Category Archives: Andrew Murray

Andrew Murray

The Holy Spirit Prays in Us with Groanings

Great words from Andrew Murray about working with the Holy Spirit in our prayer time. Let the Holy Spirit be our prayer helper and teacher.

You complain that you do not feel able to pray thus, and ask how you may be fitted to do so.  You speak much of the feebleness of your faith in God, and love to souls, and delight in prayer.  The man who is to have power in intercession must cease these complaints.  He must know that he has A NATURE PERFECTLY ADAPTED TO THE WORK.  An apple tree is only expected to bear apples, because it has the apple nature within it.  “You are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.”  The eye was created so see:  how beautifully fitted it is for its work!  You are created in Christ to pray.  It is your very nature as a child of God.  The Spirit has been sent into your heart—what to do?  To cry Abba Father, to you draw your heart up in child-like prayer.  The Holy Spirit prays in us with groanings that cannot be uttered, with a divine power which our mind and feelings cannot understand.  Learn, if you would be an intercessor, to give the Holy Spirit much greater honors than is generally done.  Believe that He is praying within you, and be strong and of good courage.  As you pray, be still before God to believe and to yield to this wonderful power of prayer within you.

These are quotes from The Inner Chamber by Andrew Murray on Moses the man of prayer.

Prayer to be Holy in Christ

It has been my continual prayer that God might use what is written to increase in His children the conviction that we must be holy, the knowledge of how we are to be holy, the joy that we may be holy, the faith that we can be holy. And may He stir us all to cry day and night to Him for a visitation of the Spirit and the Power of Holiness upon all His people, that the name of Christian and of saint may be synonymous, and every believer be a vessel made holy and meet for the Master’s use. — from the preface to “Holy in Christ” by Andrew Murray.

Prayer is blessing

The chief and most blessed part of my work is to ask and receive from my Father what I can bring to others.

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 these promises and to pray “effective prayer that availeth much”  Lord teach us to pray.

from The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer by Andrew Murray.

 

Prayer in the Triune God

Would you apply this in the life of holiness, let faith in the Holy Trinity be a living practical reality. In every prayer to the Father to sanctify you, take up your position in Christ, and do it in the power of the Spirit within you. In every exercise of faith in Christ as your Sanctification, let your posture be that of prayer to the Father and trust in Him as He delights to honour the Son, and of quiet expectancy of the Spirit’s working, through whom the Father glorifies the Son. In every surrender of the soul to the sanctification of the Spirit, to His leading as the Spirit of Holiness, look to the Father who grants His mighty working, and who sanctifies through faith in the Son, and expect the Spirit’s power to manifest itself in showing the will of God, and Jesus as your Sanctification. If for a time this appears at variance with the simplicity of childlike faith and prayer, be assured that as God has thus revealed Himself, He will teach you so to worship and believe. And so the Holy, holy, holy will become the deep undertone of all our worship and all our life.

From Holy in Christ by Andrew Murray

Notice the words referring to God:

  • Father, God, Him,
  • Christ, Jesus, Son,
  • Spirit, Spirit of Holiness.

Then notice the phrase: Holy Holy, Holy.   This section refers to prayer in coordination with the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Sinners Can Pray

Can a sinner pray?  Consider the what should be the number one apostle “Peter”, who many times was singled out special by the Lord Jesus.  Matt 16 — “Peter, …upon this rock”,  Matt 17 – saw the Lord transfigured with a few other apostles.

But here in Luke 5, Peter realized he was a sinner.  Luke 5:8 When Simon Peter saw [it,] he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”

Consider this section from Holy in Christ by Andrew Murray.

O my God! with a love and a joy and a thanksgiving that cannot be uttered, I praise Thee for Christ, who has been made unto us of Thee sanctification and redemption. In Him Thou art my Redeemed, my Holy One. In Him I am Thy redeemed, Thy holy one. O God! in speechless adoration I fall down to worship the love that passeth knowledge, that hath done this for us, and to believe that in one who is now before Thee, holy in Christ, Thou wilt fulfil all Thy glorious purposes according to the greatness of Thy power. Amen.

