‘Jesus Himself’
By Andrew Murray
Jesus came to the two disciples and, after He had reproved them, said: “Oh! Fools, and slow of heart to believe,” He began to open the Scriptures to them and to tell them of all the beautiful things the prophets had taught. Then, their eyes opened, and they started understanding the Scriptures. They saw that it was confirmed that it was prophesied that Christ must rise. As He talked, there came out from Him—the living risen One—a mighty influence that rested upon them. They began to feel their hearts burn within them with joy and gladness.
You still say perhaps: “That is the stage we want to come to.” No, God forbid you should stop there. You may get in that third stage—the burning heart—and yet something is still wanting—the revelation of Christ. The disciples had had a blessed experience of His divine powers, but He had not revealed Himself, and oh! How often do our hearts burn within us at conventions, churches, meetings, and blessed fellowship with God’s saints? These are precious experiences of the working of God’s grace and Spirit, yet something is wanting. What is that? Jesus Himself has been working upon us, and the power of his risen life has touched us, but we cannot say, “I have met Him. He has made Himself known to me.” Oh, the difference between a burning heart, which becomes cold after a time, which comes in fits and starts, and the blessed revelation of Jesus Himself as my Saviour, taking charge of me, blessing me, and keeping me every day! This is the stage of…
The satisfied heart.
Oh, my brother, my sister! It is what I ask for you and what I am sure you ask for yourself. I ask it for myself. Lord Jesus! may we know Thee in thy divine glory as the risen One, our Jesus, our Beloved, and our mighty One. Oh! If any sad ones cannot take this in and say, “I have never known the joy of religion yet”,—listen, we are going to tell you how you can. All will centre around this one thing: just as a little child lives day by day in the arms of its mother and grows up year by year under a mother’s eye, it is a possibility that you can live every day and hour of your life in fellowship with the Holy Jesus.
Genre: Philosophy | Religion
Read or download Book
Andrew Murray
Andrew Murray (9 May 1828 – 18 January 1917) was a South African writer, teacher and Christian pastor. Murray considered missions to be “the chief end of the church”.
Early life and education
Andrew Murray was the second child of Andrew Murray Sr. (1794–1866), a Dutch Reformed Church missionary sent from Scotland to South Africa. He was born in Graaff Reinet, South Africa. His mother, Maria Susanna Stegmann, was of French Huguenot and German Lutheran descent.
Murray was sent to the University of Aberdeen in Scotland for his initial education with his elder brother, John. Both remained there until they obtained their master’s degrees in 1845. During this time, Scottish revival meetings and the ministry of Robert Murray McCheyne, Horatius Bonar, and William Burns influenced them. They both went to the University of Utrecht, where they studied theology. The two brothers became members of Het Réveil, a religious revival movement opposed to rationalism that was in vogue in the Netherlands then. Both brothers were ordained by the Hague Committee of the Dutch Reformed Church on 9 May 1848 and returned to the Cape.
Murray married Emma Rutherford in Cape Town, South Africa, on 2 July 1856. They had eight children together (four boys and four girls).
Residence in Utrecht
In 1846, they lived in the Minrebroederstraat (number unknown). From 1847 to 1848, they lived at the Zadelstraat 39.
Religious work in South Africa
Murray pastored churches in Bloemfontein, Worcester, Cape Town, and Wellington, all in South Africa. He was a champion of the South African Revival of 1860. In 1889, he was among the founders of the South African General Mission (SAGM), along with Martha Osborn and Spencer Walton. After Martha Osborn married George Howe, they formed the South East Africa General Mission (SEAGM) in 1891. SAGM and SEAGM merged in 1894. Because its ministry had spread into other African countries, the mission’s name was changed to Africa Evangelical Fellowship (AEF) in 1965. AEF joined with Serving In Mission (SIM) in 1998 and continues to this day. Through his writings, Murray was also a key “Inner Life” or “Higher Life” or Keswick leader, and his theology of faith healing and belief in the continuation of the apostolic gifts made him a significant forerunner of the Pentecostal movement. In 1894, Murray was visited by John McNeill and Rev. J Gelson Gregson, the ex-British Army Chaplain and Keswick convention speaker.
Death
Murray died on 18 January 1917, four months before his 89th birthday. He was so influenced by Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s Möttlingen revival that he included a portion of Friedrich Zündel’s biography at the end of With Christ in the School of Prayer.
Andrew Murray
