Andrew Murray Prayer Quotes

Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.

Answered prayer is the interchange of love between the Father and His child.

Each time, before you intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!

God cannot hear the prayers on our lips often because the desires of our heart after the world cry out to Him much more strongly and loudly than the our desires for Him.

The sooner I learn to forget myself in the desire that He may be glorified, the richer will be the blessing that prayer will bring to myself. No one ever loses by what he sacrifices to the Father.

The great thing in prayer is to feel that we are putting our supplications into the bosom of omnipotent love.

Our forgiving love toward men is the evidence of God's forgiving love in us. It is a necessary condition of the prayer of faith.

We must begin to believe that God, in the mystery of prayer, has entrusted us with a force that can move the Heavenly world, and can bring its power down to earth.

Prayer [is] the quiet, persistent living of our life of desire and faith in the presence of our God.

The only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary conduct; the insignficances of daily life are the importances and the tests of eternity, because they prove what really is the spirit that possesses us.

The Lord gave the wonderful promise of the free use of His Name with the Father in conjunction with doing His works. The disciple who lives only for Jesus' work and Kingdom, for His will and honor, will be given the power to appropriate the promise. Anyone grasping the promise only when he wants something very special for himself will be disappointed, because he is making Jesus the servant of his own comfort. But whoever wants to pray the effective prayer of faith because he needs it for the work of the Master will learn it, because he has made himself the servant of his Lord's interests.

Unless we are willing to pay the price, to sacrifice time and attention and seemingly legitimate or necessary tasks for the sake of the spiritual gifts, we need not look for much power from above in our work.

Prayer not only teaches and strengthens one for work, work teaches and strengthens one for prayer.

meekness and lowliness of heart are to be the distinguishing feature of the disciple, just as they were of the Master. And further, that this humility is not something that will come of itself, but that it must be made the object of special desire, prayer, faith, and practice.

It is not the law, and not the book, not the knowledge of what is right, that works obedience, but the personal influence of God and His living fellowship. And even so it is not the knowledge of what God has promised, but the presence of God Himself as the Promiser, that awakens faith and trust in prayer.

The reality is that a heart desire for prayer is lacking. Many do not know how to spend half an hour with God! It is not that they absolutely do not pray; they may pray every day—but they have no joy in prayer. Joy is the sign that God is everything to you.

Ask and you shall receive; everyone that asks receives.  This is the fixed eternal law of the kingdom:  If you ask and receive not, it must be because there is something amiss or wanting in the prayer. Hold on; let the Word and Spirit teach you to prat aright, but do not let go the confidence he seeks to waken:  Everyone who asks receives....Let every learner in the school of Christ therefore take the Master's word in all simplicity....Let us beware of weakening the word with our human wisdom.

Precious lessons that Jesus has to teach us this day. We seek God's gifts: God wants to give us HIMSELF first. We think of prayer as the power to draw down good gifts from heaven; Jesus as the means to draw ourselves up to God.

The entrance His words find with me, will be the measure of the power of any words with Him.

If it is God who has been withholding His presence, exposing the sin, calling for its destruction and a return to obedience, surely we can count upon His grace to strengthen us for the life He asks of us. It is not a question of what you can do. It is a question of whether you will with your whole heart give God what is due Him and allow His will to be done in your life.

Many confess to a lack of a deep spiritual life, and many prayers for its deepening are made. Yet there is often ignorance as to what is needed to bring a foundering Christian to a strong and joyous life in Christ. Nothing can meet our need better than the adoring worship of the Holy Trinity.

Lord! teach me to tarry with Thee in the school, and give Thee time to train me. May a deep sense of my ignorance, of the wonderful privilege and power of prayer, of the need of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of prayer, lead me to cast away my thoughts of what I think I know, and make me kneel before Thee in true teachableness and poverty of spirit.

What is the reason that many thousands of Christian workers in the world have not a greater influence? Nothing save this—the prayerlessness of their service. In the midst of all their zeal in the study and in the work of the Church, of all their faithfulness in preaching and conversation with the people, they lack that ceaseless prayer which has attached to it the sure promise of the Spirit and the power from on high. It is nothing but the sin of prayerlessness which is the cause of the lack of a powerful spiritual life!

O, let the place of secret prayer become to me the most beloved spot on earth. — Andrew Murray

Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying yourself that you know what He can do.

How often we say prayers, but how little we really pray! May God make us worthy of doing the work for each other.

