And the wonderful, the blessed ‘whosoever’ of our text says that that love is for every creature. The lowest, the most degraded and rejected and utterly hopeless — the love is for him, the love longs for him and is able to triumph over him. Jesus Christ came into the world for the one sole purpose of revealing this love. He spoke of it, he lived for it, he died to bring it to us. It was his one aim, his one glory, the passion and strength of his life. It was his very life; it possessed him, and he knew no other joy. And as he prayed ‘that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them’, he meant his disciples just as much as himself, to have it in them, to live for it, to find their glory and blessedness in carrying it and making it known.
And now think of this life-giving Christ. God gave him that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life. The ‘whosoever’ and ‘believe’ are inseparably connected. ‘But how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard?’ Did Christ fail here, and after revealing the love and winning the life make no provision for the message being made known? Verily, no. He made provision. He arranged that every believer, every member of his body, should share with him the glory and blessedness of communicating the divine life and love. The self-propagating power, which is the mark of all life and all love, was to find its highest manifestation in his church. The life of each believer was to be a seed bringing forth fruit after its kind.
(Excerpted from The Coming Revival, by Andrew Murray , pg. 63)
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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.