Abide In Christ Order Printed Copy

Author: Andrew Murray
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About the Book

"Abide in Christ" by Andrew Murray is a Christian devotional book that emphasizes the importance of remaining connected to Christ in order to experience spiritual growth, rest, and power. Murray examines the biblical concept of abiding in Jesus as a key component of a fulfilling and fruitful Christian life. The book offers practical advice and insights on how believers can abide in Christ through prayer, faith, and obedience to His teachings.

John Newton

“Amazing Grace” is one of the most beloved hymns of the last two centuries. The soaring spiritual describing profound religious elation is estimated to be performed 10 million times annually and has appeared on over 11,000 albums. It was referenced in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin and had a surge of popularity during two of nation’s greatest crises: the Civil War and the Vietnam War. Between 1970 and 1972, Judy Collins’ recording spent 67 weeks on the chart and peaked at number 5. Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Elvis are among the many artists to record the song. Recently, President Obama burst into the familiar tune during the memorial service for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, a victim of a heinous church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. The song was written by a former enslaver Ironically, this stirring song, closely associated with the African American community, was written by a former enslaver, John Newton. This unlikely authorship forms the basis of Amazing Grace, a Broadway musical (written by Broadway first-timer Christopher Smith, a former Philadelphia policeman, and playwright Arthur Giron) which tells Newton’s life story from his early days as a licentious libertine in the British navy to his religious conversion and taking up the abolitionist cause. But the real story behind the somewhat sentimental musical told in Newton’s autobiography reveals a more complex and ambiguous history. Newton was born in 1725 in London to a Puritan mother who died two weeks before his seventh birthday, and a stern sea-captain father who took him to sea at age 11. After many voyages and a reckless youth of drinking, Newton was impressed into the British navy. After attempting to desert, he received eight dozen lashes and was reduced to the rank of common seaman. While later serving on the Pegasus, an enslaved person ship, Newton did not get along with the crew who left him in West Africa with Amos Clowe, an enslaver. Clowe gave Newton to his wife Princess Peye, an African royal who treated him vilely as she did her other enslaved people. On stage, Newton’s African adventures and enslavement are a bit more flashy with the ship going down, a thrilling underwater rescue of Newton by his loyal retainer Thomas, and an implied love affair between Newton and the Princess. Newton converted to Christianity after a miracle at sea The stage version has John’s father leading a rescue party to save his son from the calculating Princess, but in actuality, the enterprise was undertaken by a sea captain asked by the senior Newton to look for the missing John. (In the show, the elder Newton is wounded during the battle for his son’s freedom and later has a tearful deathbed scene with John on board ship.) During the voyage home, the ship was caught in a horrendous storm off the coast of Ireland and almost sank. Newton prayed to God and the cargo miraculously shifted to fill a hole in the ship’s hull and the vessel drifted to safety. Newton took this as a sign from the Almighty and marked it as his conversion to Christianity. He did not radically change his ways at once, his total reformation was more gradual. "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterward,” he later wrote. He did begin reading the Bible at this point and began to view his captives with a more sympathetic view. In the musical, John abjures slavery immediately after his shipboard epiphany and sails to Barbados to search for and buy the freedom of Thomas. After returning to England, Newton and his sweetheart Mary Catlett dramatically confront the Prince of Wales and urge him to abolish the cruel practice. In real life, Newton continued to sell his fellow human beings, making three voyages as the captain of two different vessels, The Duke of Argyle and the African. He suffered a stroke in 1754 and retired, but continued to invest in the business. In 1764, he was ordained as an Anglican priest and wrote 280 hymns to accompany his services. He wrote the words for “Amazing Grace” in 1772 (In 1835, William Walker put the words to the popular tune “New Britain”) It was not until 1788, 34 years after leaving it that he renounced his former slaving profession by publishing a blazing pamphlet called “Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade.” The tract described the horrific conditions on the ships and Newton apologized for making a public statement so many years after participating in the trade: “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.” The pamphlet was so popular it was reprinted several times and sent to every member of Parliament. Under the leadership of MP William Wilberforce, the English civil government outlawed slavery in Great Britain in 1807 and Newton lived to see it, dying in December of that year. The passage of the Slave Trade Act is depicted in the 2006 film, also called Amazing Grace, starring Albert Finney as Newton and Ioan Gruffud as Wilberforce.

