Daily Thoughts on Holiness

By Andrew Murray

This compilation of daily devotional readings emphasizes the focuses of Andrew Murray's writing and preaching-holiness and the deepening of the spiritual life. Included are selections from such classics as Humility, The Full Blessing of Pentecost and Waiting on God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CLC Publications
• Release date: Jan 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781619580152

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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Preface

There may be no one more qualified to speak on the subject of holiness than Andrew Murray. Throughout his life, Murray dedicated his time and energy into spreading the Word of God. He devoted himself to preaching and to writing spiritually uplifting and motivating books, becoming one of the all-time best-loved writers on the deeper Christian life.

Daily Thoughts on Holiness emphasizes the overarching theme of Andrew Murray’s writing and preaching—holiness and the deepening of the spiritual life. Compiled by Frank Cumbers, the book is designed with daily excerpts taken from twelve of Murray’s best known books. This new edition has added material from several of his other books to further enhance the devotional.

In these inspiring messages on holiness, Murray challenges you to dig deep, examine your heart and apply the truths he presents to your life. Throughout the book, he provides examples from Scripture of God’s perspective on the holy life, and leads you in a day-to-day development of His indwelling power. As the author once said, May not a single moment of my life be spent outside the light, love and joy of God’s presence.

Daily Thoughts on Holiness encourages you to put effort into a rich and personal relationship—a continuous yearning to be with the Lord.

Laura Smith

Editorial Department

CLC Publications

DAILY THOUGHTS FOR JANUARY

JANUARY 1

Ibelieve that it is possible for a man to live every day as led by the Holy Spirit. I have read in God’s Word that God sheds abroad His love in the heart by the Holy Spirit. I have read in God’s Word that as many as are led by the Spirit, they are the children of God. I have read in God’s Word that if we are born again, we are to walk by the Spirit. . . . Then it is possible; it is the life God calls us to, and that Christ redeemed us for. . . . If you will begin to believe in the power of Christ’s blood to cleanse you, and in the power of the glorified Christ to give His Spirit in your heart, you have taken the first step in the right direction.

Though you should feel ever so wretched, hold fast to Jesus. He can fill you with the Spirit, for He has commanded you to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18).

Absolute Surrender

For Christ, the Spirit’s filling meant prayer, obedience and sacrifice. Even so we, if we are to follow Christ—to have His mind in us and thus live out His life—must seek to regard the fullness of the Spirit as a daily supply, as a daily provision.

The Secret of the Abiding Presence

JANUARY 2

What is it that makes prayerlessness such a great sin? At first, it is looked upon merely as a weakness. There is so much talk about lack of time and all sorts of distractions, that the deep guilt of the situation is not recognized. Let it be our honest desire that, for the future, the sin of prayerlessness may be to us truly sinful. Consider what a reproach it is to God. There is the holy and most glorious God who invites us to come to Him, to hold converse with Him, to ask from Him such things as we need, and to experience what a blessing there is in fellowship with Him. He has created us in His own image, and has redeemed us by His own Son, so that in converse with Him we might find our highest glory and salvation.

What use do we make of this heavenly privilege? How many there are who take only five minutes for prayer! They say that they have no time, and that the heart desire for prayer is lacking; they do not know how to spend half an hour with God! It is not that they absolutely do not pray; they pray every day—but they have no joy in prayer, as a token of communion with God which shows that God is everything to them.

If a friend comes to visit them, they have time, they make time, even at the cost of sacrifice, for the sake of enjoying converse with him. Yes, they have time for everything that really interests them, but no time to practice fellowship with God, and delight themselves in Him!

