in Holland, Andrew returned to his native land to work as a missionary and minister. Given the daunting task of ministering to Bloemfontein, a remote region of 50,000 square miles and 12,000 people beyond the Orange River, Murray already began to sense the need to for the "deeper Christian life".
Though successful in preaching and bringing many to Christ, Murray found many of his greatest lessons in the School of Suffering, as will all who follow in the path of obedience.
Andrew Murray was one of four children born to Pastor Andrew, Sr., and Maria Murray. He was raised in what was considered to be the most remote corner of the world - Graaff-Reinet, South Africa. Educated in Scotland and Holland, in 1848 Andrew, Jr., returned to South Africa as a missionary and minister with the Dutch Reformed Church. His first appointment was to Bloemfontein, a territory of nearly 50,000 square miles and 12,000 people.
Andrew and his brother John had been in close contact with a revival movement in Scotland, an evangelical extension of the ongoing Second Great Awakening in America. He prayed for the same sort of awakening for the church in South Africa and wrote, "My prayer is for revival, but I am held back by the increasing sense of my own unfitness for the work. I lament the awful pride and self complacency that have till now ruled my heart. O that I may be more and more a minister of the Spirit." (J. du Plessis, The Life of Andrew Murray)
In 1860, revival did come to the churches of Cape Town, South Africa, and subsequently spread to surrounding towns and villages. Even remote farms and plantations felt the impact as lives were changed. Where once the churches had not been able to find one man ready to be a leader for God, the revival raised up 50 in Murray's Cape Town parish alone. There were more conversions in one month in that parish than in the whole course of its previous history. (Leona Choy, Andrew Murray: Apostle of Abiding Love)
Greatly concerned for the spiritual guidance of new converts and renewed Christians, Andrew Murray wrote over 240 books. His writings reflect his own longing for a deeper life in Christ and his prayer that others would long for and experience that life as well.