The Christian is a person who makes it easy for others to believe in God.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne was born exactly 200 years ago, on the 21st of May 1813 in Edinburgh, to die only 29 years later. Like the one to whom he dedicated his life, Jesus of Nazareth, his influence was out of all proportion to his lifespan. His ministry was built on deep faith and holiness. It is quite likely that it was precisely his own struggle with illness as well as his brother’s early death that drove him to walk so closely in his Saviour’s footsteps.

Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two: your life preaches all week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry. Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your words, from God.

I don’t have anything to say about M’Cheyne right now that others have not said a lot better, for example Piper in He Kissed the Rose and Felt the Thorn. I just want to pay tribute to this man who gave so many pastors a hunger for God-exalting holiness.

When you are reading a book in a dark room, and come to a difficult part, you take it to a window to get more light. So take your Bibles to Christ.

Well put, Robert. Now back to my M’Cheyne bible reading plan.