Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray is one of the greatest Christian classics available to readers today. While it is true that no book by a human author can compare to the Bible, it is also true that God still can and does inspire the pens of His godly servants. As you read Abide in Christ, you will realize that this is one of those rare books where every page seems to give evidence of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and guidance. The message it contains is one that no believer will ever outgrow, and is one of the few books that I believe should be in every Christian’s library. This deeply challenging book addresses a subject close to the heart of everyone longing for spiritual growth- the need to abide in Christ through unbroken communion.
Abide in Christ has thirty-one chapters, allowing the reader to study and absorb one chapter each day during the course of a month. The author uses Jesus’ own example from John 15 of Christ as a vine and believers as the branches to make thirty-one specific applications of this truth, each with an accompanying Scripture text. In the first chapter, Andrew Murray explains his purpose in writing the book: There is especially the question, with its various aspects, as to the possibility, in the midst of wearying work and continual distraction, of keeping up, or rather being kept in, the abiding communion. I do not undertake to remove all difficulties; this Jesus Christ Himself alone must do by His Holy Spirit. But what I would…by the grace of God be permitted to do is, to repeat day by day the Master’s blessed command, “Abide in me,” until it enters the heart and finds a place there, no more to be forgotten or neglected… So we shall gaze on its blessedness, until desire be inflamed, and the will with all its energies be roused to claim and possess the unspeakable blessing.
In the chapter “Abide in Christ: And You Shall Find Rest to Your Souls” he writes: But, alas! I hear someone say, it is just this abiding in Jesus…that is so difficult, and the very effort to attain this often disturbs the rest… What a mistake to speak thus! Is it a labor to a little child to rest in its mother’s arms? Do not the arms of the mother sustain and keep the little one? And so it is with Jesus… Oh, it is because the blessing is so great that our little hearts cannot rise to apprehend it; it is as if we cannot believe that Christ, the Almighty One, will in very deed teach and keep us all the day. And yet this is just what He has promised....
In speaking to those who have been frustrated by their own human efforts to abide in Christ, Mr. Murray writes: Could they but understand how just their own efforts are the cause of their failure, because it is God alone who can establish us in Christ Jesus… Their first need is to cease from striving themselves to establish the connection with Christ more firmly, and to allow God to do it… What they need is the simple faith that the stablishing in Christ, day by day, is God’s work- a work that He delights to do…if we will but trust Him for it… Faith is confessed helplessness casting itself upon God’s promise, and claiming its fulfillment; faith is the putting ourselves quietly into God’s hands for Him to do His work.
In a faith-filled chapter titled “Abide in Christ: Every Moment” we find a response to the mistaken idea that Christ cannot keep His followers from sin. This day’s text is taken from Isaiah 27:3, where God says of a branch in His vine, “I the LORD do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.” 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 He would give us the command “Abide in me,” without securing the grace and power to enable us to perform it! As if, above all, we had not the Father as the Husbandman to keep us from falling!
Speaking of the need to die to self in order to abide in Christ, the author states, Come away out of self and its life, abide in Christ and the Christ life, and Christ will be your life… Try and realize that though self is not dead, you are indeed dead to self… Your death in Christ has freed you completely from the control of self…except as you, in ignorance… or unbelief, consent to yield to its usurped authority. Come and accept by faith…the glorious position you have in Christ. “And now, little children, abide in him, that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.”
Other inspiring chapters speak of abiding in Christ and in His love, abiding that our joy may be full, abiding in stillness of soul, and abiding in trial and affliction. I believe that every chapter and even every page of this book will inspire you with some blessed truth that you can apply to your walk with God and your desire to grow in Him. I strongly urge every believer to read this book and pray that God will use it to open a beautiful new depth of communion with Him as you Abide in Christ.
