David P. Murray > Quotes

“Whatever you will complete or not today, rest in the only work that will never need to be done again. Rest in the fact that Jesus has done the most impossible job in the world, done it perfectly, and made it available. Take it. Enjoy it. Build your life on it. Let it change your whole view of your life and work. Use His work to put your work into perspective. Believe His work is counted as yours. Despite all that you fear and dread about the next ten hours—a critical boss, a vicious competitor, a looming deadline, a complaining customer, an impossible sales target, unrelenting children, monotonous drudge—you have Christ’s perfect work credited to your account.”
― David P. Murray , The Happy Christian: Ten Ways to Be a Joyful Believer in a Gloomy World

“It is important to remember the two main principles that govern our understanding of depression: Avoid dogmatism and seek humility. Avoid extremes and seek balance.”
― David P. Murray, Christians Get Depressed Too

“Many of our problems happen not only because we do the wrong things, but also because we believe the wrong things. Behind many seemingly practical problems are theological problems.”
― David P. Murray, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture

“David and other psalmists often found themselves deeply depressed for various reasons. They did not, however, apologize for what they were feeling, nor did they confess it as sin. It was a legitimate part of their relationship with God. They interacted with Him through the context of their depression.2”
― David P. Murray, Christians Get Depressed Too

“The New Testament quotes from the Psalter more often than from any other Old Testament book. • Of the 283 direct quotes of the Old Testament in the New, 116 (41 percent) are from the Psalms.5 • The Psalms are used more than fifty times in the Gospels to allude to the person and work of Jesus Christ.6 • When the author of Hebrews sought biblical proof that Jesus was God, at least seven of his citations were from the book of Psalms.”
― David P. Murray, Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament

“I used to think that Genesis 1–2 was all about evolution versus creation. I read lots of books, watched lots of DVDs, and listened to lots of sermons and lectures, all proving that God created the world in six twenty-four-hour days. I firmly believe that, but that’s not the point. In fact, by majoring on that point, I missed the point altogether. After many years of debate and argument that were often far from the spirit of Jesus, I came to see that Genesis 1–2 is actually about Jesus.”
― David P. Murray, Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament

“Retired pastor Al Martin told me that he was frequently contacted by young pastors he had trained who were just months into their ministries. They would say: “Help, Pastor Martin! I can’t pray, I can’t study, I can’t sleep, I can’t go on. I think I’m going to have to resign.” “Here’s your problem,” Pastor Martin would calmly reply. “You’re trying to live like a disembodied angel rather than flesh-and-blood humanity. Here’s your solution: first, exercise vigorously three times a week. Second, take one full day off a week. And third, spend at least one evening a week with your wife.”
― David P. Murray, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture

“What we think and believe about God, about ourselves, about others, about our problems, and about our world dictates and determines the quality of our whole lives: our happiness, our relationships, our creativity, our productivity, and even our physical health.”
― David P. Murray, The Happy Christian: Ten Ways to Be a Joyful Believer in a Gloomy World

“Creatures, by definition, are less than their Creator. He is infinite, we are finite; he is unlimited, we are limited. Although none of us would say we are unlimited, most of us think we are less limited than we actually are.”
― David P. Murray, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture

“It’s not just the physical that affects the spiritual; it goes the other way as well.”
― David P. Murray, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture

“I long to heal adults who have gotten so used to their own negativity that they have no idea now what healthy joy looks like. I want to grab young people before this demoralizing virus contaminates them and to inoculate them with biblical principles and practices that will enable them to stand up and stand out in their despairing generation. I yearn to attract unbelievers to a faith that has been too often misrepresented by its friends, never mind its enemies. I aim to encourage Christians to be countercultural missionaries in our negative culture by demonstrating the positive power of the gospel in their lives. I aspire to see churches transformed into beacons of bright hope in a world of dark despair. I’m eager to show that where sin and suffering abound, grace can abound much more.3 I dream about Christians being the happiest people in the world.”
― David P. Murray, The Happy Christian: Ten Ways to Be a Joyful Believer in a Gloomy World

“Death would be welcome as a relief by those whose depressed spirits make their existence a living death.”
― David P. Murray, Christians Get Depressed Too

“Procrastination and indecision dominate as you flit from one thing to another to another with little sense of accomplishment.”
― David P. Murray, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture

“redemption and relationship come before rules to help express thankfulness. Anglican pastor and Old Testament scholar Christopher Wright put it like this: The law was given to people whom God had already redeemed. . . . Grace comes before the law. There are eighteen chapters of salvation before we get to Sinai and the Ten Commandments. . . . I stress this because the idea that . . . in the OT salvation was by obeying the law, whereas in the NT it is by grace, is a terrible distortion of Scripture.10”
― David P. Murray, Jesus On Every Page

“The law was given to people whom God had already redeemed. . . . Grace comes before the law. There are eighteen chapters of salvation before we get to Sinai and the Ten Commandments. . . . I stress this because the idea that . . . in the OT salvation was by obeying the law, whereas in the NT it is by grace, is a terrible distortion of Scripture.10”
― David P. Murray, Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament

“We are all different: we have different limits and different vulnerabilities. As one man said to me, “The straw that broke the camel’s back came at the end of many hammer-blows on the same back.”
― David P. Murray, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture

