The Children For Christ by Andrew Murray

would teach us that it is not only in their individual capacity, but
especially as parents, and that from before the first hope of having
children, that His saints are taken into covenant with Him, are called to
exercise Abraham’s faith, and to receive their children from His hands.
Not only are the children when grown up, but even from the birth, to be
partakers of the covenant. Yea, from before the birth, in the very first
rising of hope, would God, by the power of His promises given to faith
by His Spirit, begin the great work of redeeming love. He would thus
reveal to us how that wondrous power with which He had endowed
man, of bringing forth and giving life to a child after his own image,
and which by sin had become the great strength of Satan’s kingdom,
was again to be consecrated, and under God’s own eye to be rendered
subservient to the extension of His kingdom and glory.
Hence it is that the Bible is so full of what cannot otherwise be
understood — of Divine promise and interposition, of human activity
and expectation, connected with the birth of children. Everything
concentrates on that one great lesson, the fatherhood and the childhood
of this earth has a Divine and heavenly promise, and everything
connected with it must with us be a matter of faith, a religious service
holy to the Lord and well pleasing in His sight. I must not only believe
for myself; if I would fully honor God, my faith must reach forth and
embrace my children, grasping the promises of God for them too. If I
would magnify the riches of God’s grace, if I would with my whole
nature and all my powers be consecrated to God’s service, and if I would
accomplish the utmost possible within my reach for the advancement
of His kingdom, it is especially as parent that I must believe and labor.
And what I see in Abraham, that God thought so long a time needful for
the strengthening and ripening of faith before he might receive the
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