Prayer :: Prayer Bible Studies :: Purpose In Prayer- EM Bounds-Chapter 2

 

"Last Generation Forums" :: Prayer :: Prayer Bible Studies :: Purpose In Prayer- EM Bounds-Chapter 2 Author Topic: Purpose In Prayer- EM Bounds-Chapter 2 (Read 14 times) Cj Avery Administrator Co-Administrator member is offline Joined: Jul 2012 Gender: Female Posts: 77 Purpose In Prayer- EM Bounds-Chapter 2 « Thread Started on Aug 28, 2012, 9:29pm » "That we ought to give ourselves to God with regard to things both temporal and spiritual, and seek our satisfaction only in the fulfilling His will, whether He lead us by suffering, or by consolation, for all would be equal to a Soul truly resigned. Prayer is nothing else but a sense of God’s presence."—Brother Lawrence "Be sure you look to your secret duty; keep that up whatever you do. The soul cannot prosper in the neglect of it. Apostasy generally begins at the closet door. Be much in secret fellowship with God. It is secret trading that enriches the Christian. "Pray alone. Let prayer be the key of the morning and the bolt at night. The best way to fight against sin is to fight it on our knees."—Philip Henry "The prayer of faith is the only power in the universe to which the Great Jehovah yields. Prayer is the sovereign remedy."—Robert Hall "An hour of solitude passed in sincere and earnest prayer, or the conflict with and conquest over a single passion or subtle bosom sin will teach us more of thought, will more effectually awaken the faculty and form the habit of reflection than a year’s study in the schools without them."—Coleridge "A man may pray night and day and deceive himself, but no man can be assured of his sincerity who does not pray. Prayer is faith passing into act. A union of the will and intellect realising in an intellectual act. It is the whole man that prays. Less than this is wishing or lip work, a sham or a mummery. "If God should restore me again to health I have determined to study nothing but the Bible. Literature is inimical to spirituality if it be not kept under with a firm hand."—Richard Cecil "Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God’s. sake which we commonly do for our own. The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer. Prayer is nothing else but a sense of the presence of God."—Brother Lawrence "Let me burn out for God. After all, whatever God may appoint, prayer is the great thing. Oh that I may be a man of prayer."—Henry Martyn The possibilities and necessity of prayer, its power and results are manifested in arresting and changing the purposes of God and in relieving the stroke of His power. Abimelech was smitten by God: So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maid-servants; and they bare children. For the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife. Job’s miserable, mistaken, comforters had so deported themselves in their controversy with Job that God’s wrath was kindled against them. “My servant Job shall pray for you,” said God, “for him will I accept.” “And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends.” Jonah was in dire condition when “the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest.” When lots were cast, “the lot fell upon Jonah.” He was cast overboard into the sea, but “the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah ... Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly ... and the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.” When the disobedient prophet lifted up his voice in prayer, God heard and sent deliverance. Pharaoh was a firm believer in the possibilities of prayer, and its ability to relieve. When staggering under the woeful curses of God, he pleaded with Moses to intercede for him. “Intreat the Lord for me,” was his pathetic appeal four times repeated when the plagues were scourging Egypt. Four times were these urgent appeals made to Moses, and four times did prayer lift the dread curse from the hard king and his doomed land. The blasphemy and idolatry of Israel in making the golden calf and declaring their devotions to it were a fearful crime. The anger of God waxed hot, and He declared that He would destroy the offending people. The Lord was very wroth with Aaron also, and to Moses He said, “Let Me alone that I may destroy theme—But Moses prayed, and kept on praying; day and night he prayed forty days. He makes the record of his prayer struggle. “I fell down,” he says, “before the Lord at the first forty days and nights; I did neither eat bread nor drink water because of your sins which ye sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure wherewith the Lord was hot against you to destroy you. But the Lord hearkened to me at this time also. And the Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him. And I prayed for him also at the same time.” “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. It was the purpose of God to destroy that great and wicked city. But Nineveh prayed, covered with sackcloth; sitting in ashes she cried “mightily to God,” and “God repented of the evil that He said He would do unto them; and He did it not.” The message of God to Hezekiah was: “Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die and not live.” Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, and said: “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech Thee, how I have walked before Thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in Thy sight.” And Hezekiah wept sore. God said to Isaiah, “Go, say to Hezekiah, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.” These men knew how to pray and how to prevail in prayer. Their faith in prayer was no passing attitude that changed with the wind or with their own feelings and circumstances; it was a fact that God heard and answered, that His ear was ever open to the cry of His children, and that the power to do what was asked of Him was commensurate with His willingness. And thus these men, strong in faith and in prayer, “subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” Everything then, as now, was possible to the men and women who knew how to pray. Prayer, indeed, opened a limitless storehouse, and God’s hand withheld nothing. Prayer introduced those who practised it into a world of privilege, and brought the strength and wealth of heaven down to the aid of finite man. What rich and wonderful power was theirs who had learned the secret of victorious approach to God! With Moses it saved a nation; with Ezra it saved a church. And yet, strange as it seems when we contemplate the wonders of which God’s people had been witness, there came a slackness in prayer. The mighty hold upon God, that had so often struck awe and terror into the hearts of their enemies, lost its grip. The people, backslidden and apostate, had gone off from their praying—if the bulk of them had ever truly prayed. The Pharisee’s cold and lifeless praying was substituted for any genuine approach to God, and because of that formal method of praying the whole worship became a parody of its real purpose. A glorious dispensation, and gloriously executed, was it by Moses, by Ezra, by Daniel and Elijah, by Hannah and Samuel; but the circle seems limited and shortlived; the praying ones were few and far between. They had no survivors, none to imitate their devotion to God, none to preserve the roll of the elect. In vain had the decree established the Divine order, the Divine call. Ask of Me. From the earnest and fruitful crying to God they turned their faces to pagan gods, and cried in vain for the answers that could never come. And so they sank into that godless and pitiful state that has lost its object in life when the link with the Eternal has been broken. Their favoured dispensation of prayer was forgotten; they knew not how to pray. What a contrast to the achievements that brighten up other pages of holy writ. The power working through Elijah and Elisha in answer to prayer reached down even to the very grave. In each case a child was raised from the dead, and the powers of famine were broken. “The supplications of a righteous man avail much.” Elijah was a man of like passions with us. He prayed fervently that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Jonah prayed while imprisoned in the great fish, and he came to dry land, saved from storm and sea and monsters of the deep by the mighty energy of his praying. How wide the gracious provision of the grace of praying as administered in that marvellous dispensation. They prayed wondrously. Why could not their praying save the dispensation from decay and death? Was it not because they lost the fire without which all praying degenerates into a lifeless form? It takes effort and toil and care to prepare the incense. Prayer is no laggard’s work. When all the rich, spiced graces from the body of prayer have by labour and beating been blended and refined and intermixed, the fire is needed to unloose the incense and make its fragrance rise to the throne of God. The fire that consumes creates the spirit and life of the incense. Without fire prayer has no spirit; it is, like dead spices, for corruption and worms. The casual, intermittent prayer is never bathed in this Divine fire. For the man who thus prays is lacking in the earnestness that lays hold of God, determined not to let Him go until the blessing comes. “Pray without ceasing,” counselled the great Apostle. That is the habit that drives prayer right into the mortar that holds the building stones together. “You can do more than pray after you have prayed,” said the godly Dr. A. J. Gordon, “but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” The story of every great Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer. “The greatest and the best talent that God gives to any man or woman in this world is the talent of prayer,” writes Principal Alexander Whyte. “And the best usury that any man or woman brings back to God when He comes to reckon with them at the end of this world is a life of prayer. And those servants best put their Lord’s money “to the exchangers” who rise early and sit late, as long as they are in this world, ever finding out and ever following after better and better methods of prayer, and ever forming more secret, more steadfast, and more spiritually fruitful habits of prayer, till they literally “pray without ceasing,” and till they continually strike out into new enterprises in prayer, and new achievements, and new enrichments.” Martin Luther, when once asked what his plans, for the following day were, answered: “Work, work, from early until late. In fact, I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” Cromwell, too, believed in being much upon his knees. Looking on one occasion at the statues of famous men, he turned to a friend and said: “Make mine kneeling, for thus I came to glory.” It is only when the whole heart is gripped with the passion of prayer that the life-giving fire descends, for none but the earnest man gets access to the ear of God. « Last Edit: Sept 6, 2012, 11:05pm by Cj Avery » Report to Mod - Link to Post - Back to Top   208.189.32.28

