Essentials of prayerBounds, Edward M. (Edward McKendree)
Religion
Essentials of prayer
Bounds, Edward M. (Edward McKendree)
Prayer -- Christianity
Missions mean the giving of the Gospel to those of Adam’s fallen race
who have never heard of Christ and His atoning death. It means the
giving to others the opportunity to hear of salvation through our Lord
Jesus Christ, and allowing others to have a chance to receive, and
accept the blessings of the Gospel, as we have it in Christianised
lands. It means that those who enjoy the benefits of the Gospel give
these same religious advantages and Gospel privileges to all of
mankind. Prayer has a great deal to do with missions. Prayer is the
hand-maid of missions. The success of all real missionary effort is
dependent on prayer. The life and spirit of missions are the life and
spirit of prayer. Both prayer and missions were born in the Divine
Mind. Prayer and missions are bosom companions. Prayer creates and
makes missions successful, while missions lean heavily on prayer. In
the seventy-second Psalm, one which deals with the Messiah, it is
stated that “prayer shall be made for him continually.” Prayer would
be made for His coming to save man, and prayer would be made for the
success of the plan of salvation which He would come to set on foot.
The Spirit of Jesus Christ is the spirit of missions. Our Lord Jesus
Christ was Himself the first missionary. His promise and advent
composed the first missionary movement. The missionary spirit is
not simply a phase of the Gospel, not a mere feature of the plan of
salvation, but is its very spirit and life. The missionary movement
is the Church of Jesus Christ marching in militant array, with the
design of possessing the whole world of mankind for Christ. Whoever
is touched by the Spirit of God is fired by the missionary spirit.
An anti-missionary Christian is a contradiction in terms. We might
say that it would be impossible to be an anti-missionary Christian
because of the impossibility for the Divine and human forces to put
men in such a state as not to align them with the missionary cause.
Missionary impulse is the heart-beat of our Lord Jesus Christ, sending
the vital forces of Himself through the whole body of the Church. The
spiritual life of God’s people rises or falls with the force of those
heart-beats. When these life forces cease, then death ensues. So that
anti-missionary Churches are dead Churches, just as anti-missionary
Christians are dead Christians.
The craftiest wile of Satan, if he cannot prevent a great movement for
God, is to debauch the movement. If he can put the movement first, and
the spirit of the movement in the background, he has materialised and
thoroughly debauched the movement. Mighty prayer only will save the
movement from being materialised, and keep the spirit of the movement
strong and controlling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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