The Attitude of Mind and Heart Involved in Devotion Makes Prayer Reach the Throne of Grace Part I

DEVOTION has a religious signification. The root of devotion is to devote to a sacred use. So that devotion in its true sense has to do with religious worship. It stands intimately connected with true prayer. Devotion is the particular frame of mind found in one entirely devoted to God. It is the spirit of reverence, of awe, of godly fear. It is a state of heart which appears before God in prayer and worship. It is foreign to everything like lightness of spirit, and is opposed to lightheartedness, noise and grumbling. Devotion dwells in the realm of quietness and is still before God. It is serious, thoughtful, and meditative.

Devotion belongs to the inner life and lives in the prayer closet (prayer room of your heart), but also appears in the public services of the church. It is a part of the very spirit of true worship, and is of the nature of the spirit of prayer.

Prayer promotes the spirit of devotion, while devotion is encouraging to the best praying. Devotion furthers prayer and helps to drive prayer home to the object that it asks for. Prayer thrives in the atmosphere of true devotion. It is easy to pray when in the spirit of devotion. The attitude of mind and the state of heart completely involved in devotion makes prayer effectual in reaching the throne of grace. God dwells where the spirit of devotion resides. All the graces of the Holy Spirit are nourished and grow well in the environment created by devotion. Indeed, these graces grow nowhere else but here. The absence of a devotional spirit means death to the graces born in a renewed heart. True worship finds friendliness in the atmosphere made by a spirit of devotion. While prayer is helpful to devotion, at the same time devotion reacts on prayer, and helps us to pray.

Devotion engages the heart in prayer. It is not an easy task for the lips to try to pray while the heart is absent from it. The charge which God at one time made against His ancient Israel was that they honored Him with their lips while their hearts were far from Him.

The very essence of prayer is the spirit of devotion. Without devotion prayer is an empty form, a vain round of words. Sad to say, much of this kind of prayer prevails, today, in the Church. This is a busy age, bustling and active, and this bustling spirit has invaded the Church of God. Its religious performances are many. The Church works at religion with the order, precision and force of a real machine. But too often it works with the heartlessness of the machine. There is way to much of the treadmill movement in our ceaseless round and routine of religious doings. We pray without praying. We sing without singing with the Holy Spirit and the understanding. We have music without the praise of God being in it, or near it. We go to Church by habit, and come home all too gladly when the benediction is said. We read our accustomed chapter in the Bible, and feel quite relieved when the task is done. We say our prayers in mechanical repetition, as a schoolchild recites their lessons, and are not sorry when the Amen is spoken.