Other words concerning the Holy Spirit are found in Acts 2:4: ‘‘They were all filled with the Holy Spirit’’ (NKJV) and Ephesians 5:18: ‘‘Be filled with the Spirit.’’ The one text is a narrative, telling us what actually happened. The other is a command, telling us what we should be. If there is any doubt about its being a command, we find it linked to another in the first part of the passage in Ephesians: ‘‘Do not get drunk on wine. … Instead …’’ If I were to ask you if you obeyed the command not to be drunk with wine, you would no doubt answer, ‘‘Of course, as a believer, I obey that command.’’ But what of the other: ‘‘Be filled with the Spirit’’? Have you obeyed it as well? Does your life manifest the presence of the Holy Spirit? If not, are you willing to take the command to heart and say, ‘‘By God’s help I will obey. I will not rest until I am filled with the Spirit’’? Now the question comes, What is needed in order to be filled with the Spirit? To find the answer we must allow God to search our lives. We might ask ourselves, ‘‘Am I in the condition in which God can fill me with His Spirit?’’ Some of you may be able to honestly answer, ‘‘Thank God, I am ready.’’ If you can say this, you may realize that you have been kept back from this full blessing by lack of knowledge, prejudice, unbelief, or a wrong idea about what being filled with the Spirit is. Being filled with the Spirit is simply this: The whole personality is yielded to His power. When the soul is yielded to the Holy Spirit, God himself will fill it.
(Excerpted from The Andrew Murray Daily Reader in Today’s Language, p. 10)
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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.