"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Micah 6:8.
"Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God ....Being then made free
from sin, ye became servants of righteousness. Even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness" Romans 6:13,18,19.
The word of Micah teaches us that the fruit of the salvation of God is chiefly seen in three things. The new life must be characterised, in my relation to God and His will, by righteousness and doing right. It must be characterised in my relation to my neighbour, by love and benevolence. It must be characterised in relation to myself, by humility and lowliness. For the present, we will meditate on righteousness.
Scripture teaches us that no man is righteous before God, or has any righteousness that can stand before God.1 It says that man receives the rightness or righteousness of Christ for nothing, and that by this righteousness--received in faith--he is justified before God.2 This righteous sentence of God is something binding by which the life of righteousness is implanted in man, and he learns to live a righteous life.3 Being right with God is followed by doing right. "The just shall live by faith" a righteous life (Galatians 3:11).
It is to be feared that this is not always understood. One sometimes thinks more of justification than of righteousness in life and walk. To understand the will and the thoughts of God, let us trace what the Scriptures teach us on this point. We will be convinced that the man who is clothed in a divine righteousness before God must also walk before God and man in a divine righteousness.
Consider how, in the Word, the servants of God are praised as righteous 4--how the favour and blessing of God are pronounced on the righteous 5 --how the righteous are called to confidence, to joy.6 See this especially in the Book of Psalms. See how often in Proverbs all blessing is pronounced upon the righteous. See how everywhere men are divided into two classes--the righteous and the godless.8 See how, in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus demands this righteousness.9 See how Paul, who announces most of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, insists that this is the aim of justification-to form righteous men, who do right. 10 See how John names righteousness along with love as the two indispensable marks of the children of God.11 When you put all these facts together, it must be very evident to you that a true Christian is a man who does righteousness in all things, even as God is righteous.
Scripture will also teach you what this righteousness is. It is a life in accordance with the commands of God, in all their depth and profoundness. The righteous man does what is right in the eyes of the Lord.12 He does not obey the rules of human action--he does not ask what man considers lawful. A man who stands right with God, who walks uprightly with God, dreads, above all things, even the least unrighteousness. He is afraid, above all, of being partial to himself and of doing any wrong to his neighbour for the sake of his own advantage. In great and little things alike, he takes the Scriptures as his measure and line. As an ally of God, he knows that the way of righteousness is the way of blessing and life and joy.
Consider, further, the promises of blessing and joy which God has for the righteous. Then live as one who--in friendship with God, and clothed with the righteousness of His Son through faith--has no alternative but to do righteousness.
O Lord, You have said, "There is no God else beside Me: a just God and a Saviour" (Isaiah 45:21).You are my God. It is as a righteous God that You are my Saviour and have redeemed me in Your Son. As a righteous God, You make me righteous also, and say to me that the righteous will live by faith. Lord, let the new life in me be the life of faith, the life of a righteous man. Amen.
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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.