The Prayer Life

JANUARY 3

It is my object to show what the Scriptures teach us concerning the glorious power of the blood of Jesus, and the wonderful blessings procured for us by it. There is no single scriptural idea, from Genesis to Revelation, more constantly and prominently kept in view, than that expressed by the words the blood. The record about the blood begins at the gates of Eden. Into the unrevealed mysteries of Eden I do not enter. But in connection with the sacrifice of Abel all is plain. He brought of the firstlings of his flock to the Lord as a sacrifice, and there, in connection with the first act of worship recorded in the Bible, blood was shed. We learn from Hebrews (11:4) that it was by faith Abel offered an acceptable sacrifice, and his name stands first in the record of those whom the Bible calls believers. He had this witness borne to him that he pleased God. His faith, and God’s good pleasure in him, are closely connected with the sacrificial blood. In the light of later revelation, this testimony, given at the very beginning of human history, is of deep significance. It shows that there can be no approach to God, no fellowship with Him by faith, no enjoyment of His favor, apart from the blood.

The Power of the Blood of Jesus

JANUARY 4

We have far too little conception of the place that intercession, as distinguished from prayer for ourselves, ought to have in the church and the Christian life. In intercession our king upon the throne finds His highest glory; in it we shall find our highest glory too. Through it He continues His saving work, and can do nothing without it; through it alone we can do our work, and nothing avails without it. In it He receives from the Father the Holy Spirit and all spiritual blessings to impart; in it we too are called to receive in ourselves the fullness of God’s Spirit, with the power to impart spiritual blessings to others.

The power of the church truly to bless rests on intercession—asking and receiving heavenly gifts to carry to men. Because this is so, it is no wonder that where, owing to lack of teaching or spiritual insight, we put our trust in our own diligence and effort, to the influence of the world and the flesh, and work more than we pray, the presence and power of God are not seen in our work as we would wish. . . . There are tens of thousands of workers who have known and are proving wonderfully what prayer can do. But there are tens of thousands who work with but little prayer, and as many more who do not work because they do not know how or where, who might all be won to swell the host of intercessors who are to bring down the blessings of heaven to earth.

The Ministry of Intercession

JANUARY 5

Iam deeply convinced that we Christians can never know too much about the truths which the blood proclaims. There can be no freshness of approach to God, nor fellowship with Him, apart from a truly vital and powerful experience of the efficacy of the blood of Christ. Its efficacy is a hidden, spiritual, divine reality, and therefore can be experienced only in a heart that is humbly and entirely submitted to the guidance of God. And just in proportion as we have an insight into the disposition that inspired Christ to shed His blood, shall we understand and experience what that power is which can produce that disposition in us. Reconciliation and deliverance from guilt will become the blessed entrance for us into a life in which the blood—as it was translated into heaven and abides there—will be truly the power of a divine abiding life in us. . . . It is my prayer that the Lord our God may lead all His people, and me also, ever deeper into the blessed experience of a heart and walk in which the blood manifests its power, and into an intercourse with God in the liberty and intimacy which the blood can bring about. May He cause us to experience and manifest what it means to say that we have washed our garments and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

The Blood of the Cross

JANUARY 6

There are three great motives that urge us to humility. These are based upon the three perspectives under which humility may be considered—the three ways of cataloging humility. Let me explain. Humility applies to me as a creature, as a sinner, and as a saint. And it well becomes me in each of these three categories.

The first aspect of humility we see in the heavenly hosts, in unfallen man, and in Jesus as Son of Man. The second aspect appeals to us in our fallen state, and points out the only way through which we can return to our right place as creatures. In the third aspect of humility we have the mystery of grace, which teaches us that as we lose ourselves in the overwhelming greatness of redeeming love, humility becomes to us the consummation of everlasting blessedness and adoration.

In our ordinary religious teaching, the second aspect has been too exclusively put in the foreground, so that some have even gone to the extreme of saying that we must keep sinning if we are indeed to keep humble. Others again have thought that the strength of self-condemnation is the secret of humility. And so the Christian life has suffered loss, for believers have not been distinctly guided to see that even in our relation as creatures nothing is more natural and beautiful and blessed than to be nothing, that God may be all.

