BOOK REVIEW: Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray

Rebekah's book review

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This is a must-read for every Christian.  Andrew Murray’s classic book is written to the believer who finds it difficult to live a holy Christian life.  Murray had a great burden to bring along new Christians and help them to grow spiritually.  So he walks the reader through that great passage of John 15, the Vine and the Branches.  There are 31 chapters so it can be read in one month at a chapter per day.  I read it in connection with my daily devotions.  Often I wanted to go further!   The Apostle John’s concept of abiding in Christ has always been a challenge and joy to me.  I loved following Murray’s train of thought and by the end of the book my prayers were full of confession and renewed desire to die to self and live unto Christ!  

Murray reminds the believer that salvation from God is not only effective for our eternal destiny, but for this present life.  God saves us from hell, but He also saves us from this wicked generation.  The same faith that has saved you will also enable you to forsake sin and lead a holy life. 

Here are some quotes that stood out to me from the book.  How often do we in America give such excuses for living our lives for Jesus?

Look not upon a life of holiness as a strain and an effort, but as the natural outgrowth of the life of Christ within you. And let ever again a quiet, hopeful, gladsome faith hold itself assured that all you need for a holy life will most assuredly be given you out of the holiness of Jesus. Thus will you understand and prove what it is to abide in Christ our sanctification (pp. 38-39).

Christians are so accustomed to look upon sinning daily as something absolutely inevitable, that they regard it as a matter of course that no one can keep up abiding fellowship with the Savior: we must sometimes be unfaithful and fail. As if it was not just because we have a nature which is naught but a very fountain of sin, that the abiding in Christ has been ordained for us as our only but our sufficient deliverance! As if it were not the Heavenly Vine, the living, loving Christ, in whom we have to abide, and whose almighty power to hold us fast is to be the measure of our expectations! As if He would give us the command, “Abide in me,” without securing the grace and the power to enable us to perform it!  (pp. 53-54).

As a child, who easily makes himself master of a book, when each day only the lesson for the day is given him, would be utterly hopeless if the whole book were given him at once; so it would be with man, if there were no divisions in time. Broken small and divided into fragments, he can bear them; only the care and the work of each day have to be undertaken–the day’s portion in its day. The rest of the night fits him for making a fresh start with each new morning; the mistakes of the past can be avoided, its lessons improved. And he has only each day to be faithful for the one short day, and long years and a long life take care of themselves, without the sense of their length or their weight ever being a burden (p. 56).

Oh, that’s good!

p.s.  It’s nice to have a hard copy of the book, but it is also a free Kindle book.  So no excuses to read it!

(This is an example of Rebekah’s book reviews. Subscribers will receive access to all her book reviews!)