Who do You Pray To?

Tip! 'Intercession/ is amplification in prayer; it is going out in broadness and fullness from ones self for others. Primarily, it does not center in praying for others, but refers to the freeness, boldness and childlike confidence in praying.

OUR Lord Jesus declared that "men ought always to pray and not to faint," and the parable in which His words occur, was taught with the intention of saving men from faint-heartedness and weakness in prayer. Our Lord was seeking to teach that laxity must be guarded against, and persistence fostered and encouraged. There can be no two opinions regarding the importance of the exercise of this indispensable quality in our praying.

Persistent prayer is a mighty movement of our soul toward God. It is a stirring of the deepest forces of our soul, toward the throne of heavenly grace. It is the ability to hold on, press on, and wait. Restless desire, restful patience, and strength to grasp are all contained in it. It is not an incident, or a performance, but deep passion of our soul. It is not a want, half-needed, but a sheer necessity.

The wrestling quality in persistent prayers does not spring from physical strength or fleshly energy. It is not an impulse of energy, not a mere earnestness of our soul; it is an inward force, a sense implanted and aroused by the Holy Spirit. Virtually, it is the intercession of the Spirit of God, in us; it is, moreover, "the effectual, fervent prayer, which avails' much."

The Divine Spirit informing every element within us, with the energy of His own striving, is the spirit of the persistence which urges our praying at the mercy-seat, to continue until the fire falls and the blessing descends.

Tip! So when we ask Christ to carry out His works in our hearts we are fervently praying that our Father may be glorified in His Son.

This wrestling in prayer may not be boisterous nor violent, but quiet, persistent and urgent. Silent, it may be, when there are no visible outlets for its mighty forces.

Nothing distinguishes the children of God so clearly and strongly as prayer. It is the one infallible mark and test of being a Christian. Christian people are prayerful but the worldly-minded is prayer-less. Christians call on God; the world ignores God, and do not call on His Name. But even we who are Christian have a great need to cultivate continual prayer.

Tip! So it is the same elsewhere in the Holy Bible (James 1:5) we have "asking" put into view as a prayer: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men liberally, and upbraiding [scolding somebody] not, and it shall be given him."

Prayer must be habitual, but much more than a habit. It is duty, yet one that rises far above, and goes beyond the ordinary implications of the term. It is the expression of a relation to God, a yearning for Divine communion. It is the outward and upward flow of the inward life toward its original fountain. It is an affirmation of our soul's parenthood, our claim of son-ship that links us to the Eternal God our Father.

Prayer has everything to do with molding the soul into the image of God, and has everything to do with enhancing and enlarging the measure of Divine grace. It has everything to do with bringing the soul into complete communion with God. It has everything to do with enriching, broadening and maturing our soul's experience in God.

Therefore a person cannot possibly be called a Christian who does not pray. By no possible pretext can we claim any right to the term, nor its implied significance. If we do not pray, we are sinners, pure and simple, for prayer is the only way in which our soul can enter into fellowship and communion with the Source of all Christ-like spirit and energy. Hence, if we pray not, we are not of the household of faith.

Think on this for awhile - Are you a child of God? Do you pray to God our Father through Jesus Christ? Who do you pray to?

Fervency in Prayer is the Forerunner of Answered Prayer

Tip! It opens the door for salvations. (Act 2:42) "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers".

The motivation to fervency in our spirit before God is precisely the same as it is to be in continued and earnest prayer. While fervency is not prayer, yet it derives from an earnest soul, and is precious in the sight of God.

Fervency in prayer is the forerunner of what God will do for us by way of answered prayer. God stands pledged to give us the desire of our hearts in proportion to the fervency of spirit we exhibit, when we seek His face in prayer.

Fervency has its seat in the heart, not in the brain, nor in the intellectual faculties of our mind. Fervency therefore, is not an expression of our intellect.

Fervency of spirit is something that is far beyond any poetical fancy or sentimental imagery. It is something else besides a mere preference or the differences of like with dislike. Fervency is the throb and gesture of our emotional nature.

It is not in our power, perhaps, to create fervency of spirit at will, but we can pray and ask God to implant it. It is ours, then, to nourish and cherish it, to guard it against extinction, to prevent its end or decline.

