"Quicken me, O LORD, according unto thy word." - Psalm 119:107.
Prayer and the Word of God are inseparable, and should always go together in the quiet time of the inner chamber. In His Word God speaks to me; in prayer I speak to God. If there is to be true communication, dialogue, and intimacy, God and I must both take part.
If I simply pray, without using God's Word, I am likely to use my own words and thoughts. When I take God's thoughts from His Word, and present them before Him when I pray, this gives the prayer its power. Then I am enabled to pray according to God's Word. How indispensable God's Word is for all true prayer!
When I pray, I must seek to know God properly. It is through the Word that the Holy Spirit gives me right thoughts of Him. The Word will also teach me how wretched and sinful I am. It reveals to me all the wonders that God will do for me, and the strength He will give me to do His will. The Word teaches me how to pray--with strong desire, with a firm faith, and with constant perseverance. The Word teaches me not only what I am, but what I may become through God's grace. And above all, it reminds me each day that Christ is the great Intercessor, and allows me to pray in His Name.
O Christian, learn this great lesson, to renew your strength each day in God's Word, and so pray according to His will.
Then we turn to the other side that is prayer. We need prayer when we read God's Word--prayer to be taught of God to understand His Word, prayer that through the Holy Spirit I may rightly know and use God's Word,--prayer that I may see in the Word that Christ is all in all, and will be all in me.
Blessed inner chamber, where I may approach God in Christ through the Word and prayer. There I may offer myself to God and His service, and be strengthened by the Holy Spirit, so that His love may be shed abroad in my heart, and I may daily walk in that love.
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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.