"Blessed is she that believed; for there shall be a performance of the things which were told her from the Lord" Luke 1:45.
"I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me" Acts 27:25.
"Abraham was strong in faith, being fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able also to perform" Romans 4:20,21.
God has asked you to take and lay up His Word in your heart. The Word is taken and received into the innermost depths of your heart through the avenue of faith. Let the young Christian take pains to better understand what faith is. He will, then gain an insight into the reasons why such great things are connected to faith. He will have a perfect belief in the idea that full salvation is dependent upon faith.1
Let me now ask my reader to read over the three texts which stand above. Find out what the principal thought is that they teach about faith. Please, do not read beyond them. First read these words of God and ask yourself what they teach you about faith.
They help us to see that faith always attaches itself to what God has said or promised. When an honorable man says anything, he also does it. So it is with God. Before He does anything, He reveals it through His Word. When the Christian becomes possessed with this conviction-established in it-God always does what He has said. With God, speaking and doing always go together. The deed always follows the Word. "Hath He said, and shall He not do it?" (Numbers 23:19).2 When I have a Word of God in which He promises to do something, I can always be sure that He will do it. I simply have to believe the Word and wait upon God. God will fulfill His Word to me. Before I feel or experience anything, I hold onto that promise. I know by faith that God will make it good to me.3
What then is faith? Nothing other than the certainty that what God says is true. When God says that something exists, then faith rejoices although it sees nothing of it.4 When God says that He has given me something, that something in heaven is mine, I know by faith that it truly is mine.5 With faith, I am able to believe God when He says that something will come to pass, or that He will do something for me.6 Faith secures those things that are, but that I have not yet seen, and that are not yet, but will come. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). Faith always asks only for what God has said, and then relies on His faithfulness and power to fulfill His Word.
Let us review again the words of Scripture. Of Mary we read, "Blessed is she that believed; for there shall be a performance of the things which were told her from the Lord." All things that have been spoken in the Word will be fulfilled for me. Therefore, I believe them.
It is reported that Abraham was fully assured that God would fulfill what He had promised him. This is the assurance of faith--to be assured that God will do what He has promised.
It is written in the Word about Paul, "I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me." It stood fixed with him that God would do what He had spoken.
Young disciples in Christ, the new and eternal life in you is a life of faith. And do you not see how simple and blessed that life of faith is? Every day I go to the Word and hear what God has said that He has done and will do.7 I take time to house in my heart the Word in which God says that. I hold it firmly, entirely assured that what God has promised He is able to perform. And then, in a childlike spirit, I await the fulfillment of all the promises of His Word. And my soul experiences--Blessed is she that believed, for the things that have been spoken to her from the Lord will be fulfilled. God promises-I believe-God fulfills. That is the secret of the new life.
Father, Your child thanks You for this blessed life of faith in which we have to walk. I can do nothing, but You can do all. All that You can do has been spoken in Your Word. Every Word that I take and trustfully bring to You is fulfilled. Father, in this life of faith, so simple, so glorious, I will walk with You. 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.