Profiting from Prayer

Tip! THE possibilities of prayer are gauged by faith in God's ability to do. Faith is the one prime condition by which God works.

A prayer-less Christian is a contradiction in terms. Just as a still-born child is a dead one, so a professing believer who does not pray is devoid of spiritual life. Prayer is the breath of our new nature as a saint in Christ, the same as the Word of God; the Holy Bible is our food.

When the Lord assured the disciple at Damascus named Ananias that Saul of Tarsus (later known as Apostle Paul) had been truly converted, He told him, "for behold, he is praying." (Acts 9:11) On many occasions before, this self-righteous Pharisee bowed his knees before God and had gone through his motions in meaningless "devotions," but this was the first time he had ever really prayed.

This important distinction needs emphasizing in this day of powerless forms (2 Timothy 3:5) "having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!" They who content themselves with formal addresses to God do not know Him; for "the Spirit of grace and supplications" (Zechariah 12:10) are never separated. God has no unintelligent children in His regenerated family: "Shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto Him?" (Luke 18:7). Yes, "cry" to Him, not merely "say" their prayers.

But will you as the reader be surprised when I the writer declare that it is my deepening conviction that, probably, the Lord's own people sin more in their efforts to pray than in connection with any other thing they engage in?

Tip! 1 Timothy 2:1. Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men,

What hypocrisy there is where there should be reality!

Tip! He didn't say we would see the manifestation of our prayers immediately. We need to give God time to work things out, continue in our faith, and not doubt, 'For a man who wavers is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed.

What arrogant demands we make, where there should be obedience!

What rituals, where there should be brokenness of heart! How little we really feel the sins we confess, and what little sense of deep need for the mercies we seek!

And even where God grants a measure of deliverance from these awful sins, how much coldness of heart, how much unbelief, how much self-will and self-pleasing have we grieved over! Those who have no conscience about these things are strangers to the spirit of holiness.

Now the Word of God should be our directory in prayer. Unfortunately, how often we have made our own fleshly likings the rule of our asking. The Holy Scriptures have been given to us "that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Timothy 3:17). Since we are required to "pray in the Spirit" (Jude 1:20), it follows that our prayers ought to be according to the Scriptures, seeing that He is their Author throughout.

It equally follows that according to the measure in which the Word of Christ dwells in us "richly" (Colossians 3:16) or sparsely, the more or the less will our petitions be in harmony with the mind of the Spirit, for "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34).

In proportion as we hide the Word in our hearts, and it cleanses and molds and regulates our inner person, then will our prayers be acceptable in God's sight. Then will we be able to say, as David did in another connection, "Of Your own have we given thee" (1 Chronicles 29:14).

What Wise, what Sane Person, will Continue to Neglect Prayer?

Tip! What is God's will about prayer? First of all, it is God's will that we pray. Jesus Christ "spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint"

It is necessary to know, and to always keep in mind, that prayer is the all-encompassing name that is given to every step in our return to God. True prayer, the richest and the ripest prayer, the most acceptable and the most prevailing prayer, includes many elements: it is made up of many actions in our mind, and many emotions of our heart.

To begin to come to ourselves,--however far off we may then discover ourselves to be,--to begin to think about ourselves, is already to begin to pray. To begin to feel fear, or shame, or remorse, or a desire after better things is to begin to pray. To say within ourselves, "I will arise and go to my Father,"--that is to begin to pray. To see what we are, and to desire to turn from what we are--that also is to pray.

In short, every such thought about ourselves, and about God, and about sin and its wages, and about salvation, its price and its preciousness; every worried thought about death and judgment and heaven and hell; every reflection about the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ; and every wish of our hearts that we were more like Jesus Christ: all our reading of the Word of God (Holy Bible), all our meditation reflection, contemplation, prostration and adoration; all faith, all hope, all love; all that, and all of that same kind,--it all comes, with the most perfect truth and propriety, under the all-embracing name of "prayer"; it all enters into the all-absorbing life of prayer.

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,

Uttered or unexpressed:

The emotion of a hidden fire

That trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh,

The falling of a tear,

The upward glancing of an eye

When none but God is near.

Prayer is the simplest form of speech

That infant lips can try:

Prayer the sublimes strains that reach

The Majesty on High.

How noble then is prayer! How incomparably noble! Who would not be a person of prayer? What wise, what sane person, will continue to neglect prayer? "Ask, and it shall be given you; that your joy may be full."