Prayer Is Far-Reaching In Its Influence and In Its Gracious Effects

THE APOSTLE Paul spreads the nature of prayer over the whole person. It must be so. It takes the whole person to clinch in its god-like kindness the entire race of mankind - the sorrows, the sins and the death of Adam’s fallen race. It takes the whole person to run parallel with God’s high and inspiring will in saving mankind. It takes the whole person to stand with our Lord Jesus Christ as the one Mediator between God and sinful people. This is the doctrine Paul teaches in his prayer-directory in the second chapter of his first Epistle to Timothy.

Nowhere does it appear so clearly that it requires the entire person in all departments of their being, to pray than in this teaching of Paul. It takes the whole person to pray until all the storms that trouble their soul are calmed to a great calm, until the stormy winds and waves cease as by a Godlike spell. It takes the whole person to pray till cruel tyrants and unjust rulers are changed in their natures and lives, as well as in their governing qualities, or until they cease to rule. It requires the entire person in praying until the high and the proud and the unspiritual members of the clergy become gentle, lowly and religious, until godliness and seriousness stand as the rule in the Church and in State, in home and in business, in public as well as in the private life.

It is the people’s business to pray; and it takes manly men to do it. It is godly business to pray and it takes godly men to do it. And it is godly men who give over themselves entirely to prayer. Prayer is far-reaching in its influence and in its gracious effects. It is an intense and profound business that deals with God and His plans and purposes, and it takes a whole-hearted person to do it. No half-hearted, half-brained, half-spirited effort will do for this serious, all-important, heavenly business. The whole heart, the whole brain, the whole spirit, must be in the matter of praying, which is so mightily to affect the characters and future of people.

The answer of Jesus to the scribe as to what was the first and greatest commandment was as follows:

“The Lord our God is one Lord; And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.”

In one word, the entire person without reservation must love God. So it takes the same entire person to do the praying which God requires of them. All the powers of people must be engaged in it. God cannot tolerate a divided heart in the love He requires of people, neither can He bear with a divided person in praying.
In the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm the Psalmist teaches this very truth in these words:

“Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.”

It takes whole-hearted person to keep God’s commandments and it demands that same sort of person to seek God. These are the people who are counted “blessed.” Upon these whole-hearted ones God’s approval rests.