PRAYING
UNTO GOD
We have seen something of the tremendous
importance and the resistless power of prayer, and now we come
directly to the question- -how to pray with power.
- 1. In the 12th chapter of the Acts of the
Apostles we have the record of a prayer that prevailed with God,
and brought to pass great results. In the 5th verse of this
chapter, the manner and method of this prayer is described in
few words:
- "Prayer was made without ceasing of the church
UNTO GOD for him."
The first thing to notice in this verse is the brief expression
"unto God." The prayer that has power is the prayer that is
offered unto God.
But some will say, "Is not all prayer unto God?"
No. Very much of so-called prayer, both public and private, is not
unto God. In order that a prayer should be really unto God,
there must be a definite and conscious approach to God when we
pray; we must have a definite and vivid realization that God is
bending over us and listening as we pray. In very much of our
prayer there is really but little thought of God. Our mind is
taken up with the thought of what we need, and is not occupied
with the thought of the mighty and loving Father of whom we are
seeking it. Oftentimes it is the case that we are occupied
neither with the need nor with the One to whom we are praying,
but our mind is wandering here and there throughout the world.
There is no power in that sort of prayer. But when we really
come into God's presence, really meet Him face to face in the
place of prayer, really seek the things that we desire FROM HIM,
then there is power.
> If, then, we would pray aright, the first thing that we should
do is to see to it that we really get an audience with God, that
we really get into His very presence. Before a word of petition
is offered, we should have the definite and vivid consciousness
that we are talking to God, and should believe that He is
listening to our petition and is going to grant the thing that
we ask of Him. This is only possible by the Holy Spirit's power,
so we should look to the Holy Spirit to really lead us into the
presence of God, and should not be hasty in words until He has
actually brought us there.
> One night a very active Christian man dropped into a little
prayer-meeting that I was leading. Before we knelt to pray, I
said something like the above, telling all the friends to be
sure before they prayed, and while they were praying, that they
really were in God's presence, that they had the thought of Him
definitely in mind, and to be more taken up with Him than with
their petition. A few days after I met this same gentleman, and
he said that this simple thought was entirely new to him, that
it had made prayer an entirely new experience to him.
> If then we would pray aright, these two little words must sink
deep into our hearts, "UNTO GOD."
- 2. The second secret of effective praying is
found in the same verse, in the words "WITHOUT CEASING."
- In the Revised Version, "without ceasing" is
rendered "earnestly." Neither rendering gives the full force of
the Greek. The word means literally "stretched-out-ed-ly." It is
a pictorial word, and wonderfully expressive. It represents the
soul on a stretch of earnest and intense desire. "Intensely"
would perhaps come as near translating it as any English word.
It is the word used of our Lord in Luke 22:44 where it is said,
"He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great
drops of blood falling down to the ground."
We read in Heb. 5:7 that "in the days of His flesh" Christ
"offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and
tears." In Rom. 15:30, Paul beseeches the saints in Rome to
STRIVE together with him in their prayers. The word translated
"strive" means primarily to contend as in athletic games or in a
fight. In other words, the prayer that prevails with God is the
prayer into which we put our whole soul, stretching out toward
God in intense and agonizing desire. Much of our modern prayer
has no power in it because there is no heart in it. We rush into
God's presence, run through a string of petitions, jump up and
go out. If someone should ask us an hour afterward for what we
prayed, oftentimes we could not tell. If we put so little heart
into our prayers, we cannot expect God to put much heart into
answering them.
We hear much in our day of the rest of faith, but there is such a
thing as the fight of faith in prayer as well as in effort.
Those who would have us think that they have attained to some
sublime height of faith and trust because they never know any
agony of conflict or of prayer, have surely gotten beyond their
Lord, and beyond the mightiest victors for God, both in effort
and prayer, that the ages of Christian history have known. When
we learn to come to God with an intensity of desire that wrings
the soul, then shall we know a power in prayer that most of us
do not know now.
But how shall we attain to this earnestness in prayer?
Not by trying to work ourselves up into it. The true method is
explained in Rom. 8:26, "And in like manner the Spirit also
helpeth our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought;
but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings
which cannot be uttered." (R.V.) The earnestness that we work up
in the energy of the flesh is a repulsive thing. The earnestness
wrought in us by the power of the Holy Spirit is pleasing to
God. Here again, if we would pray aright, we must look to the
Spirit of God to teach us to pray.
It is in this connection that fasting comes. In Dan. 9:3 we read
that Daniel set his face "unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer
and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes."
There are those who think that fasting belongs to the old
dispensation; but when we look at Acts 14:23, and Acts 13:2,3,
we find that it was practised by the earnest men of the
apostolic day.
If we would pray with power, we should pray with fasting. This of
course does not mean that we should fast every time we pray; but
there are times of emergency or special crisis in work or in our
individual lives, when men of downright earnestness will
withdraw themselves even from the gratification of natural
appetites that would be perfectly proper under other
circumstances, that they may give themselves up wholly to
prayer. There is a peculiar power in such prayer. Every great
crisis in life and work should be met in that way. There is
nothing pleasing to God in our giving up in a purely Pharisaic
and legal way things which are pleasant, but there is power in
that downright earnestness and determination to obtain in prayer
the things of which we sorely feel our need, that leads us to
put away everything, even the things in themselves most right
and necessary, that we may set our faces to find God, and obtain
blessings from Him.
- 3. A third secret of right praying is also
found in this same verse, Acts 12:5. It appears in the three
words "OF THE CHURCH."
- There is power in UNITED PRAYER. Of course
there is power in the prayer of an individual, but there is
vastly increased power in united prayer. God delights in the
unity of His people, and seeks to emphasize it in every way, and
so He pronounces a special blessing upon united prayer. We read
in Matt. 18:19, "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching
anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My
Father which is in heaven." This unity, however, must be real.
The passage just quoted does not say that if two shall agree in
asking, but if two shall agree AS TOUCHING anything they shall
ask. Two persons might agree to ask for the same thing, and yet
there be no real agreement as touching the thing they asked. One
might ask it because he really desired it, the other might ask
it simply to please his friend. But where there is real
agreement, where the Spirit of God brings two believers into
perfect harmony as concerning that which they may ask of God,
where the Spirit lays the same burden on two hearts; in all such
prayer there is absolutely irresistible power.
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