Believer's Daily Renewal , livre ebook

Books by Andrew Murray
Abiding in Christ
Absolute Surrender
Believing Prayer
The Blood of Christ
Divine Healing
The Fullness of the Spirit
Humility
A Life of Obedience
Living a Prayerful Life
The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer
The Path to Holiness
Teach Me to Pray
The Believer’s Daily Renewal
Andrew Murray
© 1981, 2004 by Bethany House Publishers
The 2004 edition has been edited and updated for today’s reader by Nancy Renich.
Originally published in 1905 under the title The Inner Chamber and the Inner Life
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Ebook edition created 2012
Bethany House Publishers is a Division of
Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopying, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Cover design by Eric Walljasper
eISBN 978-1-4412-6177-9
ANDREW MURRAY was born in South Africa in 1828. After receiving his education in Scotland and Holland, he returned to South Africa and spent many years there as a missionary pastor. He was a staunch advocate of biblical Christianity and is best known for his many devotional books. He and his wife, Emma, raised eight children.
Preface
Daily Renewal suggests an exercise of utmost importance. The daily need for solitude and quiet, a true spirit of prayer, devotional reading of God’s Word, fellowship with God for which these are intended and by which alone they bring blessing, the spiritual life they are meant to strengthen and equip for daily interaction with the world, the service for the kingdom of God in soul winning and intercession all of these truths have a part in making our devotions a source of joy and strength. In this book I have not attempted to cover them systematically, but I hope that the brief sketches I have given may offer some help to readers as they cultivate the hidden life of communion with God.
In my country there are various diseases that affect our orange trees. One of them is popularly known as “the root disease.” While a tree is still bearing fruit, an ordinary observer may not notice anything wrong, but an expert can detect the beginnings of a slow death.
Phylloxera in the vineyards is nothing but a root disease, and there is no radical cure but to take out the old roots and provide new ones. The original variety of grape is grafted onto an American root, and in the course of time you have the same stem and branches and fruit as before but the roots are new and able to resist the disease. It is in the part of the plant that is hidden from view that the disease develops and where radical measures must be sought.
The church of Christ and the spiritual life of thousands of its members suffer from a root disease. It is the neglect of secret communion with God. The lack of private prayer, the neglect of the maintenance of the hidden life that is rooted in Christ, that is rooted and grounded in love, explains the inability of Christians to resist the temptations of this world and to bring forth abundant fruit. Nothing can change this but the restoration of the place of prayer in the life of the believer. As Christians learn not to trust their own efforts but to daily strike their roots deeper into Christ and to make secret personal fellowship with God their goal, true godliness will flourish. “If the root is holy, so are the branches” (Romans 11:16). If the morning hour is holy to the Lord, the day with its responsibilities will be so too.
I pray that God may bless this book to His children as they pursue the deeper and more fruitful life, the life hidden with Christ in God.
Andrew Murray
Contents
Cover
Books by Andrew Murray
Title Page
Copyright
About the Author
Preface
1. The Morning Hour
2. Alone With God
3. The Open Reward
4. Moses and the Word of God
5. Moses the Man of Prayer
6. Moses the Man of God
7. The Power of God’s Word
8. The Seed Is the Word
9. Obedience and Knowledge
10. The Blessedness of the Doer
11. Keeping Christ’s Commandments
12. Life and Knowledge
13. The Heart and the Understanding
14. God’s Thoughts and Our Thoughts
15. Meditation
16. Revealed Unto Children
17. Learning of Christ
18. Teachableness
19. The Life and the Light
20. The Bible Student
21. Who Are You?
22. The Will of God
23. Feeding on the Word
24. Leisure Hours
25. The Inward and the Outward
26. The Power of Daily Renewal
27. The Pattern for Daily Renewal
28. The Cost of Daily Renewal
29. The Primary Aim of Bible Study Is Holiness
30. The Teaching of Psalm 119
31. The Holy Trinity
32. In Christ
33. Christ Alone
34. Soul-Winning
35. The Power of Intercession
36. The Intercessor
Back Cover
Chapter 1
The Morning Hour

In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.
Psalm 5:3

The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.
Isaiah 50:4
From the earliest ages God’s servants have thought of the morning as the time especially suited for the worship of God. It is still regarded by most Christians both as a duty and a privilege to devote some portion of the beginning of the day to seeking seclusion and fellowship with God. Many Christians observe the “Morning Watch”; some speak of it as their “Personal Devotions”; others call it the “Quiet Time.” All these, whether they mean a whole hour, half an hour, or a quarter of an hour, unite with the psalmist in saying, “In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice.”
In speaking of the extreme importance of this daily time of quiet prayer and meditation on God’s Word, someone has said: “Next to receiving Christ as Savior and claiming the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we know of no act attended with larger good to ourselves or others than the formation of an indisputable resolution to keep the watch and spend the first half hour of the day alone with God.” At first glance, the statement may appear too strong. The act of receiving Christ as our Savior is one of such infinite consequence for eternity, and the step of claiming the Holy Spirit is one that is so revolutionary in the Christian life, that such a simple thing as the determination to keep the morning watch hardly appears important enough to be placed alongside them.
If, however, we remember how impossible it is to daily live our life in Christ as our Savior from sin or to maintain a walk in the leading and power of the Holy Spirit without daily, close fellowship with God, we will see the truth of the statement. It simply reflects the determination that Christ shall have our whole life and that the Holy Spirit shall in everything be fully obeyed. The morning watch is the key to maintaining our surrender to Christ and to the Holy Spirit.
Let us look first at what should be the object of the morning watch. This time must not be regarded as an end in itself. The fact that it can be a blessed time for prayer and Bible study, providing a certain measure of refreshment and help, is not enough. It is rather a means to an end. And that end is to secure and maintain the presence of Christ for the whole day .
Personal devotion to a friend or a pursuit means that friend or pursuit will always hold a place in our heart, even when other engagements occupy our attention. Personal devotion to Jesus means that we allow nothing to separate us from Him for a moment. To abide in Him and His love, to be kept by Him and His grace, to be doing His will and pleasing Him, cannot possibly be an intermittent thing to one who is truly devoted to Him. “I Need Thee Every Hour” and “Moment by Moment I Am Kept in His Love” are hymns that speak the language of life and truth. “In your name shall they rejoice all the day” and “I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment” are words of divine power. The believer cannot stand for one moment without Christ. Personal devotion to Him refuses to be content with anything less than to abide always in His love and His will; the true scriptural Christian life is nothing less. This is the importance and blessedness, the true goal of the morning watch.
The clearer our objective is the better we shall be able to use the means of attaining it. Consider the morning hour now as the means to this great end: I want to secure the presence of Christ all day, to do nothing that would interfere with it. I feel that my success for the day will depend upon the clarity and the strength of my faith that seeks and finds Him in my quiet time . Meditation and prayer and reading the Word will always be subject to this; the link for the day between Christ and us must be renewed and confirmed in the morning hour.
At first it may appear that thoughts of the day ahead with all its cares, pleasures, and temptations may disturb the rest I have enjoyed during my devotional time. It is possible, but it will not be a loss. The true practice of Christianity strives toward having the character of Christ so formed in us that in our most common activities His temper and disposition will be displayed. The spirit and the will of Christ are meant to so indwell us that our interaction with others, our leisure and our work, will only prove His presence with us. All this is because Christ himself, the living One, lives in us . Do not be disturbed if the goal appears too high to attain or occupi