The Inner Chamber

It is Andrew Murray's book on the life of private prayer — the 'inner chamber' being the secret place of Matthew 6:6, where the believer shuts the door and prays to the Father in secret. In short meditations Murray unfolds the worth, the power, and the practice of secret prayer, calling Christians to make the inner chamber the hidden strength of their lives.

It is the closet of private prayer — Jesus' own image in the Sermon on the Mount: 'enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.' Murray uses it for the hidden, personal meeting with God that he believed to be the root of all real spiritual life, as distinct from public or shared prayer.

A South African pastor and one of the most beloved devotional writers of the deeper Christian life, author of many short books on prayer, humility, and abiding in Christ. The Inner Chamber, published in 1905, gathers his mature counsel on the practice of secret prayer that lay at the centre of his own life and teaching.

Because he believed the hidden life with God in the inner chamber is the source of all public fruitfulness — that what a Christian is in secret before God is what they truly are. Neglect the inner chamber, he warns, and the whole spiritual life withers; keep it, and it becomes the wellspring of power, holiness, and communion.

Yes — Murray writes not only of the importance of secret prayer but of how to practise it: how to meet God, how to deal with distraction and coldness, how to use the word, and how to persevere. He is honest about the difficulties Christians meet in the closet and offers gentle, concrete counsel for a real life of prayer.

No — Murray writes for every believer, including those who struggle to pray or have neglected the inner chamber. His aim is to draw the ordinary Christian into the secret place and to help them stay there, so the book is as much for the discouraged and the beginner as for the practised person of prayer.

It is one of a family of them — alongside With Christ in the School of Prayer and The Ministry of Intercession — each pressing the priority of prayer from a different angle. The Inner Chamber focuses on the private, secret side: the personal meeting with God that underlies all the rest of the Christian's praying.

At the beginning, taking the short meditations one at a time and putting them into practice in one's own inner chamber. Murray meant the book to be used, not merely read — to send the reader back through the closet door — so it rewards slow, prayerful reading over several sittings.