The Essential Andrew Murray Collection: Humility, Abiding in Christ, Living a Prayerful Life

By Andrew Murray

Three Classic Andrew Murray Books in One Wisdom-Filled Volume

The powerful writings of Andrew Murray, the nineteenth-century minister and author, still inspire today.

· In Humility, Murray calls all Christians to turn from pride, empty themselves, and study the character of Christ, who will then fill them with His grace. It is often called the best work ever written on the topic.
· Abiding in Christ invites you to listen to words from Scripture, read a daily meditation, pray, and surrender yourself anew to Christ. This thirty-one-day devotional is as timely now as it was in 1895 when it was first published.
· Living a Prayerful Life outlines the way to overcome prayerlessness, which Murray believed was the greatest roadblock to spiritual growth. He offers inspiring and practical guidelines for becoming a prayer warrior, including examples from the prayer lives of the apostle Paul, George Müller, and Hudson Taylor.

The wisdom in these pages will encourage and equip you to live a life of humility, surrender, and prayer, bringing you closer to the One who created you and longs to be with you.

Each title in this collection has been edited for today's reader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781493431601

Andrew Murray

ANDREW MURRAY (1828-1917) was a church leader, evangelist, and missionary statesman. As a young man, Murray wanted to be a minister, but it was a career choice rather than an act of faith. Not until he had finished his general studies and begun his theological training in the Netherlands, did he experience a conversion of heart. Sixty years of ministry in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, more than 200 books and tracts on Christian spirituality and ministry, extensive social work, and the founding of educational institutions were some of the outward signs of the inward grace that Murray experienced by continually casting himself on Christ. A few of his books include The True Vine, Absolute Surrender, The School of Obedience, Waiting on God, and The Prayer Life.

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© 2001, 2003, 2002 by Bethany House Publishers

Previously published in three separate volumes by Bethany House Publishers:

Humility © 2001

Abiding in Christ © 2003

Living a Prayerful Life © 2002

Published by Bethany House Publishers

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Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of

Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Bethany House 3-in-1 edition published 2021

Ebook edition created 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-3160-1

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations in Humility and Living a Prayerful Life are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations from Abiding in Christ are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Certain words quoted are capitalized for emphasis by the author.

Cover design by Rob Williams, InsideOut Creative Arts, Inc.

