Meeting the Author within the Pages of His Word

It is only as God draws close and touches the soul that living faith will be activated. Faith is not an independent act by which we take what God says in our own strength. Nor is it an entirely passive state in which we believe that God will do with us what he will. Rather, it is the receptive soul that causes us to yield ourselves and accept his word and his working in and through us. It is very evident that faith has two things to deal with: the presence and the word of the Lord. Only the living presence makes the word come alive in power. There is much reading and preaching of the word that bears little fruit, so much straining and praying for faith with little result. Men deal with the word more than with the living God. Faith is the spiritual vehicle of the soul through which he waits on the living God, listens to him, takes his words from himself, and has communion with him. As this habit of soul is cultivated as the whole life we live by faith the spirit can enter freely and flow fully. If you long to the power of the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus as the ever-present savior from sin, all you need to do is believe. Begin each day with a quiet act of meditation and faith. In quiet reflection, turn inward, not to see the work the Holy Spirit does, but to yield your spirit to him who dwells there in secret.

—Andrew Murray