Holiness in knowing Christ - 1887
Andrew Murray.
Introduction
Andrew Murray, Jr. was a Presbyterian who ministered in South Africa. He began his ministry at twenty, touring the Transvaal region to reach 12,000 Dutch who were without pastors. He soon realized he was lacking spiritual power and longed for something better. Someone encouraged him with the words, “If God puts a desire in your heart he will fulfill it.” Murray persevered and learned to live in God’s presence continually. He was strongly influenced by Pietism, the view that faith has to be alive, personal, and devotional. His own devotion led to a revival of religion in South Africa and to the founding of mission work among black Africans. Among the forty books he wrote was Holy in Christ. Today’s excerpt is from its preface, dated from Wellington, South Africa, on this day 16 November, 1887.
Quote
“There is not in Scripture a word more distinctly Divine in its origin and meaning than the word holy. There is not a word that leads us higher into the mystery of Deity, nor deeper into the privilege and the blessedness of God’s children. And yet it is a word that many a Christian has never studied or understood. …
“To many, holiness has simply been a general expression for the Christian life in its more earnest form, without much thought of what the term really means. …
“Let all learn to trust in Jesus, and rejoice in Him, even though their experience be not what they would wish. He will make us holy. But whether we have entered the blessed life of faith in Jesus as our sanctification, or are still longing for it from afar, we all need one thing, the simple, believing, and obedient acceptance of each word that our God has spoken. It has been my earnest desire that I might be a helper of the faith of my brethren in seeking to trace with them the wondrous revelation of God’s Holiness through the ages as recorded in His blessed Word. 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.”
Murray, Andrew. Holy in Christ: Thoughts on the Calling of God’s Children to be Holy as He is Holy. Chicago, New York, Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1887.