Contents

Cover

Half Title Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Humility

Foreword by Donna Partow

Preface

1. Humility: The Glory of the Creature

2. Humility: The Secret of Redemption

3. Humility in the Life of Jesus

4. Humility in the Teaching of Jesus

5. Humility in the Disciples of Jesus

6. Humility in Daily Life

7. Humility and Holiness

8. Humility and Sin

9. Humility and Faith

10. Humility and Death to Self

11. Humility and Happiness

12. Humility and Exaltation

A Prayer for Humility

Notes

Abiding in Christ

Preface

John 15:1–2

1. All You Who Have Come to Him

2. You Will Find Rest for Your Souls

3. Trusting Him to Keep You

4. As the Branch in the Vine

5. It Is As You Came to Him, by Faith

6. God Has United You to Himself

7. He Is Your Wisdom

8. He Is Your Righteousness

9. He Is Your Sanctification

10. He Is Your Redemption

11. The Crucified One

12. God Himself Will Establish You in Him

13. Every Moment

14. Day by Day

15. At This Moment

16. Forsaking All for Him

17. Through the Holy Spirit

18. In Stillness of Soul

19. In Affliction and Trial

20. That You May Bear Much Fruit

21. So Will You Have Power in Prayer

22. Continue in His Love

23. Abide As Christ Abides in the Father

24. Obeying His Commandments

25. That Your Joy May Be Full

26. Showing Love to Fellow Believers

27. That You Might Not Sin

28. He Is Your Strength

29. It Is Not in Ourselves

30. The Guarantee of the New Covenant

31. The Glorified One

Living a Prayerful Life

Introduction

Part One: The Prayer Life

1. The Sin of Prayerlessness

2. The Cause of Prayerlessness

3. The Fight Against Prayerlessness

4. How to Be Delivered from Prayerlessness

5. How Deliverance from Prayerlessness Might Continue

6. The Blessing of Victory

7. The More Abundant Life

8. The Example of Our Lord

9. The Holy Spirit and Prayer

10. A Proper Knowledge of What Sin Is

11. The Holiness of God

12. The Importance of Obedience

13. The Victorious Life

Part Two: The Inner Room

14. Suggestions for Private Prayer

15. The Use of Time and the Example of Paul

16. Ministers of the Spirit

17. Preaching and Prayer

18. Wholeheartedness

19. Follow Me

20. The Holy Trinity

21. Life and Prayer

22. Are We Carnal or Spiritual?

23. Examples in Godly Men

24. Light from the Inner Room

Part Three: The Deepest Secret of Pentecost

25. The Spirit of the Cross in Our Lord

26. The Spirit of the Cross in Us

27. We Are Crucified with Christ

28. The Holy Spirit and the Cross

29. The Cross in Contrast to the Flesh and the World

30. The Spirit and the Cross

31. Christ, Our Example

Epilogue

About the Author

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foreword

The words in this book changed my life forever. There is no other way to say it. Some ten years ago I stumbled upon an old version of this long-lost treasure, hidden under a pile of ninety-nine-cent books on a liquidation table. At the time, I had so many misconceptions about humility. For one thing, I confused it with self-loathing. Humility is not the same as beating yourself up or letting other people put you down. Humility is not the same as low self-esteem and it’s not the opposite of confidence. In fact, the truly humble person walks with absolute confidence, knowing that we are simply empty vessels through whom God wants to accomplish His work. When we understand true humility, we understand that it’s not about us at all. It’s about God. That’s a tremendously freeing realization.

No writer has had more impact on my understanding of what it takes to become a vessel God can use than Andrew Murray. No writer has ever drawn me nearer to God than Andrew Murray. He writes with the gentle heart of the Father. The healing touch of Jesus flows from the tip of his pen. And the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit pulsates through every word.

It’s my fervent hope that this book will become a constant companion to thousands of believers. That it will occupy a special place—on your nightstand, desk, or coffee table—right next to your Bible. I urge you to prayerfully undertake a careful reading of Humility. I believe it will open your eyes to a whole new way of living, as God, the Almighty Three-in-One, speaks to you very personally through the pages set before you now.

His Vessel,

Donna Partow

Author, Becoming a Vessel God Can Use

preface

There are three great motivations to humility: it becomes us as creatures; it becomes us as sinners; and it becomes us as saints. Humility is first seen in the angels, in man before the Fall, and in Jesus as the Son of Man. In our fallen state, humility points us to the only way by which we can return to our rightful place as creatures. As Christians, the mystery of grace teaches us that as we lose ourselves in the overwhelming greatness of redeeming love, humility becomes to us the consummation of everlasting blessedness.

It is common in Christian teaching to find the second aspect taught almost exclusively. Some have gone so far as to say that we must keep on sinning in order to remain humble! Others have thought that the strength of self-condemnation is the secret of humility. As a result, the Christian life has suffered where believers have not been guided to see that even in our relationships as creatures, nothing is more natural and beautiful and blessed than to be nothing in order that God may be everything. It needs to be made clear that it is not sin that humbles but grace. It is the soul occupied with God in His wonderful glory as Creator and Redeemer that will truly take the lowest place before Him.

