The One Thing

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” — Romans 12:1 (KJV)

Andrew Murray was born in 1828 in a small town in South Africa called Graaff-Reinet. His father was a minister who prayed week after week for God to pour out his Spirit on their country. At ten, Andrew was sent to school in Scotland. He later studied in the Netherlands, and he was ordained as a minister on his twentieth birthday.

His first church covered an area so huge that he rode for weeks at a time to reach lonely farms. Later he saw a revival break out in the town of Worcester, the answer to his father’s prayers. He lost his voice for two years, was injured in a carriage accident, and kept going. By the time he died in 1917 he had written more than 240 books, mostly about prayer and walking closely with Jesus.

This book is based on talks he gave about one idea. He tells how he got it. Once, in Scotland, he was with a group of Christians discussing what the church needed most. He asked an experienced man who trained Christian workers what message most needed preaching. The man answered “very quietly and simply and determinedly”:

“Absolute surrender to God is the one thing.”

Murray said the words struck him as never before. The man explained that the people he trained who had settled that one question always grew, even if they were slow, while others who hadn’t often went backwards and gave up.

Murray found the picture for it in an odd place: an Old Testament story about a king named Ahab. An enemy king surrounded his city and demanded everything Ahab had. Ahab answered: “My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have.” Murray says those are exactly the words every child of God should say to their Father.

There is a big difference, of course. Ahab was surrendering to a cruel enemy. We are surrendering to a loving Father who wants only our good. And surrender here means giving yourself to God alone, never to a person who tries to control you. But the words are the same: I am yours, and all that I have.

It sounds huge, maybe even scary. In the next chapters Murray explains why God asks for it, and, more importantly, how God helps you actually do it.

One thing to do this week: write out Ahab’s sentence in your own words as a prayer to God: “Lord, I am yours, and everything I have.” Pray it each morning this week, even if you are not sure you fully mean it yet.