The Ministry of Intercession: A Plea for More PrayerMurray, Andrew
Religion
The Ministry of Intercession: A Plea for More Prayer
Murray, Andrew
Intercessory prayer -- Christianity
Let me remind you of what takes place at conversion. Most of us, you
probably too, for a time sought peace in efforts and struggles to give
up sin and please God. But you did not find it thus. The peace of God's
pardon came by faith, trusting God's word concerning Christ and His
salvation. You had heard of Christ as the gift of His love, you knew
that He was for you too, you had felt the movings and drawings of His
grace; but never till in faith in God's word you accepted Him as God's
gift to you, did you know the peace and joy that He can give. Believing
in Him and His saving love made all the difference, and changed your
relation from one who had ever grieved Him, to one who loved and served
Him. And yet, after a time, you have a thousand times wondered you love
and serve Him so ill.
At the time of your conversion you knew little about the Holy Spirit.
Later on you heard of His dwelling in you, and His being the power of
God in you for all the Father intends you to be, and yet His indwelling
and inworking have been something vague and indefinite, and hardly a
source of joy or strength. At conversion you did not yet know your need
of Him, and still less what you might expect of Him. But your failures
have taught it you. And now you begin to see how you have been grieving
Him, by not trusting and not following Him, by not allowing Him to work
in you all God's pleasure.
All this can be changed. Just as you, after seeking Christ, and praying
to Him, and trying without success to serve Him, found rest in accepting
Him by faith, just so you may even now yield yourself to the full
guidance of the Holy Spirit, and claim and accept Him to work in you
what God would have. Will you not do it? Just accept Him in faith as
Christ's gift, to be the Spirit of your whole life, of your prayer-life
too, and you can count upon Him to take charge. You can then begin,
however feeble you feel, and unable to pray aright, to bow before God in
silence, with the assurance that He will teach you to pray.
My dear brother, as you consciously by faith accepted Christ, to pardon,
you can consciously now in the like faith accept of Christ who gives the
Holy Spirit to do His work in you. "Christ redeemed us that we might
receive the promise of the Spirit by faith." Kneel down, and simply
believe that the Lord Christ, who baptizeth with the Holy Spirit, does
now, in response to your faith, begin in you the blessed life of a full
experience of the power of the indwelling Spirit. Depend most
confidently upon Him, apart from all feeling or experience, as the
Spirit of supplication and intercession to do His work. Renew that act
of faith each morning, each time you pray; trust Him, against all
appearances, to work in you,--be sure He is working,--and He will give
you to know what the joy of the Holy Spirit is as the power of your
life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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