In these meditations I have, for more than one reason, almost exclusively directed our attention to the humility that becomes us as creatures. It is not only because the connection between humility and sin is so commonly taught but also because I believe that for the fullness of the Christian life it is indispensable that prominence be given to the other aspect. If Jesus is to be our example in His lowliness, we need to understand the principles in which this quality is rooted and where we find the common ground to stand with Him. If we are to be humble not only before God but toward men, and if humility is to be our joy, we must see that it is not only the mark of shame because of sin, but apart from sin, it is being clothed with the very beauty and blessedness of Jesus. We will see that just as Jesus found glory in taking the form of a servant, so when He said to us, Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant (Matthew 20:26), He was teaching us the truth that there is nothing so divine as being the servant and helper of all. The faithful servant who recognizes his position finds real pleasure in supplying the wants of the master or his guests. When we realize that humility is something infinitely deeper than contrition, and accept it as our participation in the life of Jesus, we will begin to learn that it is our true nobility, and that to prove it in being servants of all is the highest fulfillment of our destiny as men created in the image of God.

When I look back upon my own Christian experience, or at the church of Christ as a whole, I am amazed at how little humility is seen as the distinguishing feature of discipleship. In our preaching and in our living, in our daily interaction in our families and in our social life, as well as fellowship with other Christians, how easy it is to see that humility is not esteemed the cardinal virtue, the root from which grace can grow and the one indispensable condition of true fellowship with Jesus. The fact that it is possible for anyone to say of those who claim to seek holiness that the profession has not been accompanied with increasing humility, is a loud call to all earnest Christians, whatever truth there be in the charge, to prove that meekness and lowliness of heart are the chief marks by which they who follow the Lamb of God are to be known.

chapter one

humility: the glory of the creature

Humility is the proper estimate of oneself.

CHARLES SPURGEON

They lay their crowns before the throne and say: You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.

Revelation 4:10–11

When God created the universe, it was with the objective of making those he created partakers of His perfection and blessedness, thus showing forth the glory of His love and wisdom and power. God desired to reveal himself in and through His creatures by communicating to them as much of His own goodness and glory as they were capable of receiving. But this communication was not meant to give created beings something they could possess in themselves, having full charge and access apart from Him. Rather, God as the ever-living, ever-present, ever-acting One, who upholds all things by the word of His power, and in whom all things exist, meant that the relationship of His creatures to himself would be one of unceasing, absolute dependence. As truly as God by His power once created all things, so by that same power must God every moment maintain all things. We as His creatures have not only to look back to the origin and beginning of our existence and acknowledge that we owe everything to God— our chief care, highest virtue, and only happiness, now and throughout all eternity—but we must also present ourselves as empty vessels, in which God can dwell and manifest His power and goodness.

The life God bestows is imparted not once for all but each moment by the unceasing operation of His mighty power. Humility, the place of entire dependence upon God, is from the very nature of things the first duty and the highest virtue of His creatures.

And so pride—the loss of humility—is the root of every sin and evil. It was when the now-fallen angels began to look upon themselves with self-complacency that they were led to disobedience and were cast down from the light of heaven into outer darkness. Likewise, it was when the serpent breathed the poison of his pride—the desire to be as God— into the hearts of our first parents, that they too fell from their high estate into the wretchedness to which all humankind has sunk. In heaven and on earth, pride or self-exaltation is the very gateway to hell.1

And so it follows that nothing can save us but the restoration of our lost humility, the original and only true relationship of the creature to its God. And so Jesus came to bring humility back to earth, to make us partakers of it, and by it to save us. In heaven He humbled himself to become a man. The humility we see in Him possessed Him in heaven; it brought Him here. Here on earth He humbled himself and became obedient to death; His humility gave His death its value, and so became our redemption. And now the salvation He imparts is nothing less and nothing else than a communication of His own life and death, His own disposition and spirit, His own humility, as the ground and root of His relationship with God and His redeeming work. Jesus Christ took the place and fulfilled the destiny of man as a creature by His life of perfect humility. His humility became our salvation. His salvation is our humility.

The life of those who are saved, the saints, must bear this stamp of deliverance from sin and full restoration to their original state; their whole relationship to God and to man marked by an all-pervading humility. Without this there can be no true abiding in God’s presence or experience of His favor and the power of His Spirit; without this no abiding faith or love or joy or strength. Humility is the only soil in which virtue takes root; a lack of humility is the explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a virtue along with the others, but is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God and allows Him, as God, to do all.