“For example, symptoms of depression-anxiety can be seen in Moses (Num. 11:14), Hannah (1 Sam. 1:7, 16), and Jeremiah (Jer. 20:14–18; Lam. 3:1–6). In these cases it is difficult to say whether the symptoms reflect a depression or a dip. Martin Lloyd-Jones argues from biblical evidence that Timothy suffered from near-paralyzing anxiety.1”
― David P. Murray, Christians Get Depressed Too

“Verses like Philippians 4:13—​​​“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”—​​​do not override our basic need to eat, drink, rest, and sleep.”
― David P. Murray, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture

“Preaching is not the work of the lungs, or the mimicry of gesture, or the impulse of uncontrollable feeling; but the spiritual energy of a heart constrained by the love of Christ, and devoted to the care of those immortal souls for whom Christ died.[”
― David P. Murray, How Sermons Work

“And unless we are postmodernists who could care less about the original authors’ intentions and meaning, let’s throw our Psalters in the sea and use only gospel choruses instead. Oh, that’s already happened, has it? That’s because of a fundamental misunderstanding of Old Testament theology and psalmody, especially a denial of these fundamental pillars of Old Testament theology.”
― David P. Murray, Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament

“is all very well for those who are in robust health and full of spirits to blame those whose lives are sicklied or covered with the pale cast of melancholy, but the [malady] is as real as a gaping wound, and all the more hard to bear because it lies so much in the region of the soul that to the inexperienced it appears to be a mere matter of fancy and diseased imagination.”
― David P. Murray, Christians Get Depressed Too

“Have you ever thought about the incredible imagination and inventiveness behind the created world and asked why? Why did our Redeemer go to such lengths to provide us with such a varied and diverse world? Partly the reason was that He had an eye to using these things, animals, materials, and so on to teach sinners the way of salvation. He was preparing visual aids for future use. He created sheep so He could teach sinners about how He is the Good Shepherd. 10 He created birds to help His redeemed people live less anxious lives. 11 He created camels to teach how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter heaven. 12 He created lilies and roses so He could compare Himself with them. 13 He created water to explain how He refreshes and revives the thirsty. 14 When Jesus picked these up some four thousand years after their creation, they were not just coincidentally helpful to Him; He deliberately created them for the great end of helping to redeem a people.”
― David P. Murray, Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament

“For what is more vain or absurd than for men to offer a loathsome stench from the fat of cattle in order to reconcile themselves to God? Or to have recourse to the sprinkling of water and blood to cleanse away their filth? In short, the whole cultus of the law, taken literally and not as shadows and figures corresponding to the truth, will be utterly ridiculous . . . if the forms of the law be separated from its end, one must condemn it as vanity.34”
― David P. Murray, Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament

“my fundamental impression was that the Old Testament was a bit of an embarrassment to everyone and that usually we referred to it only to apologize for it or contrast it with the New Testament.”
― David P. Murray, Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament

“The Old Testament appearances of Christ in human form have been portrayed as expressions of holy impatience. They give an insight into His earnest desire to be involved with the sons of men. As the old Christians in the Scottish Highlands used to say to me, “Christ enjoyed trying on the clothes of His incarnation.” What delicious appetizers of His great gospel work when He would no longer be simply God manifest in human form but God manifest in human flesh.”
― David P. Murray, Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament

“It was the Old Testament which helped Jesus to understand Jesus. Who did he think he was? What did he think he was to do? The answers came from his Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures in which he found a rich tapestry of figures, historical persons, prophetic pictures and symbols of worship. And in this tapestry, where others saw only a fragmented collection of various figures and hopes, Jesus saw his own face. His Hebrew Bible provided the shape of his own identity.21”
― David P. Murray, Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament

“Really to die and to be with Christ will be a gala day’s enjoyment compared with our misery when a worse than physical death has cast its dreadful shadow over us. Death would be welcome as a relief by those whose depressed spirits make their existence a living death. Are good men ever permitted to suffer thus? Indeed they are; and some of them are even all their lifetime subject to bondage.... It is a sad case when our only hope lies in the direction of death, our only liberty of spirit amid the congenial horrors of corruption.... He felt as if he were utterly forgotten as those whose carcasses are left to rot on the battlefield. As when a soldier, mortally wounded, bleeds unheeded amid the heaps of slain, and remains to his last expiring groan, unpitied and unsuccoured, so did Heman sigh out his soul in loneliest sorrow, feeling as if even God Himself had quite forgotten him. How low the spirits of good and brave man will sometimes sink. Under the influence of certain disorders everything will wear a somber aspect, and the heart will dive into the profoundest deeps of misery.”
― David P. Murray, Christians Get Depressed Too

“Imagine! God from all eternity picturing you and me, with our particular upbringing and background, all our varied experience of life and work, our unique strengths; and, punctual to the second, he has us where he wants to use us.”
― David P. Murray, The Christian Ministry

“It is very hard to hate someone for whom we pray. It is almost impossible to pull someone down when we prayerfully raise him or her up to heaven for God’s blessing. Prayer never changes God. It sometimes changes the person we pray for. It always changes us.”
― David P. Murray , The Happy Christian: Ten Ways to Be a Joyful Believer in a Gloomy World

“The Hebrew word ga’al appears twelve times, and the noun version of it nine times.24 It is variously translated, but it basically combines two elements: relation and redemption. It refers to a close family member who steps in to defend, protect, and provide for the needy.”
― David P. Murray , Jesus On Every Page