Sunday, October 14, 2012

With Christ in the School of Prayer (3) ... Alone with God


by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net

Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace

An all-time Christian Classic on prayer which is a foundational study on prayer that anyone interested in Prayer should read. So, I decided to summarize it chapter by chapter. With Christ in the School of Prayer is a classroom on the Power of Prayer in your Life.
With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray,
Chapter 3, Alone with God.


"It came as a matter of course that the revelation of prayer and the prayer-life was a part of His teaching concerning the New Kingdom He came to set up.  Moses gave neither command nor regulation with regard to prayer:  even the prophets say little directly of the duty of prayer; it is Christ who teaches to pray.

The first thing the Lord teaches His disciples is that they must have a secret place for prayer; every one must have some solitary spot where he can be alone with his God.

He wants each one to choose for himself the fixed spot where He can daily meet him.  That inner chamber, that solitary place, is Jesus’ schoolroom.  That spot may be anywhere; that spot may change from day to day if we have to change our abode; but that secret place there must be, with the quiet time in which the pupil places himself in the Master’s presence, to be by Him prepared to worship the Father.

First, ‘Pray to thy Father which is in secret.’  God is a God who hides Himself to the carnal eye. As long as in our worship of God we are chiefly occupied with our own thoughts and exercises, we shall not meet Him who is a Spirit, the unseen One.  But to the man who withdraws himself from all that is of the world and man, and prepares to wait upon God alone, the Father will reveal Himself.  As he forsakes and gives up and shuts out the world, and the life of the world, and surrenders himself to be led of Christ into the secret of God’s presence, the light of the Father’s love will rise upon him.  The secrecy of the inner chamber and the closed door, the entire separation from all around us, is an image of, and so a help to that inner spiritual sanctuary, the secret of God’s tabernacle, within the veil, where our spirit truly comes into contact with the Invisible One.

He tells you that when you go to private prayer your first thought must be:  The Father is in secret, the Father waits for me there. Do not be thinking of how little you have to bring God, but of how much He wants to give you.

And thy Father, which sees in secret, will reward you.’
Our Lord would thus teach us that as infinite Fatherliness and Faithfulness is that with which God meets us in secret, so on our part there should be the childlike simplicity of faith, the confidence that our prayer does bring down a blessing.  ‘He that comes to God must believe that He is a rewarder of them that seek Him.

Your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him.’  At first sight it might appear as if this thought made prayer less needful:  God knows far better than we do what we need. My Father knows I need it and must have it.  And if there be any delay in the answer, it will teach us in quiet perseverance to hold on:

We are in danger of being so occupied with our fervent, urgent petitions, as to forget that the Father knows and hears, let us hold still and just quietly say:  My Father sees, my Father hears, my Father knows; it will help our faith to take the answer, and to say:  We know that we have the petitions we have asked of Him.

Dwell much in the inner chamber, with the door shut—shut in from men, shut up with God; it is there the Father waits for you, it is there Jesus will teach you to pray.  To be alone in secret with THE FATHER:  this be your highest joy.  To be assured that THE FATHER will openly reward the secret prayer, so that it cannot remain unblessed:  this be your strength day by day.  And to know that THE FATHER knows that you need what you ask;  this be your liberty to bring every need, in the assurance that your God will supply it according to His riches in Glory in Christ Jesus.

More on Alone with God at
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.III.html
The Christian Classic Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled life.

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