God has so constituted us as reasonable beings that the greater the insight into the true nature or the absolute need of a command, the quicker and more complete will be our obedience to it. The call to humility has been too little regarded in the church because its true nature and importance have been too little apprehended. It is not something that we bring to God, or that He bestows; it is simply the sense of entire nothingness that comes when we see how truly God is everything. When the creature realizes that this is a place of honor, and consents to be—with his will, his mind, and his affections—the vessel in which the life and glory of God are to work and manifest themselves, he sees that humility is simply acknowledging the truth of his position as creature and yielding to God His place.

In the life of earnest Christians who pursue and profess holiness, humility ought to be the chief mark of their uprightness. Often it is said that this is not the case. Perhaps one reason is that the teaching and example of the church has not placed the proper importance on humility. As strong as sin is a motive for it, there is one still wider and mightier influence: it is that which made the angels, Jesus himself, and the holiest saints humble. It is the first and chief mark of the relationship of the creature to God, of the Son to the Father—it is the secret of blessedness, the desire to be nothing, that allows God to be all in all.

I am sure there are many Christians who will confess that their experience has been very much like my own. I had long known the Lord without realizing that meekness and lowliness of heart are to be the distinguishing feature of the disciple, just as they were of the Master. And further, that this humility is not something that will come of itself, but that it must be made the object of special desire, prayer, faith, and practice. As we study the Word, we will see what very distinct and oftrepeated instructions Jesus gave His disciples on this point, and how slow they were to understand them.

Let us at the very outset of our meditations, then, admit that there is nothing so natural to man, nothing so insidious and hidden from our sight, nothing so difficult and dangerous as pride. And acknowledge that nothing but a very determined and persevering waiting on God will reveal how lacking we are in the grace of humility and how powerless we are to obtain what we seek. We must study the character of Christ until our souls are filled with the love and admiration of His lowliness. We must believe that when we are broken under a sense of pride and our inability to cast it out, Jesus Christ himself will come to impart this grace as a part of His wonderful life within us.

chapter two

humility: the secret of redemption

If you are looking for an example of humility, look at the cross.

THOMAS AQUINAS

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.

Philippians 2:5–9

No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. Through all its existence it can only live by the life that was in the seed that gave it being. The full apprehension of this truth in its application to the first and the Second Adam cannot but help us to understand both the need and the nature of the redemption that is in Jesus.

The Need

When the Old Serpent, who had been cast out of heaven for his pride, whose whole nature was pride, spoke temptation into Eve’s ear, those words carried with them the very poison of hell. And when she listened, and yielded her desire and her will to the prospect of being like God, knowing good and evil, the poison entered into her soul, destroying forever that blessed humility and dependence upon God that would have been our everlasting inheritance and happiness. Her life and the life of the race that sprang from her became corrupted to its very root with that most terrible of all sins and curses— Satan’s pride. All the wretchedness of which this world has been the scene, all its wars and bloodshed among the nations, all its selfishness and suffering, all its vain ambitions and jealousies, all its broken hearts and embittered lives, with all its daily unhappiness, have their origin in what this cursed pride—our own or that of others—has brought upon us. It is pride that made redemption necessary; it is from our pride that we need, above everything else, to be redeemed. And our insight into the need of redemption will largely depend upon our knowledge of the terrible nature of the power of pride that has entered our being.

As we have said, no tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. The pride that Satan brought from hell and whispered into the life of humankind is working daily, hourly, and with mighty power throughout the world. Men and women suffer from it; they fear and fight and flee it; and yet they don’t always know where it has come from or how it has gained such terrible supremacy. No wonder they don’t know how to overcome it. Pride has its root and strength in a spiritual power, outside of us as well as within us; as needful as it is that we confess and deplore it, it is satanic in origin. If this leads us to utter despair of ever conquering or casting it out, it will lead us all the sooner to that supernatural power in which alone our deliverance is to be found—the redemption of the Lamb of God. The hopeless struggle against the workings of self and pride within us may indeed become still more hopeless as we think of the power of darkness behind it; the utter despair will fit us better for realizing and accepting a power and a life outside of ourselves, the humility of heaven brought down by the Lamb of God to cast out Satan and his pride.