Will You Praise Him While You Wait

I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. (Psalm 13:5) If faith is the beating heart of a Christian’s spiritual anatomy, then praise is the healthy pulse. When faith looks back upon God’s wondrous deeds of redemption, we cannot help but praise. We praise him for parting the Red Sea with a word. We praise him for felling giants with a shepherd’s sling. We praise him for sending his Son to suffer and die. We praise him for raising Christ from the grave. “If faith is the beating heart of a Christian’s spiritual anatomy, then praise is the healthy pulse.” Yet faith goes further still. Not content to praise God only on the far side of deliverance, faith teaches us to praise him before deliverance even comes: not only after he’s parted the Red Sea, but while the Egyptian army still presses in; not only after Goliath lies slain, but as he still taunts the hosts of Israel; not only after the stone rolls away from the tomb, but during the Sabbath silence of Holy Saturday. As David shows us in Psalm 13, such praise does not arise effortlessly. Often, it comes on the other side of agonizing prayer. How Long, O Lord? Without introduction or preamble, Psalm 13 opens in anguish: “How long, O Lord?” The question is a familiar one for most, even if our straits have not been quite so dire as David’s. Pressure builds. Prayer apparently goes unheard. All the while, God’s promises rest unfulfilled. No matter where David looks, comfort eludes him. Above, a wall of clouds hides God’s face (Psalm 13:1). Within, cares and sorrows swirl (Psalm 13:2). Around, enemies threaten the tottering king (Psalm 13:2). Four times in two verses, David repeats his question: “How long? . . . How long? . . . How long? . . . How long?” Yet even here, faith has not forsaken him. For all the misery wrapped up in David’s question, he knows that God’s intervention is a matter not of if, but of when — not of “Will you?” but of “How long?” His is no cry of despair thrown up into a godless sky, but rather the song of distressed trust. ‘Consider and Answer Me’ With each breath in the psalm, faith grows firmer. By verse 3, God is not only “O Lord,” but “O Lord my God.” At the same time, lament gives way to petition: “Consider and answer me . . . light up my eyes” (Psalm 13:3). Genuine faith may often speak the language of lament and complaint, but eventually it takes up the language of specific request. David follows his prayers to be seen, answered, and revived with three reasons: “Lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, ‘I have prevailed over him,’ lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken” (Psalm 13:3–4). These reasons may seem, at first, simply like the logic of desperation: “Answer me or I will die!” But more is going on here than that. “When we merely give vent to the chaos within us, our prayers often leave us right where we started.” David, desperate as he may be, is appealing to God on the basis of his own promises. Early in David’s public life, God pledged that the shepherd boy would sit on the throne of Israel. Then he sealed that pledge with covenant promises: “I will make for you a great name. . . . I will give you rest from all your enemies. . . . When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you” (2 Samuel 7:9, 11–12). In Psalm 13, those promises seem to be in jeopardy. So David sends them back to God, wrapped in prayer. When we merely give vent to the chaos within us, our prayers often leave us right where we started. But when we pray in the slipstream of God’s promises, we often find, with David, faith slowly rising. ‘I Will Sing to the Lord’ Many Christians are familiar with the famous “But God” statements of the New Testament (Ephesians 2:4, for example). Yet we can look not only at our sin and say, “But God”; we can look also at our despair and say, “But I”: But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me. (Psalm 13:5–6) No circumstance has changed; no prayer has been answered; no deliverance has arrived. Yet in a moment, enemies grow small, sorrow and care loosen their grip, and lament gives way to praise. Why? Because David’s prayerful meditation on God’s promises has reminded him of something more powerful than his enemies, more certain than his sorrow: “your steadfast love.” Another psalm of David shows us why steadfast love had such an effect on the fainting king. From the perspective of time, the steadfast love of the Lord is “from everlasting to everlasting”; from the perspective of space, it is “as high as the heavens are above the earth”; from the perspective of God’s character, it flows from him with abundance (Psalm 103:8, 11, 17). Such steadfast love is the pledge of all God’s promises. No wonder David sings. Today, we have even greater assurances of God’s steadfast love: a bloody cross, an empty tomb, and a Savior who sits on the throne. And if this steadfast love is ours, then we too can sing with abandon, far before deliverance comes. For if Christ has come, and if we are in him by faith alone, then God will not fail to deal bountifully with us. Article by Scott Hubbard