Humility

JANUARY 7

During the life of Jesus on earth, the word He chiefly used when speaking of the relations of the disciples to Himself was: Follow me. When about to leave for heaven, He gave them a new word, in which their more intimate and spiritual union with Himself in glory should be expressed. That chosen word was Abide in me. It is to be feared that there are many earnest followers of Jesus from whom the meaning of this word, with the blessed experience it promises, is very much hidden. While trusting in their Savior for pardon and for help, and seeking to some extent to obey Him, they have hardly realized to what closeness of union, to what intimacy of fellowship, to what wondrous oneness of life and interest, He invited them when He said, Abide in me. This is not only an unspeakable loss to themselves, but the Church and the world suffer in what they lose. If we ask the reason why those who have indeed accepted the Savior, and been made partakers of the renewing of the Holy Ghost, thus come short of the full salvation prepared for them, I am sure the answer will, in very many cases, be that ignorance is the cause of the unbelief that fails of the inheritance. If, in our orthodox churches, the abiding in Christ, the living union with Him, the experience of His daily and hourly abiding presence and keeping, were preached with the same distinctness and urgency as His atonement and pardon through His blood, I am confident that many would be found to accept with gladness the invitation to such a life.

Abide in Christ

JANUARY 8

The sin of prayerlessness is the cause of a deficient spiritual life. It is a proof that, for the most part, our life is still under the power of the flesh. Prayer is the pulse of life; by it the doctor can tell what is the condition of the heart. The sin of prayerlessness is a proof for the ordinary Christian or minister that the life of God in the soul is in deadly sickness and weakness.

Much is said and many complaints are made about the feebleness of the Church to fulfill her calling, to exercise an influence over her members, to deliver them from the power of the world, and to bring them to a life of holy consecration to God. Much is also spoken about her indifference to the millions of brethren whom Christ entrusted to her, that she might make known to them His love and salvation. What is the reason that many thousands of Christian workers in the world have not a greater influence? Nothing, save this—the prayerlessness of their service. In the midst of all their zeal in the study and conversation with the people, they lack that ceaseless prayer which has attached to it the sure promise of the Spirit and the power from on high.

The Prayer Life

JANUARY 9

In olden times believers met God, knew Him, walked with Him, had the clear and full consciousness that they had dealings with the God of heaven and had, too, through faith, the assurance that they and their lives were well-pleasing to Him. When the Son of God came to earth and revealed the Father, it was that such intercourse with God, and the assurance of His favor, might become clearer and be the abiding portion of every child of God. When He was exalted to the throne of glory, it was that He might send down into our hearts the Holy Spirit, in whom the Father and the Son have their own blessed life in heaven, to maintain in us, in divine power, the blessed life of fellowship with God. They shall teach no more every man his neighbor. . . . Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity (Jer. 31:34). The personal fellowship and knowledge of God in the unity of the Holy Spirit was to be the fruit of the pardon of sin. The Spirit of God’s own Son, sent into our hearts to do each moment a work as divine as the Son in redeeming us, to displace our life and replace it by the life of Christ in power, to make the Son of God divinely and consciously present with us always—this was what the Father had promised as the distinctive blessing of the New Testament. The fellowship of God as the Three–One was now to be within us; the Spirit revealing the Son in us, and through Him the Father.

The Spirit of Christ

JANUARY 10

The great complaint of all who have the care of souls is the lack of wholeheartedness, steadfastness, perseverance and progress in the Christian life. Many of whom one cannot but hope that they are true Christians, come to a standstill, and do not advance beyond the basics of Christian life and practice. And many more do not even remain stationary, but turn back to a life of worldliness, formality or indifference. And the question is being continually asked, What is the want in our religion that, in so many cases, it gives no power to stand, to advance, to press on to perfection? And what is the teaching that is needed to give that health and vigor to the Christian life, that, through all adverse circumstances, it may be able to hold fast the beginning firm to the end?