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Prayer :: Prayer Bible Studies :: Andrew Murray :: "With Christ in the School of Prayer" Preface

 

"Last Generation Forums" :: Prayer :: Prayer Bible Studies :: Andrew Murray :: "With Christ in the School of Prayer" Preface Author Topic: "With Christ in the School of Prayer" Preface (Read 1 time) Michael James Stone Administrator Site-Administrator member is online Joined: May 2012 Gender: Male Posts: 1,985 "With Christ in the School of Prayer" Preface « Thread Started Today at 5:16am » With Christ in the School of Prayer PREFACE. ——0—— v Of all the promises connected with the command, ‘ABIDE IN ME,’ there is none higher, and none that sooner brings the confession, ‘Not that I have already attained, or am already made perfect,’ than this: ‘If ye abide in me, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’ Power with God is the highest attainment of the life of full abiding. And of all the traits of a life LIKE CHRIST there is none higher and more glorious than conformity to Him in the work that now engages Him without ceasing in the Father’s presence—His all-prevailing intercession. The more we abide in Him, and grow unto His likeness, will His priestly life work in us mightily, and our life become what His is, a life that ever pleads and prevails for men. ‘Thou hast made us kings and priests unto God.’ Both in the king and the priest the chief thing is power, influence, blessing. In the king it is vi the power coming downward; in the priest, the power rising upward, prevailing with God. In our blessed Priest-King, Jesus Christ, the kingly power is founded on the priestly ‘He is able to save to the uttermost, because He ever liveth to make intercession.’ In us, His priests and kings, it is no otherwise: it is in intercession that the Church is to find and wield its highest power, that each member of the Church is to prove his descent from Israel, who as a prince had power with God and with men, and prevailed. It is under a deep impression that the place and power of prayer in the Christian life is too little understood, that this book has been written. I feel sure that as long as we look on prayer chiefly as the means of maintaining our own Christian life, we shall not know fully what it is meant to be. But when we learn to regard it as the highest part of the work entrusted to us, the root and strength of all other work, we shall see that there is nothing that we so need to study and practise as the art of praying aright. If I have at all succeeded in pointing out the progressive teaching of our Lord in regard to prayer, and the distinct reference the wonderful promises of the last night (John xiv. 16) have to the works we are to do in His Name, to the greater works, and to the bearing much fruit, we shall all admit that it is only when the Church gives herself up to this holy work of intercession that we can expect the power of Christ to manifest itself in her behalf. It is my prayer that God may use this little book to make clearer to some of His children the wonderful place of power and influence which He is waiting for them to occupy, and for which a weary world is waiting too. In connection with this there is another truth that has come to me with wonderful clearness as I studied the teaching of Jesus on prayer. It is this: that the Father waits to hear every prayer of faith, to give us whatsoever we will, and whatsoever we ask in Jesus’ name. We have become so accustomed to limit the wonderful love and the large promises of our God, that we cannot read the simplest and clearest statements of our Lord without the qualifying clauses by which we guard and expound them. If there is one thing I think the Church needs to learn, it is that God means prayer to have an answer, and that it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what God will do for His child who gives himself to believe that his prayer will be viii heard. God hears prayer; this is a truth universally admitted, but of which very few understand the meaning, or experience the power. If what I have written stir my reader to go to the Master’s words, and take His wondrous promises simply and literally as they stand, my object has been attained. And then just one thing more. Thousands have in these last years found an unspeakable blessing in learning how completely Christ is our life, and how He undertakes to be and to do all in us that we need. know not if we have yet learned to apply this truth to our prayer-life. Many complain that they have not the power to pray in faith, to pray the effectual prayer that availeth much. The message I would fain bring them is that the blessed Jesus is waiting, is longing, to teach them this. Christ is our life: in heaven He ever liveth to pray; His life in us is an ever-praying life, if we will but trust Him for it. Christ teaches us to pray not only by example, by instruction, by command, by promises, but by showing us HIMSELF, the ever-living Intercessor, as our Life. It is when we believe this, and go and abide in Him for our prayer-life too, that our fears of not being able to pray aright will vanish, and we shall joyfully ix and triumphantly trust our Lord to teach us to pray, to be Himself the life and the power of our prayer. May God open our eyes to see what the holy ministry of intercession is to which, as His royal priesthood, we have been set apart. May He give us a large and strong heart to believe what mighty influence our prayers can exert. And may all fear as to our being able to fulfil our vocation vanish as we see Jesus, living ever to pray, living in us to pray, and standing surety for our prayer-life. ANDREW MURRAY WELLINGTON, 28th October 1895   Report to Mod - Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged

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