Tip! Our Lord warns us against feeble praying. "Men ought always to pray," He declares, "and not to faint." That means that we are to possess sufficient fervency to carry us through the severe and long periods of pleading prayer.

The process of personal salvation is not only to pray, to express our desires to God, but to acquire a fervent spirit and seek, by all proper means and to cultivate it. It is never out of place to pray and ask God to produce within us, and to keep alive the spirit of fervent prayer.

Fervency has to do with God, just as prayer has to do with Him. Desire has always an objective. If we desire at all, we desire something. The degree of fervency with which we fashion our spiritual desires, will always serve to determine the earnestness of our praying. In this same idea, Adoniram Judson says:

"A travailing spirit, the throes of a great burdened desire, belongs to prayer. A fervency strong enough to drive away sleep, which devotes and inflames the spirit, and which retires all earthly ties, all this belongs to wrestling, prevailing prayer. The Spirit, the power, the air, and food of prayer is in such a spirit."

Tip! 'Intercession' is amplification in prayer; it is going out in broadness and fullness from ones self for others. Primarily, it does not center in praying for others, but refers to the freeness, boldness and childlike confidence in praying.

Prayer must be clothed with fervency, strength and power. It is the force that is centered on God and determines the outlay of Himself for our earthly good. People who are fervent in spirit are bent on achieving righteousness, truth, grace, and all the other uplifting and powerful graces which beautify the character of a genuine, unquestionable child of God.

God once declared, by the mouth of a brave prophet, to a king who, at one time, had been true to God, but, by the incoming of success and material prosperity, had lost his faith, the following message:

"The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. Herein hast thou done foolishly; therefore, from henceforth thou shall have wars."

Tip! So when we ask Christ to carry out His works in our hearts we are fervently praying that our Father may be glorified in His Son.

God had heard Asa's prayer in early life, but disaster came and trouble was sent, because he had given up the life of prayer and simple faith.

In Romans 15:30, we have the word, "strive," occurring, in the request which Paul made for prayerful cooperation.

In Colossians 4:12, we have the same word, but translated differently:

"Epaphras always laboring fervently for you in prayer." Paul charged the Romans to "strive together with him in prayer," that is, to help him in his struggle of prayer. The word means to enter into a contest, to fight against adversaries. It means, also, to engage with fervent zeal to endeavor to obtain.

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.

These recorded instances of the exercise and reward of faith, allow us to easily see that, in almost every instance, faith was blended with trust until it is not too much to say that the former was swallowed up in the latter. It is hard to properly distinguish the specific activities of these two qualities, faith and trust. But there is a point, beyond all peradventure, at which faith is relieved of its burden, so to speak; where trust comes along and says: "You have done your part, the rest is mine!"

Fervency Before God Counts in the Hour of Prayer

Tip! 'Intercession' is amplification in prayer; it is going out in broadness and fullness from ones self for others. Primarily, it does not center in praying for others, but refers to the freeness, boldness and childlike confidence in praying.

Our Lord warns us against feeble praying. "Men ought always to pray," He declares, "and not to faint." That means that we are to possess sufficient fervency to carry us through the severe and long periods of pleading prayer. Fire makes us alert and vigilant, and brings us to the place of being more than conquerors.

The atmosphere about us is too heavily charged with resisting forces for limp or lazy prayers to make headway. It takes heat, and fervency and dramatic fire, to push through, to the upper heavens, where God dwells with His saints, in light.

Many of the great Bible characters were notable examples of fervency of spirit when seeking God. The Psalmist declares with great earnestness:

"My soul breaks for the longing that it hath unto Thy judgments at all

times."

What a strong desires of heart is here! What an earnest soul that longs for the Word of the living God!

An even greater fervency is expressed by David in another place:

"As the hart pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?"

That is the word of a man who lived in a state of grace, which had been deeply and supernaturally created in his soul.

Tip! In (Phil. 4:6) we have these words about prayer: "Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."

Fervency before God counts in the hour of prayer, and finds a speedy and rich reward at His hands. The Psalmist gives us this statement of what God had done for the king, as his heart turned toward his Lord:

"Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withheld the request of his lips."

At another time, he expresses himself directly to God in preferring his request:

"Lord, all my desire is before Thee; and my groaning is not hid from Thee."

What a cheerful thought! Our inward groanings, our secret desires, our heart-longings, are not hidden from the eyes of God our Father with whom we have to deal in prayer.