Patient, persevering, believing prayer that is offered up to God in the name of the Lord Jesus has always brought the blessing sooner or later.

A life marked by daily answer to prayer is evidence of spiritual maturity.

If I bear the name of another, I have given up my own name and my own independent life.

The power to believe a promise depends entirely on our faith in the one who promises.

It has always been my aim, and it is my prayer, to have no plans with regard to myself, well assured as I am, that the place where the Saviour sees meet to place me must ever be the best place for me.

Prayer is indeed the very pulse of the spiritual life. It is the great means of bringing to a pastor and the people the blessing and power of heaven. Persevering and believing prayer means a strong and abundant spiritual life.

Let us realize that we can only fulfill our calling to bear much fruit by praying much. In Christ are hidden all the treasures that the people around us need. In Him, all God's children are blessed with all spiritual blessings. He is full of grace and truth. But, prayer, much prayer, strong believing prayer, is needed to bring about these blessings. And let us equally remember that we cannot appropriate the promise without first living a life given up for men. Many try to take the promise and then look around for what they can ask. This is not the way, but the very opposite. Get the heart burdened with the need of souls, and the command and power to save them will come to claim the promise.

We are in such a habit of evaluating God and His work in us by what we feel that it is very likely that on some occasions we will be discouraged because we do not feel any special blessing. Above everything, when you wait on God, you must do so in the spirit of hope.

Nothing searches and cleanses the heart like true prayer. It teaches one to ask such questions as these: Do I really desire what I pray for? Am I willing to cast out everything to make room for what God is prepared to give me? Is the prayer of my lips really the prayer of my life?

We find the Christian life difficult because we seek for God’s blessing while we live according to our own will. We make our own plans and choose our own work, and then we ask the Lord Jesus to watch and see that sin does not overtake us and that we do not wander too far from the path. But our relationship to Jesus ought to be such that we are entirely at His disposal. Every day we should go to Him first, humbly and straightforwardly, and say, “Lord, is there anything in me that is not according to your will, that has not been ordered by you, or that is not entirely given over to you? What would you have me do today?

Nothing so reveals a defective spiritual life in a minister or a congregation as the lack of believing and unceasing prayer. Prayer is the pulse of the spiritual life. It is the great means by which ministers and laypeople alike receive the blessing and power of heaven. Persevering and believing prayer precludes a strong and abundant life.

Some are crying to God for a great revival. I can say that that is the prayer of my heart unceasingly. Oh, if God would only revive His believing people! … It is not for nothing that there are in thousands of hearts yearnings after holiness and consecration: it is a forerunner of God’s power. God works to will and then He works to do. These yearnings are a witness and a proof that God has worked to will. Oh, let us in faith believe that the omnipotent God will work to do among His people more than we can ask. “Unto him,” Paul said, “who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. . . . unto him be glory.” Let our hearts say that. Glory to God, the omnipotent One, who can do above what we dare to ask or think!

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 and triumphantly trust our Lord to teach us to pray, to be Himself the life and the power of our prayer.

Thy kingdom come.' The Father is a King and has a kingdom. The son and heir of a king has no higher ambition than the glory of his father's kingdom. In time of war or danger this becomes his passion; he can think of nothing else. The children of the Father are here in the enemy's territory, where the kingdom, which is in heaven, is not yet fully manifested. What more natural than that, when they learn to hallow the Father-name, they should long and cry with deep enthusiasm: `Thy kingdom come.

But the chief truth He reiterated was ever this: to pray in faith. And He defined that faith, not only as a trust in God’s goodness or power, but as the definite assurance that we have received the very thing we ask. And then, in view of the delay in the answer, He insisted on perseverance and urgency. We must be followers of those “who through faith and patience inherit the promises”—the faith that accepts the promise, and knows it has what it has asked—the patience that obtains the promise and inherits the blessing.

Because of hasty and superficial communion with God, the sense of sin becomes weak and there is no motive strong enough to help you to hate sin and flee from it. Nothing except secret, humble, constant fellowship with God can teach you as His child to hate sin as God hates it. Nothing but the close fellowship and unceasing power of the living Christ can make it possible for you to understand what sin is and to detest it. Without this deeper understanding of sin, we cannot truly appropriate the victory that Christ made possible for us.

