The reality of prayerBounds, Edward M. (Edward McKendree)
Religion
The reality of prayer
Bounds, Edward M. (Edward McKendree)
Jesus Christ -- Prayers; Prayer -- Christianity
“And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye
shall receive.”
In this passage we have faith and prayer, their possibilities and powers
conjoined. A fig tree had been blasted to the roots by the word of the
Lord Jesus. The power and quickness of the result surprised the
disciples. Jesus says to them that it need be no surprise to them, or
such a difficult work to be done. “If ye have faith” its possibilities
to affect will not be confined to the little fig tree, but the gigantic,
rock-ribbed, rock-founded mountains can be uprooted and moved into the
sea. Prayer is leverage of this great power of faith.
It is well to refer again to the occasion when the heart of our Lord was
so deeply moved with compassion as he beheld the multitudes because they
fainted and were scattered as having no shepherd. Then it was He urged
upon His disciples the injunction, “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that
he would send forth labourers into his harvest,” clearly teaching them
that it belonged to God to call into the ministry men whom He will, and
that in answer to prayer the Holy Spirit does this very work.
Prayer is as necessary now as it was then to secure the needed labourers
to reap earthly harvests for the heavenly garners. Has the Church of God
ever learned this lesson of so vital and exacting import? God alone can
choose the labourers and thrust them out, and this choosing He does not
delegate to man, or church, convocation or synod, association or
conference. And God is moved to this great work of calling men into the
ministry by prayer. Earthly fields are rotting. They are untilled
because prayer is silent. The labourers are few. Fields are unworked
because prayer has not worked with God.
We have the prayer promise and the prayer ability put in a distinct form
in the higher teachings of prayer by our Lord: “If ye abide in me, and
my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done
unto you.”
Here we have a fixed attitude of life as the condition of prayer. Not
simply a fixed attitude of life toward some great principles or
purposes, but the fixed attitude and unity of life with Jesus Christ. To
live in Him, to dwell there, to be one with Him, to draw all life from
Him, to let all life from Him flow through us—this is the attitude of
prayer and the ability to pray. No abiding in Him can be separated from
His Word abiding in us. It must live in us to give birth to and food for
prayer. The attitude of the Person of Christ is the condition of prayer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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