Even as we need to look to the first Adam and his failure to know the power of sin within us, we need to know the Second Adam and His power to give us the life of humility as real and abiding and enabling as was the life of pride. We have our life from and in Christ even more certainly than from and in Adam. We are to walk rooted in him, holding fast the head from whom the whole body increases with the increase of God. The life of God that entered human nature through the Incarnation, is the root in which we are to stand and grow; it is the same almighty power that worked there, at the Cross, and onward to the Resurrection, which works daily in us. It is of utmost importance that we study to know and trust the life that has been revealed in Christ as the life that is now ours, and waits for our consent to gain possession and mastery of our whole being.

In view of this, it is important that we know who Christ is, especially the chief characteristic that is the root and essence of His character as our Redeemer. There can be but one answer: it is His humility. What is the Incarnation but His heavenly humility, His emptying himself and becoming man? What is His life on earth but humility; His taking the form of a servant? And what is His atonement but humility? He humbled himself and became obedient to death. And what is His ascension and His glory but humility exalted to the throne and crowned with glory? He humbled himself . . . therefore God exalted Him to the highest place. In heaven, where He was one with the Father; in His birth, His life, and His death on earth; in His return to the right hand of the Father—it is all humility. Christ is the expression of the humility of God embodied in human nature; the Eternal Love humbling itself, clothing itself in the garb of meekness and gentleness, to win and serve and save us. As the love and condescension of God makes Him the benefactor and helper and servant of all, so Jesus of necessity was the Incarnate Humility. And so He is still, in the midst of the throne, the meek and lowly Lamb of God.

If this is the root of the tree, its nature must be seen in every branch and leaf and fruit. If humility is the first, the allinclusive grace of the life of Jesus—if humility is the secret of His atonement—then the health and strength of our spiritual life will depend entirely upon our putting this grace first and making humility the chief quality we admire in Him, the chief attribute we ask of Him, the one thing for which we sacrifice all else.1

Is it any wonder that the Christian life is so often weak and fruitless, when the very root of the Christian life is neglected or unknown? Is it any wonder that the joy of salvation is so little felt, when that by which Christ brings it is so seldom sought? Until a humility that rests in nothing less than the end and death of self, and which gives up all the honor of men as Jesus did to seek the honor that comes from God alone (which absolutely makes and counts itself nothing) that God may be all, that the Lord alone may be exalted—until such a humility is what we seek in Christ above our chief joy, and welcome at any price, there is very little hope of a faith that will conquer the world.

I cannot too greatly impress upon my readers the need of realizing the lack there is today of humility within Christian circles. There is so little of the meek and lowly Lamb of God in those who are called by His name. Let us consider how our lack of love, indifference to the needs and feelings of others, even sharp comments and hasty judgments that are often excused as being honest and straightforward, are thwarting the effect of the influence of the Holy Spirit on others. Manifestations of temper and touchiness and irritation, feelings of bitterness and estrangement, have their root in nothing but pride. Pride creeps in almost everywhere, and the assemblies of the saints are not exceptions. Let’s ask ourselves what would be the effect if all of us were guided by the humility of Jesus, that the cry of our whole heart, night and day, would be, Oh, for the humility of Jesus in myself and all around me! Let us honestly fix our heart on our lack of humility—that which has been revealed in the likeness of Christ’s life, in the whole character of His redemption—and realize how little we know of Christ and His salvation.

Study the humility of Jesus. This is the secret, the hidden root of redemption. Believe with your whole heart that Christ, whom God has given you, will enter in to dwell and work within you and make you what the Father would have you to be.

chapter three

humility in the life of Jesus

The only hope of a decreasing self is an increasing Christ.

