"He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." - John 14:21.
The Three Persons in the Godhead are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
God desires to reveal Himself as a Person. Each one of us is an individual, and we each come to know God in a distinct, personal way. We each have different life experiences and relate to God based upon who He has revealed Himself to be to us. God will reveal Himself to us as a Person, and delights in being discovered and found by us. It is our holy calling to enter into fellowship with Him.
God greatly desires this relationship with man. But sin has come between man and his God. Even in the Christian, who thinks that he knows God, there is often great ignorance, and even indifference, to this personal relationship of love towards God.
People believe that at conversion their sins are forgiven, that God accepts them so that they may go to heaven, and that they should try to do God's will. But the idea is strange to them, that even as a father and his child on earth have pleasure in fellowship, so they may and must daily have this blessed fellowship with God.
God gave Christ His Son to bring us to Himself. But this is only possible when we live in close fellowship with Jesus Christ. Our relationship to Christ rests on His deep, tender love towards us. We are not able of ourselves to render Him this love. But the Holy Spirit will do the work in us. For this, we need to separate ourselves each day from the world, and turn in faith to the Lord Jesus, that He may shed abroad His love in our hearts, so that we may be filled with a great love towards Him.
Dear soul, meditate quietly on this thought. Read the words of Christ in John 14:21, "...he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." Take time to believe in this personal fellowship. Tell Him of your love.
Say to Him: "Lord, Thou hast loved me dearly; most earnestly do I desire to love Thee above all."
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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.