Andrew Murray, a nineteenth-century South African writer, said that “the power of prayer depends almost entirely upon our apprehension of who it is with whom we speak.”1 When we are scared and hurting, when life feels chaotic and out of control, it is more important than ever to anchor ourselves in the absolute and eternal truth that we are dearly loved and deeply held by the most powerful being in the universe. Let this be the great non-negotiable in our lives, the platform for all our other thoughts, and the plumbline for our prayers.

Andrew Murray wrote, “Christ’s life and work, His suffering and death, were founded on prayer—total dependence upon God the Father, trust in God, receiving from God, and surrendering to God. Your redemption is brought into being by prayer and intercession. The life He lived for you and the life He lives in you is a life that delights to wait on God and receive from Him. To pray in His name is to pray as He prayed. Christ is our example because He is our Head, our Savior, and our Life. In virtue of His deity and of His Spirit, He can live in us. We can pray in His name because we abide in Him and He abides in us.”1

What we have to learn, and do learn gradually, is the practice of obedience to new and ever-increasing commands. But as to the principle, Christ wants us from the very entrance into His life to vow complete obedience. This is the reason why there are so many unanswered prayers with regard to God making His will known. Jesus said, “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own” (John 7:17). If a man’s will is truly set on doing God’s will—if his heart is surrendered to do it and as a result he does it as far as he knows it—then he will know what God has further to teach him.

Christ teaches us to pray not only by example, instruction, command, and promises but also by showing us that He is our ever-living intercessor. When we believe this and abide in Him for our prayer life too, our fears of not being able to pray correctly will vanish. We will joyfully and triumphantly trust our Lord to teach us to pray and to be the life and power of our prayers. May God open our eyes to see what the glorious ministry of intercession is to which we as His royal priesthood have been set apart. May He help us to believe what mighty influence our prayers can have, and may all fear of being unable to fulfill our calling vanish as we grasp the truth that Jesus is living in us and interceding for us. —Andrew Murray

Our private and public prayer are our chief expression of our relation to God: it is in them chiefly that our waiting upon God must be exercised. If our waiting begin by quieting the activities of nature, and being still before God; if it bows and seeks to see God in His universal and almighty operation, alone able and always ready to work all good; if it yields itself to Him in the assurance that He is working and will work in us; if it maintains the place of humility and stillness, and surrenders until God’s Spirit has quickened the faith that He will perfect His work: it will indeed become the strength and the joy of the soul. Life will become one deep blessed cry: "I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord." "My soul, wait thou only upon God

I will here give you an infallible guide. You can perform this experiment to verify the truth. It is this: retire from the world and all conversation, only for one month; neither write, nor read, nor debate anything with yourself. Stop all the former workings of your heart and mind, and with all the strength of your heart, stand all this month, as continually as you can, in the following form of prayer to God. Offer it frequently on your knees; but whether sitting, walking, or standing, be always inwardly longing and earnestly praying this one prayer to God: That of His great goodness He would make known to you, and take from your heart, every kind and form and degree of pride, whether it be from evil spirits, or your own corrupt nature; and that He would awaken in you the deepest depth and truth of that humility, which can make you capable of His light and Holy Spirit. Reject every thought, but that of waiting and praying in this matter from the bottom of your heart, with such truth and earnestness, as people in torment wish to pray and be delivered from it. If you can, and will give yourself up in truth and sincerity to this spirit of prayer, I will venture to declare that, if you had twice as many evil spirits in you as Mary Magdalene had, they will all be cast out of you, and you will be forced with her to weep tears of love at the feet of the holy Jesus. Ibid., p. 124.

[Twofold sanctification reached by twofold faith] [By faith . . . Heb. 11:1] Faith is the evidence of things not seen, though now actually existing [upon salvation], the substance of things hoped for, but not yet present. [progressive] It deals with the unseen present, as well as with the unseen future. [. . .] Faith is the eye of the soul: the power by which we discern the presence of the Unseen One, as He comes to give Himself to us. [. . .] And we shall understand how simple, to do the single-hearted, is the secret of holiness: just Jesus. Let us remember that it is not only the faith that is dealing specially with Christ for sanctification, but all living faith, that has the power to sanctify. Anything that casts the soul wholly on Jesus, that calls forth intense and simple trust, be it the trial of faith, or the prayer of faith, or the work of faith, helps to make us holy, because it brings us into living contact with the Holy One. [. . .] [F]aith is the impression God makes on the soul when He draws nigh. [. . .] As long as the believer is living the mixed life, part in the flesh and part in the spirit, with some of self and some of Christ, he seeks in vain for holiness. It is the New Life that is the holy life: the full apprehension of it in faith, the full surrender to it in conduct, will be the highway of holiness. [. . .] It is out of the grave of the flesh and the will of self that the Spirit of holiness breaks out in resurrection power. [. . .] The life of Christ is the holiness of Christ. The reason we so often fail in the pursuit of holiness is that the old life, the flesh, in its own strength seeks for holiness as a beautiful garment to wear and enter heaven with. It is the daily death to self out of which the life of Christ rises up.

