Best Christian Devotional Classics: 15 Books to Read Slowly, Free
If you want one devotional classic to start with, read Andrew Murray's Humility. It is short, about two hours, and it goes straight to the root of the Christian life. Then read Frances Ridley Havergal's Kept for the Master's Use, a warm little book on her hymn "Take my life, and let it be." When you're ready for something weightier, Richard Baxter's The Saint's Everlasting Rest has fed Christians for more than three hundred years.
A devotional book is one written to warm the heart, not just inform the mind. It doesn't argue a case so much as set Christ in front of you and help you love Him, trust Him and pray. The old devotional writers shared a few convictions. The Christian life is a life with a Person, Christ Himself. It is lived by faith, not by effort alone. It grows in secret, in prayer and the Word. And its end is heaven, which they thought about much more than we do. These books are meant to be read slowly, a chapter at a time, with your Bible open.
Here are fifteen of the best in TheWay Library, all free to read. For books of daily readings, one for each day, see our separate guide to the best classic daily devotionals.
Start here: short books
1. Humility, by Andrew Murray
Twelve short chapters on humility as the creature's true place before God. Murray shows it in Christ, in His teaching and in His disciples, and then in daily life, where our love to God is measured by how we treat people. Few books this short do so much. See our summary of Humility and the best quotes from Humility.
Humility is the blossom of which death to self is the perfect fruit.
Humility, chapter 10
2. Kept for the Master's Use, by Frances Ridley Havergal
Havergal knew that many who sang "Take my life" later wondered whether the gift would last. Her answer is that the Lord who takes also keeps. The chapters follow the hymn line by line: our moments, hands, feet, voice, money, mind, will and love, all kept for Jesus.
Whatever you did really trust Him to keep, He has kept, and the unkept things were never really entrusted.
Kept for the Master's Use, chapter 1
Read Kept for the Master's Use.
3. 'Jesus Himself,' by Andrew Murray
A one-hour address for Christians who keep resolving to live a holy life and keep failing. Murray's answer is not a new effort but a Person: Jesus Himself, with you all the days, at work and at home.
You have as much holiness as you have of Christ
'Jesus Himself'
See Who Was Andrew Murray? Read 'Jesus Himself'.
Books about loving Christ
4. The Saint and His Saviour, by C. H. Spurgeon
An early Spurgeon book that traces the soul's life with Jesus, from first neglecting Him, through conviction and coming to Him, to settled communion. The chapters on why we love Him and on Jesus in the hour of trouble are among the best things Spurgeon wrote.
We can never so well see the true colour of Christ's love as in the night of weeping.
The Saint and His Saviour, chapter 9
Read The Saint and His Saviour.
5. Personal Friendships of Jesus, by J. R. Miller
Miller looks at Jesus as a friend, through His relationships in the Gospels: His mother, John the Baptist, the Twelve, Peter, John, the family at Bethany, and those who turned Him down. Then he shows what His friendship means for us.
Our hope does not rest in our love for Jesus, but in his love for us.
Personal Friendships of Jesus, chapter 6
Read Personal Friendships of Jesus.
6. Union and Communion, by J. Hudson Taylor
The founder of the China Inland Mission reads the Song of Solomon as a picture of the believer and Christ: longing, drifting away, being restored, and at last unbroken fellowship. About an hour long, and very tender.
Our love to God is secured by God's love to us.
Union and Communion, Section VI
7. The Precious Things of God, by Octavius Winslow
Winslow follows the word precious through the Bible, starting from "Unto you therefore which believe he is precious": Christ, faith, trial, the promises, the blood, the anointing of the Spirit and the death of the saints.
Christ is not only supremely, but He is increasingly precious to the believer.
The Precious Things of God, chapter 1
Read The Precious Things of God.
8. Have Mercy upon Me, by Andrew Murray
Psalm 51, David's prayer of repentance, taken phrase by phrase. This is the book to read when you have sinned and need to come back. Murray shows that confession is the Spirit's work and that God delights to make us clean.