The teaching of the epistle to the Hebrews is the divine answer to these questions. In every possible way it sets before us the truth that it is only the full and perfect knowledge of what Christ is and does for us that can bring us to a full and perfect Christian life. The knowledge of Christ Jesus that we need for conversion does not suffice for growth, for progress, for sanctification, or for maturity. Just as there are two dispensations, the Old Testament and the New, and the saints of the Old, with all their faith and fear of God, could not obtain the more perfect life of the New, so with the two stages in the Christian life of which the epistle speaks.

The Holiest of All

JANUARY 11

It is as we are convicted of the defectiveness of our faith in Christ, and what He has promised to do in saving and keeping us from sin, and as we understand that believing in Him means a yielding up of the whole heart and life and will, to let Him rule and live within us, that we can confidently count upon receiving all that we need of the Holy Spirit’s power and presence. It is as Christ becomes to us all that God has made Him to be, that the Holy Spirit can flow from Him and do His blessed work of leading us back to know Him better and to believe in Him more completely.

The Holy Spirit reveals the way into the Holiest as opened by the blood of Christ, and invites us by faith in Christ to have our life there. It is as we yield our hearts to the leading of the Spirit to know Christ and look at Him, and believe in what is revealed, that the Spirit can take possession of us. The Spirit is given to reveal Christ, and every revelation of Christ fully accepted gives the Spirit room to dwell and work within us. This is the sure way in which the promise will be fulfilled: He that believeth on me, rivers of living water shall flow out of him (see John 7:38). May God lead us to this simple and full faith in Christ, our great High Priest and King in the heavens, and so into a life in the fullness of the Spirit.

The Full Blessings of Pentecost

JANUARY 12

If salvation indeed comes from God, and is entirely His work, just as our creation was, it follows, as a matter of course, that our first and highest duty is to wait on Him to do that work as it pleases Him. Waiting becomes then the only way to the experience of a full salvation, the only way, truly, to know God as the God of our salvation. All the difficulties that are brought forward as keeping us back from full salvation have their cause in this one thing: the defective knowledge and practice of waiting upon God. All that the church and its members need for the manifestation of the mighty power of God in the world is the return to our true place, the place that belongs to us, both in creation and redemption, the place of absolute and unceasing dependence upon God. It is infinitely desirable that the church, that we ourselves, should at any price learn the blessed secret of waiting upon God.

The deep need for this waiting upon God lies equally in the nature of man and the nature of God. God, as Creator, formed man to be a vessel in which He could show forth His power and goodness. Man was not to have in himself a fountain of life, or strength, or happiness; the ever-living and only living One was each moment to be the communicator to him of all that he needed. Man’s glory and blessedness was not to be independent, or dependent upon himself, but dependent upon a God of infinite riches and love. Man was to have the joy of receiving every moment out of the fullness of God. This was his blessedness as an unfallen creature.

Waiting On God

JANUARY 13

Of all the traits of a life like Christ’s there is none higher and more glorious than conformity to Him in the work that now engages Him without ceasing in the Father’s presence—His all-prevailing intercession. The more we abide in Him nd grow into His likeness, the more His priestly life will work in us mightily, and our life become what His is, a life that ever pleads and prevails for men.

Thou hast made us kings and priests unto God. Both in the king and the priest the chief things are power, influence and blessing. In the king it is the power coming downward, in the priest the power rising upward, prevailing with God. In our blessed Priest-King, Jesus Christ, the kingly power is founded on the priestly: He is able . . . to save . . . to the uttermost, because He ever liveth to make intercession (Heb. 7:25). In us, His priests and kings, it is not otherwise; it is in intercession that the Church is to find and wield its highest power, that each member of the Church is to prove his descent from Israel, who as a priest had power with God and with men, and prevailed.

So long as we look on prayer chiefly as the means of maintaining our own Christian life, we shall not know fully what it is meant to be. But when we learn to regard it as the highest part of the work entrusted to us, the root and strength of all other work, we shall see that there is nothing that we so need to study and practice as the art of praying aright.