If there is one thought with regard to the Church of Christ, which at times comes to me with overwhelming sorrow; if there is one thought in regard to my own life of which I am ashamed; if there is one thought of which I feel that the Church of Christ has not accepted it and not grasped it; if there is one thought which makes me pray to God: “Oh, teach us by Thy grace, new things”—it is the wonderful power that prayer is meant to have in the kingdom. [. . .] And that is the law of the kingdom—the King upon the throne, the servants upon the footstool.

its beginnings prayer is so simple that the feeble child can pray, yet it is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise. It is fellowship with the Unseen and Most Holy One. The powers of the eternal world have been placed at its disposal. It is the very essence of true religion, the channel of all blessings, the secret of power and life. Not only for ourselves, but for others, for the Church, for the world, it is to prayer that God has given the right to take hold of Him and His strength.

Let but the deep undertone of all our prayer be the teachableness that comes from a sense of ignorance, and from faith in Him as a perfect teacher, and we may be sure we shall be taught, we shall learn to pray in power.

If there is one thought with regard to the church of Christ, which at times comes to me with overwhelming sorrow; if there is one thought in regard to my own life, of which I am ashamed; if there is one thought, which I feel that the church of Christ has not accepted or grasped; if there is one thought, which makes me pray to God, “Oh, God, teach us, by Your grace, new things” – it is the wonderful power that prayer is meant to have in the kingdom. We have so little availed ourselves of it. We have all read the expression of Christian in Bunyan’s great work, Pilgrim’s Progress, when he realized that he had the key that would unlock the dungeon. (Bunyan’s book used to be read by nearly all Christians and should still be read by Christians today.) We have the key that can unlock the spiritual dungeons of London and New York and Chicago and Washington, D.C. and of all heathendom. But, we are far more occupied with our work than we are with prayer. We believe more in speaking to men than we believe in speaking to God. Doesn’t this convict us when we are too busy to pray or rush through prayer in order to get on with our work or are so caught up with work that we never sit at the feet of Jesus?

The measure of believing and continued prayer will be the measure of the Spirit’s working in the church. Direct, definite, and determined prayer is what we need.

The attempt to pray constantly for ourselves must be a failure; it is in intercession for others that our faith and love and perseverance will be aroused, and that power of the Spirit be found which can fit us for saving men.

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching in this with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth with confidence, to make known the mystery of the gospel . . . as I ought to speak (Ephesians 6:18-20).

We cannot possibly be satisfied with anything less than to walk with God – each day, each hour, and each moment, in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The only humility that is really ours is not the humility we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us and actively live in our ordinary conduct.

I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night; ye that make mention of the LORD, do not keep silent and give him no rest, until he establishes, and until he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. – Isaiah 62:6-7

The effective prayer of faith comes from a life given up to the will and the love of God. Not as a result of what I try to be when praying, but because of what I am when I’m not praying, is my prayer answered by God. All

His morning hours were set apart for the nourishment of his own soul; not, however, with the view of laying up a stock of grace for the rest of the day--for manna will corrupt if laid by--but rather with the view of "giving the eye the habit of looking upward all the day, and drawing down gleams from the reconciled countenance." He was sparing in the hours devoted to sleep, and resolutely secured time for devotion before breakfast, although often wearied and exhausted when he laid himself to rest. "A soldier of the cross," was his remark, "must endure hardness." Often he sang a psalm of praise, as soon as he arose, to stir up his soul. Three chapters of the Word was his usual morning portion. This he thought little enough, for he delighted exceedingly in the Scriptures: they were better to him than thousands of gold or silver. "When you write," he said to a friend, "tell me the meaning of Scriptures." To another, in expressing his value for the Word, he said, "One gem from that ocean is worth all the pebbles of earthly streams." His chief season of relaxation seemed to be breakfast time. He would come down with a happy countenance and a full soul; and after the sweet season of family prayer, immediately begin forming plans for the day. When he was well, nothing seemed to afford him such true delight as to have his hands full of work. Indeed, it was often remarked that in him you found--what you rarely meet with--a man of high poetic imagination and deep devotion, who nevertheless was engaged unceasingly in the busiest and most laborious activities of his office. His

