Andrew Murray - The Believers Secret of the Abiding Presence

The Believers Secret of the
Abiding Presence

Compiled from the writings of
Andrew Murray
Brother Lawrence

by Louis Gifford Parkhurst, Jr.

Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Ebook edition created 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-6212-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, the Scripture quotations in this book are from the Holy Bible: New International Version. Copyright 1978 by the New York International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

This book is dedicated to the staff and students of Bethany Fellowship and Bethany House
Publishers; especially to Gary and Carol Johnson, and Nathan Unseth, who labor with the Lord to
spread His Gospel around the world.

Andrew Murray

Andrew Murray was born in South Africa in 1828. After receiving his education in Scotland and Holland, he returned to that land and spent many years there as both pastor and missionary. He was a staunch advocate of biblical Christianity. He is best known for his many devotional books.

Brother Lawrence

Brother Lawrence was born in Lorraine, France, as Nicholas Herman. At middle age, he became a lay brother in the Order of the Carmelites. His thoughts on the presence of God were collected and published by Abbe Joseph De Beaufort. He was a monastery cook, who died in 1691, near the age of eighty. His approach to God was through Christ in love and faith.

L. G. Parkhurst, Jr.

L. G. Parkhurst, Jr., is the pastor of the First Christian Church of Rochester, Minnesota. He has compiled and edited several volumes of the writings of Charles G. Finney for Bethany House Publishers.

Preface

After Jesus sent the Holy Spirit into the hearts of His disciples on the day of Pentecost, we find no record of them ever regretting the absence of the physical presence of Jesus. They had nothing to regret, because He was present with them through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Wherever they were, whether together in Jerusalem or scattered about in various parts of the world on their missionary tours, Christ was present with each one of them personally and individually.

Jesus has promised us exactly what we find in the lives of His first disciples: His very presence empowering us to live the Christian life. Andrew Murray recognized the failure of the church as a whole to enter experientially into the abundance of the life that is in Christ, and to teach definitely the fullness of His power to redeem and to save. The Church must stand with a more triumphant gospel if the dead weight of dullness and unspirituality, of unbelief and heathen tradition is to be lifted from the Church. The tides would surely run more strongly if the church as a whole had a firmer and clearer faith in God, who, as revealed in the New Testament, is overflowingly alive. To remedy this problem, and to teach us how to know Jesus Christ personally and experientially, Murray wrote The Secret of the Abiding Presence .

About 200 years before Murray wrote his book, a poor monk in France, Brother Lawrence, discovered that our supreme purpose in life is to have a conscious, personal union with God in Christ through faith. Brother Lawrences life was so remarkable that following his death some of his conversations and letters were collected and published as The Practice of the Presence of God.

The Believers Secret of the Abiding Presence combines these two great classics from Andrew Murray and Brother Lawrence. The language of both has been modernized, but the style of Lawrences book is so antiquated that I have rewritten his conversations and letters as personalized principles that we can consciously and prayerfully apply. With Andrew Murrays inspiring devotionals, we are presenting Brother Lawrences ideas with a view to practical application. I have added a brief prayer of my own, which I hope will encourage you to pray your own prayer and practice the presence of Christ in your own life. Finally, I have used the text of the New International Version of the Bible.

I wish to give my sincere thanks to Nathan Unseth, Assistant Editor, of Bethany House Publishers for suggesting this project. His assistance and initial labor was vital, and I appreciate his encouragement in a project he had thought about for quite some time. To further pursue the ideas in this book, I recommend the devotional by Charles G. Finney, Principles of Union with Christ , also published by Bethany House Publishers.

For the sake of His Kingdom,

L. G. Parkhurst, Jr.

And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.

Matthew 28:20

The Lord chose His twelve disciples that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach (Mark 3:14). His earthly fellowship with them would prepare and fit them for the work of preaching.

The disciples were so deeply conscious of their great privilege in knowing Jesus that when He spoke of leaving them to go to the Father, their hearts were filled with great sorrow. The presence of Christ had become indispensable to them. They could not think of living without Him.

To comfort the disciples, Christ gave them the promise of the Holy Spirit, with the assurance that they would then have Him (Christ himself) in His heavenly presence in a sense far deeper and more intimate than they had ever known on earth. The law of their first vocation remained unchanged: being with Him, living in unbroken fellowship with Him, would give them the secret power by which they would preach and tell others about Him.

When Christ gave them the Great Commission to go into all the world and to preach the gospel to every creature, He added the words: And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age (Matt. 28:20).

For all time, this principle remains valid for all His servants. Without the experience of His presence always abiding with them, their preaching will have no power. The secret of their effectiveness will be the living demonstration that Jesus Christ is with them every moment, inspiring, directing, and strengthening them. The presence of Christ will enable His followers to boldly preach Him as the crucified One in the midst of His enemies.

The early disciples never for a moment regretted His bodily absence. They had Him with them, and in them, in the divine power of the Holy Spirit.

Through a living faith, the Christians success in his work depends upon his consciousness of the abiding presence of the Lord Jesus with him. An essential element in the preaching of the gospel is a living experience of the presence of Jesus in our lives. If our experience of His presence is clouded, then our work will become a human effort, without the freshness and the power of the heavenly life. Nothing can bring back the power and the blessing Jesus promised except a return to the feet of the Master; there He breathes into the heart, in divine power, His blessed word: And surely I will be with you always!