“If we love our Christian brothers and sisters it proves that we have passed from death to eternal life.” 1 John 3:14

When the truth of God touches our hearts, we know we cannot overcome the hardness of heart and pride just by the force of our own reason.  It is only through death to ourselves that we can pass into life.  There is no real conversion from the life of sin until we realize that our whole nature must be parted with, but we discover that in ourselves we cannot do it.

Through this despair we lose all our life to find a new one in God.  Here faith, hope and true seeking for God are born.  But  up to this point, faith and hope and turning to God in prayer have been practiced only by obligation and method.  They are not living qualities of a new birth until we have stopped feeling any confidence in ourselves.

We must feel within the reach of divine love.  We must feel that God created us to be a habitation of His own life and Holy Spirit.  In dealing with us, LOVE is God’s bait.  It will put its hook into the heart and make us realize that nothing is so strong, so irresistible, as divine love.

By Andrew Murray

From: ‘Teach Me to Pray’
Used by permission.
published by Barbour Publishing, Inc.

FURTHER READING

Sacred Romance

You are the Beloved

Falling in Love with Jesus

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The post The Despair of Self appeared first on Thoughts About God.