F. B. MEYER

I am among you as one who serves.

Luke 22:27

In the gospel of John we have the inner life of our Lord laid open before us. Jesus spoke frequently of His relationship to the Father, of the motives by which He was guided, of His consciousness of the power and Spirit in which He acted. Though the word humble does not occur in Scripture, the humility of Christ is clearly revealed. We have already said that this virtue is nothing but the simple consent of the creature to let God be all, the surrender of itself to His working alone. In Jesus we see how both as the Son of God in heaven and the Son of Man on earth, He took the place of entire subordination and gave God the Father the honor and glory due Him. What He taught so often was true of himself: He who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:14). As it is written, He humbled himself. . . . Therefore God exalted him to the highest place (Philippians 2:8–9).

Listen to the words our Lord speaks of His relationship to the Father and see how consistently He uses the words not and nothing of himself. The not I that Paul uses to express his relationship to Christ, is in the same spirit that Christ speaks of His relationship to the Father.

"The Son can do nothing by himself" (John 5:19).

"By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me" (John 5:30).

"I do not accept praise from men" (John 5:41).

"For I have come down from heaven not to do my will" (John 6:38).

"My teaching is not my own" (John 7:16).

"I am not here on my own" (John 7:28).

"I do nothing on my own" (John 8:28).

"I have not come on my own; but he sent me" (John 8:42).

"I am not seeking glory for myself" (John 8:50).

"The words I say to you are not just my own" (John 14:10).

"These words you hear are not my own" (John 14:24).

These words of testimony, spoken by the Lord himself, reveal the deepest motivation of His life and work. They show how the Father was able to work His redemption through the Son. They show the state of heart that became Him as the Son of the Father. They teach us the essential nature and life of the redemption that Christ accomplished and now communicates to us. It is this: He was nothing that God might be all. He resigned himself to the Father’s will and power that He might work through Him. Of His own power, His own will, His own glory, His whole mission with its works and teaching—of all this, He said, I am nothing. I have given myself to the Father to work; He is all.

This life of entire self-abnegation, of absolute submission and dependence upon the Father’s will, Christ found to be the source of perfect peace and joy. He lost nothing by giving all to God. God honored His trust and did all for Him, and then exalted Him to His own right hand in glory. And because Christ humbled himself before God, and God was ever before Him, He found it possible to humble himself before men, too, and to be the Servant of all. His humility was simply the surrender of himself to God, to allow Him to do in Him what He pleased, regardless of what men might say of Him or do to Him.

It is in this state of mind, in this spirit and disposition, that the redemption of Christ has its virtue and efficacy. It is to bring us to this disposition that we are made partakers of Christ. This is the true self-denial to which our Savior calls us, the acknowledgment that self has nothing good in it, except as an empty vessel for God to fill. Its claim to be or do anything may not for a moment be allowed. It is in this, above and before everything, that the conformity to Jesus consists—the being and doing nothing of ourselves that God may be all in all.

Here we have the nature of true humility. It is because this is not understood or sought after, that our humility is so superficial and weak. We must learn of Jesus, how He is meek and lowly of heart. He teaches us where true humility begins and finds its strength—in the knowledge that it is God who works all in all, that our place is to yield to Him in perfect resignation and dependence, in full consent to be and to do nothing of ourselves. This is the life Christ came to reveal and to impart—a life to God that came through death to sin and self. If we feel that this life is too high for us and beyond our reach, it must all the more urge us to seek it in Him. It is the indwelling Christ who will live this life in us. If we long for it, let us above everything seek the secret of the knowledge of the nature of God, the secret of which every child of God is to be a witness: nothing but a vessel, a channel through which the living God can manifest the riches of His wisdom, power, and goodness. The root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and acceptable worship, is that we know that we have nothing but what we receive, and bow in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.

It was because this humility was not only