The washing of the soul is God's work, an act of God's holy and all-prevailing grace.
Have Mercy upon Me, chapter 16
The Puritan classics
9. The Saint's Everlasting Rest, by Richard Baxter
Baxter wrote this when he thought he was dying, and first preached it to his people at Kidderminster. It describes the rest that remains for God's people, who it is for, and why we must not expect it here. The last chapters teach a way of meditating on heaven that will change how you face trouble. This edition is abridged.
The worth of everlasting rest is not felt, because it is not considered; it is forgotten because a thousand trifles are preferred before it.
The Saint's Everlasting Rest, The Preface
See Who Was Richard Baxter? and our Richard Baxter quotes. Read The Saint's Everlasting Rest.
10. Letters of Samuel Rutherford
Spurgeon called these letters the nearest thing to inspiration outside the Bible. Rutherford wrote most of them while silenced and confined in Aberdeen, to friends who were suffering too, and they burn with love for Christ. Read two or three at a time.
Christ and His cross are not separable in this life; howbeit Christ and His cross part at heaven's door, for there is no houseroom for crosses in heaven.
Letters of Samuel Rutherford, To the Lady Rowallan
Read the Letters of Samuel Rutherford.
11. The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, by John Owen
Owen's meditations on "to be spiritually minded is life and peace," written first for his own soul in his last years. He deals with our thoughts, what fills them and how to set them on God and heaven, and then with our affections, how they decay and how they are renewed. It is slow going, and it is worth it.
The heart of the Spirit of God is infinitely more tender towards us, than that of the most affectionate parent can be towards an only child.
The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, chapter 17
12. Heaven Opened, by Richard Alleine
A Puritan book on what God gives His people in the covenant of grace: Himself, Christ, the Spirit, the angels as servants, even death itself, all made theirs. It closes with a believer's soliloquy of triumph in God. Read Heaven Opened.
For more from this era, see our guide to the best Puritan books.
13. The Life, Walk and Triumph of Faith, by William Romaine
Three linked treatises by an evangelical London clergyman of the 1700s: how faith lives on Christ, how it walks with God day by day, and how it triumphs over sin and death. Thomas Chalmers's introduction defends Romaine for repeating the same truths, since the soul needs Christ repeated, not novelty.
The love of Christ shows sin in its exceeding sinfulness; and faith, working by love to Christ, gains daily victory over it.
The Life, Walk and Triumph of Faith, The Life of Faith
Baxter's The Divine Life, on knowing God, walking with God and conversing with Him in solitude, makes a good companion. Read Romaine's Treatises.
For quiet moments
14. Moments on the Mount, by George Matheson
About a hundred short meditations by the blind Scottish minister who wrote "O Love that wilt not let me go." Each turns one verse over until it yields something new, and most end in prayer. Good for five minutes before bed.
The only ocean in which a man loses himself is self-love; God's love gives him back his life that he may keep it unto life eternal.
Moments on the Mount, Meditation LXXV
15. The Hidden Life, by J. R. Miller
Gentle essays on the Christian's life hid with Christ in God: conquering conditions we cannot change, contentment, unanswered prayers, growing old well. Miller is the kind of writer you hand to a friend who is tired.
When we cannot change our conditions, we must conquer them through the help of Christ.
The Hidden Life, chapter 2
How to read a devotional classic
Read a chapter, not a book. Read it twice if it's short. Stop on the sentence that stops you, and turn it into prayer. Keep one long book going, like Baxter or Owen, and one short one beside it. And don't skip the Bible to make time for these; they were all written to send you back to it.
If you're grieving, our guide to Christian books on grief has gentler books for that season. If you want to grow in prayer, start with the best Christian books on prayer, and for the pursuit of a holy life, the best Christian books on holiness. More devotional books are on the Devotional topic page.