God encourages us to pray, not only by the certainty of the answer, but by the munificence of the promise, and the bounty of the Giver. How princely the promise! “All things whatsoever.” And when we superadd to that “whatsoever” the promise which covers all things and everything, without qualification, exception or limitation, “anything,” this is to expand and make minute and specific the promise. The challenge of God to us is “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.” This includes, like the answer to Solomon’s prayer, that which was specifically prayed for, but embraces vastly more of great value and of great necessity. Almighty God seems to fear we will hesitate to ask largely, apprehensive that we will strain His ability. He declares that He is “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think.” He almost paralyses us by giving us a _carte blanche_, “Ask of me things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands, command ye me.” How He charges, commands and urges us to pray! He goes beyond promise and says: “Behold my Son! I have given Him to you.” “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?” God gave us all things in prayer by promise because He had given us all things in His Son. Amazing gift—His Son! Prayer is as illimitable as His own Blessed Son. There is nothing on earth nor in Heaven, for time or eternity, that God’s Son did not secure for us. By prayer God gives us the vast and matchless inheritance which is ours by virtue of His Son. God charges us to “come boldly to the throne of grace.” God is glorified and Christ is honoured by large asking. That which is true of the promises of God is equally true of the purposes of God. We might say that God does nothing without prayer. His most gracious purposes are conditioned on prayer. His marvelous promises in the thirty-sixth chapter of Ezekiel are subject to this qualification and condition: “Thus saith the Lord God: I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them.” In the second Psalm the purposes of God to His enthroned Christ are decreed on prayer, as has been previously quoted. That decree which promises to Him the heathen for His inheritance relies on prayer for its fulfillment: “Ask of me.” We see how sadly the decree has failed in its operation, not because of the weakness of God’s purpose, but by the weakness of man’s praying. It takes God’s mighty decree and man’s mighty praying to bring to pass these glorious results. In the seventy-second Psalm, we have an insight into the mighty potencies of prayer as the force which God moves on the conquest of Christ: “Prayer shall be made for him continually.” In this statement Christ’s movements are put into the hands of prayer.