1. ‘Redemption through His blood.’ The blood we meet at the threshold of the pathway of Holiness. For it is the blood of the sacrifice which the fire of God consumed, and yet could not consume. That blood has such power of holiness in it, that we read, ‘Sanctified by His own blood.’ Always think of holiness, or pray for it, as one redeemed by blood. Live under the covering of the blood in its daily cleansing power.


 

Prayer for Holiness

O Lord! the alone Holy One, Thou hast called us to be holy, even as Thou art holy. Lord! how can we, unless Thou reveal to us Thy Holiness. Show us, we pray Thee, how Thou art holy, how holy Thou art, what Thy holiness is, that we may know how we are to be holy, how holy we are to be. And when the sight of Thy Holiness only shows us the more how unholy we are, teach us that Thou makest partakers of Thy own Holiness those who come to Thee for it.

O God!  We come to Thee, the Holy One. It is in knowing and finding and having Thyself, that the soul finds Holiness. We do beseech Thee, as we now come to Thee, establish it in the thoughts of our heart, that the one object of Thy calling us, and of our coming to Thee, is Holiness. Thou wouldst have us like Thyself, partakers of Thy Holiness. If ever our heart becomes afraid, as if it were too high, or rests content with a salvation less than Holiness, Blessed God! let us hear Thy voice calling again, Be holy, I am holy. Let that call be our motive and our strength, because faithful is He that calleth, who also will do it. Let that call mark our standard and our path; oh! let our life be such as Thou art able to make it.

Holy Father! I bow in lowly worship and silence before Thee. Let now Thine own voice sound in the depths of my heart calling me, Be holy, as I am holy. Amen.

From Holy in Christ by Andrew Murray

Pray this Prayer…

No wonder that Paul, in the chapter in which he has spoken to the Ephesians of their being ‘chosen to be holy,’ prays for the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God to be given to believers, that they might know ‘the hope of their calling’ (i. 17, 18). Let all of us, who feel that we have too little realized that we are called to Holiness, pray this prayer. It is just what we need. Let us ask God to show us how, as He who hath called us is Himself holy, so we are to be holy too; our calling is a holy calling a calling before and above everything, to Holiness. Let us ask Him to show us what Holiness is, His Holiness first, and then our Holiness; to show us how He has set His heart upon it as the one thing He wants to see in us, as being His own image and likeness; to show us too the unutterable blessedness and glory of sharing with Christ in His Holiness. Oh! that God by His Spirit would teach us what it means that we are called to be holy as He is holy. We can easily conceive what a mighty influence it would exert.

From Holy in Christ by Andrew Murray

O my God, Prayer

O my God! Thou hast redeemed me for Thyself, that Thou mightest have me wholly as Thine own, possessing, filling my inmost being with Thy own likeness, Thy perfect will, and the glory of Thy Holiness. And Thou seekest to train me, in the power of a free and loving will, to take Thy will and make it my own, that in the very centre of my being I may have Thine own perfection dwelling in me. And in Thy words Thou revealest Thy will, that as I accept and keep them I may master their Divine contents, and will all that Thou willest.

O my God! let me live day by day in such fellowship with Thee, that I may indeed in everything hear Thy voice, the living voice of the living God speaking to me. Let the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Thy Holiness, be to me Thy voice guiding me in the path of simple, childlike obedience. I do bless Thee that I have seen that Christ, in whom I am holy, was the obedient one, that in obedience He sanctified Himself to become my sanctification, and that abiding in Him, Thy obedient, holy Child, is abiding in Thy will as once done by Him, and now to be done by me. O my God! I will indeed obey Thy will: make Thou me one of Thy holy nation, a peculiar treasure above all people. Amen.

from Holy in Christ by Andrew Murray