Jeremy Taylor recommends: "If though meanest to enlarge they religion, do it rather by enlarging thine ordinary devotions than thy extraordinary." This advice describes very accurately the plan of spiritual life on which Mr. McCheyne acted. He did occasionally set apart seasons for special prayer and fasting, occupying the time so set apart exclusively in devotion. But the real secret of his soul's prosperity lay in the daily enlargement of his heart in fellowship with his God. And the river deepened as it flowed on to eternity; so that he at least reached the feature of a holy pastor which Paul pointed out to Timothy (4:15): "His profiting did appear to all.: In

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. EPHESIANS 3: 20 NKJV Beware in your prayer, above everything, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by trying to figure out what He will do. Expect unexpected things, above all that we ask or think. Each time you intercede, be quiet first and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, of how He delights to hear the Christian pray, of your place in Christ; and expect great things. ANDREW MURRAY Pray About It: A test of true relinquishment in prayer is to so abandon our own plans that when God answers, it exceeds our expectations. Expect Him to do above all that you can ask or think. Give God room to create a miracle. Thou art coming to a King, Large petitions with thee bring For His grace and power are such None can ever ask too much. JOHN NEWTON

Blessed Lord, You came from the Father to show us His love and all the treasures of blessing that love is waiting to bestow. Lord, You have again flung the gates so wide open and given us such promises as to our liberty in prayer that we blush that our poor hearts have taken so little in. It has been too much for us to believe. Lord, we now look to You to teach us to take and keep and use this precious word of Yours: Everything that ye ask for, praying, believe that ye receive it. Blessed Jesus, our faith must be rooted in You if it is to grow strong. Your work has freed us wholly from the power of sin and has opened the way to the Father. Your love is forever longing to bring us into the full fellowship of Your glory and power. Your Spirit is forever drawing us upward into a life of perfect faith and confidence. We are assured that in Your teaching we shall learn to pray the prayer of faith. You will train us to pray so that we believe that we receive and believe that we really have what we ask. Lord, teach me to know and trust and love You, so I may live and abide in You that all my prayers rise and come before God, and my soul may have the assurance that I am heard. Amen.

The first truth is that Christ actually meant prayer to be the great power by which His church should do its work, and that the neglect of prayer is the great reason the church has not greater power over the masses in Christian and in heathen countries.

the distraction of business,

it was as if everything conspired to keep him from prayer.

(The Ministry of Intercession, Andrew Murray)

restoration. No sooner had God begun in Abraham to form for Himself a people from whom kings, yea the Great King, should come forth, than we see what power the prayer of God’s faithful servant has to decide the destinies of those who come into contact with him. In Abraham we see how prayer is not only, or even chiefly, the means of obtaining blessing for ourselves, but is the exercise of his royal prerogative to influence the destinies of men, and the will of God which rules them. We do not once find

The more I realize that Christ must be everything to me and that all in Christ is for me, the more I learn to live the real life of faith—dying to self, and living wholly in Christ.

May God give us the great gift of an intercessory spirit, a spirit of prayer and supplication! Let me ask you in the name of Jesus not to let a day pass without praying for all saints, and for all God’s people.

has to do, not with human thoughts or possibilities, but with the word of the living God. And so, even as Abraham through so many years “who against hope believed in hope” (Romans 4:18), and then “followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” (Hebrews 6:12) To enable us, when the answer to our prayer does not come at once, to combine quiet patience and joyful confidence in our persevering prayer, we must especially try to understand the words in which our Lord sets forth the character and conduct, not of the unjust judge, but of our God and Father, toward those whom He allows to cry day and night to Him: “I tell you that He will avenge them

The power of prayer does not lie in the number or earnestness of the words you use, but in a living faith that God Himself accepts both you and your prayer into His loving heart.

We see thus that everything depends on our own relation to the Name: the power it has on my life is the power it will have in my prayers.

The sooner I learn to forget myself in the desire that He may be glorified, the richer will the blessing be that prayer will bring to myself.

The master judges by the result, but our Father judges by the effort. Failure does not always mean fault. He knows how much things cost, and weighs them where others only measure.

Prayer is not merely coming to God to ask something from him. It is above all fellowship with God and being brought under the power of his holiness and love, till he takes possession of us and stamps our entire nature with the lowliness of Christ, which is the secret of all true worship.

Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the invisible; fasting, the other, with which we let loose and cast away the visible.

Do make this your first prayer every day: “Lord, bless thy saints everywhere.

Shut the world out, withdraw from all worldly thoughts and occupations, and shut yourself in alone with God, to pray to Him in secret. Let this be your chief object in prayer: to realize the presence of your heavenly Father.1 —ANDREW MURRAY

Ah, yes, a good conscience is complete obedience to God day by day, and fellowship with God every day in His Word, and prayer—that is a life of absolute surrender.

Andrew Murray comments boldly, but I think rightly, on Christ’s pledge: “Ask and you shall receive; everyone that asks, receives.” This is the fixed eternal law of the kingdom: if you ask and receive not, it must be because there is something amiss or wanting in the prayer. Hold on; let the Word and Spirit teach you to pray aright, but do not let go the confidence He seeks to waken: Everyone who asks receives. . . . Let every learner in the school of Christ therefore take the Master’s word in all simplicity. . . . Let us beware of weakening the Word with our human wisdom.[18] Because God answers prayer, when we “ask and receive not” we must consider the possibility that there is “something amiss or wanting” in our prayer. Perhaps God has indeed answered, but not in an obvious way. And possibly our prayers show nothing amiss, but we don’t yet see the answer only because God intends for us to persevere in praying about the matter awhile longer. Still, we must learn to examine our prayers. Are we asking for things outside the will of God or that would not glorify Him? Are we praying with selfish motives? Are we failing to deal with the kind of blatant sin that causes God to put all our prayers on hold? Despite what we see in response to our prayers, however, let’s not become so accustomed to our shortcomings in prayer and to the perception of asking without receiving that our faith in the force of Jesus’ promise is diminished. Prayer is answered.

And what is the true child-life? The answer can be found in any home. The child that by preference forsakes the father’s house, that finds no pleasure in the presence and love and obedience of the father, and still thinks to ask and obtain what he will, will surely be disappointed. On the contrary, he to whom the intercourse and will and honor and love of the father are the joy of his life, will find that it is the father’s joy to grant his requests. Scripture says, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God:” the childlike privilege of asking all is inseparable from the childlike life under the leading of the Spirit. He that gives himself to be led by the Spirit in his life, will be led by Him in his prayers too. And he will find that Fatherlike giving is the Divine response to childlike living. To see what this childlike living

Paul felt deeply for the unity of the body of Christ. He was convinced that unity could only be reached by the exercise of love and prayer.

Unfaithful in prayer, weak in the working of the Spirit, its witness to Christ a mere formality, and unfaithful to its worldwide mission—such are the marks of a powerless church.

The relationship among the members of the church depends on united and unceasing prayer. This relationship is spiritual and can only be maintained by unceasing prayer.

We often do not yield ourselves to God in obedience to His commandment to love our fellow men with Christ’s love. What if that love should flow out to all around, even to those who hate us? This would require much grace and cost us time and trouble and serious prayer.

If once believers [p 138 ] were to awake to the glory of the work of intercession, and to see that in it, and the definite pleading for definite gifts on definite spheres and persons, lie our highest fellowship with our glorified Lord, and our only real power to bless men, it would be seen that there can be no truer fellowship with God than these definite petitions and their answers, by which we become the channel of His grace and life to men.

Though in its beginnings prayer is so simple that the feeble child can pray, yet it is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise. It

If conscience is to do its work and the contrite heart is to feel its proper remorse, it is necessary for each individual to confess his sin by name. The confession must be intensely personal. In a meeting of ministers, probably no single sin should be acknowledged with deeper shame than the sin of prayerlessness. Each one of us needs to confess that we are guilty of this.

By His Holy Spirit, He has access to our heart, and teaches us to pray by showing us the sin that hinders the prayer, or giving us the assurance that we please God. He teaches, by giving not only thoughts of what to ask or how to ask, but by breathing within us the very spirit of prayer, by living within us as the Great Intercessor. We may indeed and most joyfully say, 'Who teacheth like Him?' Jesus never taught His disciples how to preach, only how to pray. He did not speak much of what was needed to preach well, but much of praying well. To know how to speak to God is more than knowing how to speak to man. Not power with men, but power with God is the first thing. Jesus loves to teach us how to pray.

power of

Master reverses

The little

us beware

Or, to look

God's Word, as when Moses asked to enter Canaan. But

His voice:

Father,

As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth you.