Adapted from Andrew Murray’s (1828-1917) book, A Deeper Christian Life, and appeared in a Decision Magazine article (November 2009).

The first and chief need of our Christian life is fellowship with God.

1. Begin each day by waiting before God and letting Him touch you. As I need every moment afresh the air to breathe, so it is only in direct, living communication with God that my soul can be strong. I must every day have fresh grace from Heaven, and I obtain it only in direct waiting upon God Himself.

2. To this end, let your first act in your devotion be a setting yourself still before God. In prayer or worship, everything depends upon God taking the chief place. I must bow quietly before Him in humble faith and adoration. Take time, till you know God is very near.

3. When you have given God His place of honor, glory and power, take your place of deepest lowliness and seek to be filled with the spirit of humility. As a sinner, you are not worthy to look up to God; bow in self-abasement. Sink down before Him in humility, meekness, patience and surrender to His goodness and mercy.

4. Then accept and value your place in Christ Jesus. God delights in His beloved Son and can be satisfied with nothing else in those who draw nigh to Him. Enter deep into God’s holy presence in the boldness that the blood gives and in the assurance that in Christ you are most well pleasing. This is the great object of fellowship with God; that I may have more of God in my life and that God may see Christ formed in me.

5. Christ is a living Person. He loves you with a personal love, and He looks every day for the personal response of your love. Look into His face with trust, till His love shines into your heart. Make His heart glad by telling Him that you love Him. He offers Himself to you as a personal Savior and Keeper from the power of sin.

6. Christ is to be formed in us so that His form or figure – His likeness – can be seen in us. Bow before God until you get some sense of the greatness and blessedness of the work to be carried on by God in you this day. Say to God, “Father, here I am for Thee to give as much in me of Christ’s likeness as I can receive.” The God who revealed Jesus in the flesh and perfected Him will reveal Him in you and perfect you in Him. The Father loves the Son and delights to work out His image and likeness in you.

7. The likeness to Christ consists chiefly in two things – the likeness of His death and resurrection (Romans 6:5). The death of Christ was the consummation of His humility and obedience, the entire giving up of His life to God. In Him we are dead to sin. As we sink down in humility and dependence and entire surrender to God, the power of His death works in us, and we are made conformable to His death. And so we know Him in the power of His resurrection, in the victory over sin, and all the joy and power of the risen life.

8. All this can only be in the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you. Count upon Him to glorify Christ in you. Count upon Christ to increase in you the inflowing of His Spirit. As you wait before God to realize His presence, remember that the Spirit is in you to reveal the things of God. Seek in God’s presence to have the anointing of the Spirit of Christ so truly that your whole life may every moment be spiritual.

9. As you meditate on this wondrous salvation and seek full fellowship with the great and holy God and wait on Him to reveal Christ in you, you will feel how needful the giving up of all is to receive Him. Seek grace to know what it means to live as wholly for God as Christ did. Let every approach to God and every request for fellowship with Him be accompanied by a new, definite and entire surrender to Him to work in you.

10. “By faith” must be the keynote. As you wait before God, let it be in a deep quiet faith in Him, the Invisible One, who is so near, so holy, so mighty, so loving. Just yield yourself in the faith of a perfect trust to the ever-blessed Holy Trinity to work out all God’s purpose in you.

Begin each day thus in fellowship with God, and God will be all in all to you.