With Christ in the School of Prayer (10 ) ... Prayer must be Definite

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 10, Prayer must be Definite:

“Our prayers must not be a vague appeal to His mercy, an indefinite cry for blessing, but the distinct expression of definite need.  Not that His loving heart does not understand our cry, or is not ready to hear.  But He desires it for our own sakes.  Such definite prayer teaches us to know our own needs better.  It demands time, and thought, and self-scrutiny to find out what really is our greatest need.  It searches us and puts us to the test as to whether our desires are honest and real, such as we are ready to persevere in.  It leads us to judge whether our desires are according to God’s Word, and whether we really believe that we shall receive the things we ask.  It helps us to wait for the special answer, and to mark it when it comes.

And yet how much of our prayer is vague and pointless.  Some ask, perhaps, to be delivered from sin, but do not begin by bringing any sin by name from which the deliverance may be claimed.  Still others pray for God’s blessing on those around them, and yet have no special field where they wait and expect to see the answer.  To all the Lord says:  And what is it now you really want and expect Me to do?

We should ask such questions as these:  What is now really my desire?  do I desire it in faith, expecting to receive?  am I now ready to place and leave it in the Father’s bosom?  is it a settled thing between God and me that I am to have the answer?  we should learn so to pray that God would see and we would know what we really expect.

But the word of the Master teaches us more.  He does not say, What dost thou wish? but, What does thou will?  The will rules the whole heart and life; if I really will to have anything that is within my reach, I do not rest till I have it. Alas! how many prayers are wishes, sent up for a short time and then forgotten, or sent up year after year as matter of duty, while we rest.  But the prayer of faith, finding God’s will in some promise of the Word, pleads for that till it come, content with the prayer without the answer. Faith is nothing but the purpose of the will resting on God’s word, and saying:  I must have it.  To believe truly is to will firmly.

True humility is ever in company with strong faith, which only seeks to know what is according to the will of God, and then boldly claims the fulfillment of the promise:  ‘Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’

More on Prayer must be Definite:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.X.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled life.