With Christ in the School of Prayer

JANUARY 14

The first recorded act of Noah, after he had left the ark, was the offering of a burnt sacrifice to God. As with Abel, so with Noah at a new beginning, it was not without blood.

Sin once again prevailed, and God laid an entirely new foundation for the establishment of His Kingdom on earth. By the divine call of Abraham, and the miraculous birth of Isaac, God undertook the formation of a people to serve Him. But this purpose was not accomplished apart from the shedding of the blood. This is apparent in the most solemn hour of Abraham’s life. God had already entered into covenant relationship with Abraham, and his faith had already been severely tried, and had stood the test. It was reckoned, or counted to him, for righteousness. Yet he must learn that Isaac, the son of promise who belonged wholly to God, can be truly surrendered to God only by death. Isaac must die. For Abraham, as well as for Isaac, only by death could freedom from the self-life be obtained. Abraham must offer Isaac on the altar. That was not an arbitrary command of God. It was the revelation of a divine truth, that it is only through death that a life truly consecrated to God is possible. But it was impossible for Isaac to die and rise again from the dead; for on account of sin, death would hold him fast. But see, his life was spared, and a ram was offered in his place. Through the blood that then flowed on Mount Moriah his life was spared. He and the people which sprang from him live before God not without blood. The great lesson of substitution is here clearly taught.

The Power of the Blood of Jesus

JANUARY 15

It is as we daily hear God’s call, and at once put it into practice, that the consciousness will begin to live in us, I too am an intercessor; and that we shall feel the need of living in Christ and being full of the Spirit if we are to do this work aright. Nothing will so test and stimulate the need of living in Christ as the honest attempt to be an intercessor. It is difficult to conceive how much we ourselves and the Church will be the gainers, if with our whole heart we accept the position of honor which God is offering us. . . . The confession, We know not how to pray as we ought is the introduction to the experience, The Spirit . . . maketh intercession for us—our sense of ignorance will lead us to depend upon the Spirit praying in us, to feel the need of living in the Spirit. . . . A life abiding in Christ and filled with the Spirit, a life entirely given up as a branch for the work of the vine, has the power to claim the promises and to pray the effectual prayer that avails much. Lord, teach us to pray.

The Ministry of Intercession

The believer can each day be pleasing to God only in that which he does through the power of Christ dwelling in him. The daily inflowing of the life-sap of the Holy Spirit is his only power to bring forth fruit.

Abide in Christ

JANUARY 16

In our consideration of the blood of Christ and the glorious things which it accomplishes in us, an objection may arise: one might say that it is difficult for us to enjoy these blessings, because we do not clearly understand what those effects are or how the blood accomplishes them. Or even if we do, in some measure, understand, it is not possible for us always to experience its power, because we cannot always actively cooperate with it. Such difficulties arise because we do not remember that God has provided that the blood, as a vital power, automatically and ceaselessly carries on towards perfection its work within us. He has so inseparably bound together the Holy Ghost and the blood that we may rely upon Him to make ceaselessly efficacious, in us, through the Spirit, the blessed power of the blood. . . . The Apostle John . . . mentions three witnesses.

There are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. (1 John 5:8).

The Water: This refers to an outward and human act, commanded by God to be observed by those who, turning from their sins, presented themselves to Him in baptism.

The Blood: In this we see what God has done to bring about a real and living cleansing.

Then there is the Spirit, by whom the witness of both the others is confirmed.

The Blood of the Cross

JANUARY 17

If Jesus is indeed to be our example in His lowliness, we need to understand the principles in which it was rooted. This is the common ground on which we stand with Him, and in which our likeness to Him is to be attained. If we are indeed to be humble, not only before God but toward men—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 all sin, humility is being clothed upon with the very beauty and blessedness of heaven and of Jesus. We shall see that just as Jesus found His glory in taking the form of a servant, so when He said to us, Whosoever would be first among you, shall be your servant (Matt. 20:27), He simply taught us the blessed truth that there is nothing so divine and heavenly as being the servant and helper of all. . . . When we see that humility is something infinitely